Welcome back to school! It's been so nice to see my music students again and to meet the new kindergartners! We're already off to a great start as we're learning/reviewing music class expectations, getting to know our new music houses and their leaders, and (of course) making music!
Class Dojo We will be using Class Dojo again this year to reward students for positive behaviors in class. Parents/guardians can sign up for accounts to see and help celebrate the points that their students earn. Once a parent account is created, students can sign up for a student account. They can track their points, customize their monster avatar, and even play a game called Dojo Islands. If you're interested in signing up for an account, you can follow the link to your child's class here. Music Houses Students in grades 2-5 are a part of our music houses. You can read more about how they work here. Each house is led by a real-life musician who will be mentoring and interacting with the students throughout the school year. This year's house leaders include three fantastic musicians: Jacob Berns (organist and liturgical musician), Mikey Maiorana (composer), and Shanti Simon (college and US Air Force band conductor). This week , we had our "sorting ceremony" in which each student spun a wheel to find out which house they will be in for this school year. House teams compete to earn the most Class Dojo points, but the house leaders are available to all students, no matter which houses they're in. The students were very excited to learn which houses they'll be in for the year and have already started sending some great questions to our house leaders!
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5th Grade: Spring Concert Fifth graders had their official introduction to the spring concert today. The concert for grades 3-5 will be on Thursday, May 12th at 6:30. We began with a brainstorm about the concert theme of kindness. They had some great ideas about how we can be kind to each other, our selves, animals, and the environment. The first song we focused on was the song they wrote and performed in first grade. I found the concert video of their first grade performance, and they seemed to really have a good time watching themselves and remembering so far back. Although the lyrics are not on the theme of kindness, the songwriting process that they engaged in in first grade, and now again in fifth grade, exemplifies kindness is many ways. They are placing their trust in each other as they share ideas, being respectful of differences in opinion, and using teamwork to collaborate on this creative project. They have some fantastic ideas about how to update their song for fifth grade that I can't wait for you to hear at the concert! 4th Grade: Spring Concert
Fourth graders worked on the ukulele song "Layers," which they will be performing on their spring concert. They will be performing on the grades 3-5 concert on Thursday, May 12th at 6:30 pm. However, in the concert, only 30 students in the grade will be able to play ukulele. To create a part for everyone, students have started writing lyrics that they will include in the song. Their brainstorm on the concert theme of kindness has been inspiration for this song. 3rd Grade: Ukuleles In this class, third graders focused on using their left hand fingers to play notes that use the frets on the ukulele. They played a short exercise that alternates between two notes that use frets. Being able to do this is a big step in learning the skills needed to play any note or chord on the instrument. The students continue to impress me with their attention to detail and hard work. 2nd Grade: Melody Second graders reviewed the concepts they've been learning about melodic direction (how the notes of a melody move by steps, skips, and repeating notes), and phrases (musical sentences). Then they were introduced to the pentatonic scale, which is a five note scale that consists of the pitches, do, re, mi, so, and la. This scale is very useful for improvising (making music up on the spot) because these pitches sound great together in pretty much any combination. Students used Orff xylophones set up with a G pentatonic scale to practice playing up and down the scale with a steady beat along with a backing track. Next time, they'll use these instruments to improvise their own melodies! 1st Grade: Notes and Rests First graders enjoyed starting this class with games! First, we played a game called "Tic Qac Toe." This game uses a tic-tac-toe-type board, but in each space, there is a four beat measure made up different combinations of ta (quarter note, one sound per beat), ti-ti (eight notes, two sounds per beat), and rest (one beat of silence). We practiced clapping and saying each rhythm first. The class split into two teams. The teams took turns listening to me play rhythms. If one of their team members could identify which rhythm I played, they could claim that spot on the board. It was a thrilling game in every class! Next, we played a Jeopardy-like review game called "Quiz Challenge" in the same teams. This prepared the students to do a Plicker quiz. They really demonstrated their understanding of rhythms and the difference between notes and rests! Kindergarten: Tempo Kindergartners have been learning so much about tempo, or the speed of music. In this lesson, they focused on tempo changes. We discussed and listed all kinds of things that change tempo/speed, including lots of animals and vehicles. Then we played a game in which students volunteered to act out something as it changed tempos. The rest of us had to try to guess what they were acting out. We reviewed the song we've been working on in this unit called "Quaver's Choo-Choo Train." We talked about how the lyrics of the song describe the train changing tempo, but the tempo of the music does not change. To make the music match the lyrics, we tried it with the beat speeding up and then slowing down. While singing the song with the changing tempo, the students made four trains by making lines and putting their hands on the shoulders of the person ahead of them. They had to make sure that their feet were moving with the beat of the song so their trains wouldn't break apart or collide! After a review game, the students took a Plicker quiz to show all that they've learned in this unit about tempo! 5th Grade: Ukuleles Fifth graders made great progress on transitioning between chords! This is such an important practical skill for anyone who wants to play chords to accompany a song. We're still working with the chords C, F, and G7. Today, we looked at a very special song that uses these three chords. Some of the students recognized it because they wrote it when they were in first grade! Songwriter Kyle Gray Young visited classes in fall of 2017 to do a songwriting workshop with classes. Each grade composed their own song (music and lyrics) that they performed on the spring concert that year. It's really fun to see how a song they wrote so long ago can be interesting and challenging in new ways now when they have much more advanced musical skills! 4th Grade: Ukuleles
