First week of school!

Welcome back!!! I had a blast with the kids this week! Check out this blog weekly to get updates about what your child is doing in music class. Also, if you enter your email address in the white bar at the top of the page, you will receive email notifications when the blog is updated.

This week in....

Kindergarten- I haven't actually met all 4 classes yet, but the 3 that I have seen have been tons of fun! The first few weeks of kindergarten can sometimes be a long journey, but I've been pleased to see that the kids are coming to music ready to learn. We have started off the year by practicing moving and freezing (to match with sound and silence) and moving to the steady beat in many different ways. We also learned how to sit in our audience position to show respect in class. We are off to a great start!

1st grade- we started by coming into the room totally silently and copying Ms. Buckley's movements. We stretched, swayed, stomped, and touch the floor to match her. We learned a fun name game that allowed us to meet everyone in our class. During this game, we had a chance to walk, jog, gallop, skip, leap, and hop around the room.

2nd grade- we started by reviewing the 4 ways to use our voices- whispering, speaking, singing, and shouting. We learned a fun name game called "Acka Backa" that allowed us to each perform our name in a unique way. We also added a special movement to go with our name performance, and then shared them with many partners as we traveled around the room.

3rd grade- to start the year, we played a challenging name game called "Zackody Kody" where students have to say both their own name and the name of the person to their left very quickly. We then talked about machines and the different sounds they make. We tried to make some of these sounds, and noticed that some of them were long (like whole notes and half notes) and some were short (like quarter notes and eighth notes.) We made many combinations of the machine sounds to create our own "machine music."

4th grade- we started the year off right by moving around the room to "Sir Duke" by Stevie Wonder. What a great song! We then played a jazzy name game called "Jump in Jump Out" where everyone had a turn to share their name and something they like to do. We added bongos and egg shakers to give it a jazzy feel. We learned that some music starts before beat 1. When that happens, the first note is called an anacrusis.

5th grade- we began the year by learning a name game called "Take a Seat." We added pats and claps to go with it, and then we learned a fun B section with loud hits on the floor. We introduced ourselves in this game by going around the circle. We then added an ostinato (a musical pattern that repeats over and over) to go with the game to make it more challenging. We added body percussion to match this ostinato that made it even harder! We divided the class into groups- half did the words of "Take a Seat" while clapping the rhythm, and half did the ostinato. It went really well and sounded super cool.

Check back next week for more!