Fourth graders continued their work on the song "Layers." They're getting better and better at each of the three parts, playing in groups, and layering the parts to create harmony. Most of the classes had time to start composing lyrics on our concert theme of kindness to sing with each ukulele part. I was very impressed by the many ways they thought of to show kindness and how quickly they were able to fit words on that topic into the rhythms of the music. 3rd Grade: Ukuleles Third graders have continued working on playing the four open strings on the ukulele, and are just starting to use their left hand fingers to play notes using the frets. This is a big step! The students are doing a great job of paying attention to their hand positions as they use the frets and developing good habits. 2nd Grade: Melody Second graders learned about phrases in this class. Phrases are like musical sentences. When phrases are put together, they can make a song, just like when sentences are put together, they can make a story. Students practiced identifying the phrases and how long they were in a couple of songs, then focused on the song "Great Big House in New Orleans." They learned how to sing the song by practicing it several times, replacing "pumpkin pie" in the lyrics with their own favorite kinds of pie. Then they collaboratively wrote a rhythm to clap during the instrumental B section of this AB form song. During the A section they did a movement activity that showed the phrases, then during the B section they froze and clapped the rhythm. We also added an accompaniment on Orff metallophone and students took turns playing it while the rest of the class sang, clapped, and moved! 1st Grade: Notes and Rests First graders have been learning about rests (silence) vs. sound (notes) in music. In this lesson, we began with an echo-clapping song. Students would listen to the rhythm in the song and echo it. This is challenging, especially when dealing with rhythms that include rests, but the students were great listeners! Then we looked at how those rhythms looked written out in notation. We tried it again and the students found that it was easier to clap the correct rhythms when both listening and looking at the notation. Of course, people can learn to play music by ear, but knowing how to read music too just adds another tool to make it a little easier! Then we switched gears to consider the pitch of notes (how high or low they sound), reinforcing the concept that notes contain these two pieces of information–rhythm and pitch. The first graders enjoyed singing a favorite old song, "Lunch Box Song," while looking at the rhythm and pitch of the notes. Kindergarten: Tempo
Kindergartners continued learning about tempo, which is the speed of the beat in music. In this lesson, we talked about how to pick the "right" tempo. Usually, when the speed feels comfortable, the music sounds the best. We explored this with the familiar song "Bingo." We tried a version that was very slow, another that was very fast, and then a comfortable medium tempo. We discussed how we get different feelings from the same song when the tempo is different. For example, students said that the slow version made them feel sleepy, relaxed, calm, or sad. The fast version made them feel happy, crazy, and excited. It's amazing how much just changing the speed of a song can change the feeling it gives us! 5th Grade: Ukuleles Fifth graders are making great progress playing chords! In this rotation, we really focused on playing the challenging G7 chord clearly. This chord uses three fingers, very closely placed. Students are building up endurance and dexterity in their fingers to do this and are getting better and better at hearing when a string isn't sounding clearly and figuring out how to fix it. I'm very impressed with their progress! 4th Grade: Ukuleles
Fourth graders are focusing on individual notes, rather than chords, on ukulele. They can now play all of the notes of the C major scale on three strings. We've been doing some exercises that use those notes on one string at a time. I'm really pleased with how well their doing at finding the finger positions and making the notes sound clearly! 3rd Grade: Ukulele This was an exciting rotation for 3rd grade! They started playing ukuleles! After learning about the different parts of the ukulele and basic ukulele care, they started playing. They began by learning the open strings, how they're numbered, and what pitches they play. The students caught on quickly and enjoyed playing a game called Cool Hand Uke. In the game, a volunteer from each of our house teams came to the front of the room. I called out the pitch of one of the strings and the first student to play it earned a point for their house! 2nd Grade: Melody Second graders dug into their unit on melody by learning about three ways that a melody can move from one note to the next. A step is when the melody moves from one pitch to the next higher or lower pitch, just a step away. A skip is when you skip over one pitch to get to the next (for example, moving from A to C). Repeating notes are just what they sound like, when you play or sing the same pitch again. To learn about these ways of moving, students looked at the music notation for songs that used mostly steps, skips, and repeated notes while listening and singing and moving to see how the direction of the sound matched the notation. Students also learned a little about Beethoven, the composer of the famous "Ode to Joy" melody. We used this melody as an example of a song that uses mostly steps. 1st Grade: Notes and Rests First graders began a new unit that focuses on one of the important symbols in music: the rest. A rest indicates silence in music, which can be just as important as sound! They learned about the symbol, then played a game similar to Freeze Dance. They danced to music, but whenever the music stopped, they had to freeze their bodies in the shape of a rest to show the silence in the music. They had a lot of fun with this! Then they learned the song "Sound and Rests." First we watched an animation while listening to and singing along with the song. This song is similar to "Bingo" in that we sing the letters of "silence," but in each verse, one of the letters goes silent. The students noticed how the letters turned into rests in the animation. Then we practiced singing it again, but making "rest arms" by crossing the forearms every time there was a rest in the song. Finally, each student got a card that showed one of the letters of "silence" on one side and a rest on the other. In groups, they stood in lines to spell out the word. As they sang, they had to know when to put their letter up in the air and when to flip their card over to the rest when their letter went silent in the song. It took a lot of focus and attention! Kindergarten: Dynamics
Kindergartners have continued to learn about dynamics, or how loud or soft music sounds. They've learned two dynamic markings: forte (loud) and piano (soft). This lesson began by choosing forte or piano dynamics for each line in the chant "Boom Chicka Boom." We performed the chant with a backing track and talked about how changing dynamics can make the music more interesting. Then, students moved to a song with changing dynamics, using actions that showed how loud or soft the music was. We then focused on a favorite song that the kindergartners learned earlier this school year, "Stinky Pirates." They enjoyed reviewing the song and actions, which they remembered very well! But to make this familiar song more interesting, we added dynamics. We looked at the form of the song, which has two sections, sung verses and spoken choruses. Students chose a dynamic level for each of those parts and sang it with those dynamics. Then we added two percussion patterns to the song, which they tried to play with the same loud and soft dynamics for the different sections of the song. Half of the class played rhythm sticks and the other half played bucket drums. Then we switched. Playing two different patterns at once is a challenge, but they were excited to give it a try! 5th Grade: Ukulele Fifth graders have moved on from playing individual notes to playing chords on ukulele. Chords are a collection of notes played together and are very commonly played on strummed instruments. They began by learning the technique of strumming all of the strings evenly using the thumb, then learned the fingerings for the C, F, and G7 chords. With these three chords, they will soon be able to accompany many songs! 4th Grade: Ukulele
Fourth graders are continuing their work on playing individual notes using the frets. We're working on learning the notes in the C major scale, which is played on three of the four strings. They're really starting to get the hang of using the frets and are developing good hand position and posture habits! 3rd and 2nd Grade: Lyra Review and Wilder House Reward Third and second graders had the opportunity to see the Lyra Baroque Orchestra when they visited our school on February 18th. The students talked and wrote about their impressions and what they learned from the concerts. I also collected their questions to send to the members of the orchestra who generously offered to answer the questions that students get time to ask at the end of their performances. Then we had the Wilder House reward! Wilder House was the champion of quarter 2. Their house leader, Nicole Wilder, chose a dance competition as the reward. She loves to dance, and as a musician, she often performs for wedding dances with her bands. Wilder House members were the judges of the competition and decided how the competition would work. In most classes, groups of students choreographed their dances to songs that Wilder House members chose from Nicole's list of the the dance songs that her bands get the most requests to perform. It was a lot of fun to see the students working together and coming up with some very creative ideas! 1st Grade: Rhythm In first grade, we began class by talking about Lyra Baroque Orchestra's visit on the 18th. Overall, it seemed that the students really enjoyed the presentation and learned a lot! Then we dove back into our unit on rhythm. In this class, we focused on the concept of ostinatos, short repeated rhythmic patterns. We practiced some simple ostinatos with the silly song "Mr. Austin Otto," then reviewed the more challenging clapping pattern that the students had performed with Lyra during their visit. That was an ostinato, too, but they didn't know what it was called at that time! We played a Jeopardy-like review game, then the students took a short quiz on all that they've learned about rhythm in this unit. 5th and 4th Grade: Wilder House Reward Day
We began this class talking about Michael Jackson, our musician of the month. We will be learning more about his life, music, dancing, and influence on the world as we continue through the month. After that, it was Wilder House Reward Day! Wilder House was the champion of quarter 2. Their house leader, Nicole Wilder, chose a dance competition as the reward. She loves to dance, and as a musician, she often performs for wedding dances with her bands. Wilder House members were the judges of the competition and decided how the competition would work. In most classes, groups of students choreographed their dances to songs that Wilder House members chose from Nicole's list of the the dance songs that her bands get the most requests to perform. It was a lot of fun to see the students working together and coming up with some very creative ideas! |
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