This week (9/8-9/11)

We had a 4 day week because of labor day, but we were still busy in music class!

This week in.....

Kindergarten- we reviewed how to say and clap the number of sounds in our first names. We added to our farm animal theme with a song about the hen, "Listen to the Hens." We learned how to play drums and added those to the song! We also did the "Chicken Dance" to fit into our hen theme of the day. :) We got to play our red/green game where we walk for the color green and stop for red. Some students even got to come to the front of the room to lead the game.

1st grade- we have been music detectives trying to tell the difference between music that has a steady beat and not steady beat. We are pretty good at it! We also learned how to hold xylophone mallets by copying Ms. Buckley's movements and sharing a set of mallets with a partner. We learned a poem about Jack and Jill to help us move our mallets in different ways so that we can play the xylophone soon.

2nd grade- we have continued our hammer theme into these week- we are building tree houses! We practiced using a saw (with quarter notes), a hammer (with eighth notes), and painting (with half notes.) We reviewed the notes la, so, and mi from pitch hill and used those notes to sing many different patterns.

3rd grade- we have begun playing xylophones! We used the song "Willowbee" that we already learned and got to play a steady C and G bordun pattern to accompany the song. Next we will learn how to play the melody of the song. So far we have been paired with a partner so that we can help each other learn the xylophone parts successfully.

4th grade- it's all about SCAT! Scat is a bunch of nonsense, gibberish words that don't really mean anything. Jazz singers use scat words to sing solos. We heard the Queen of Scat, Ella Fitzgerald, sing a couple of songs- she is amazing! We got to create our own scat patterns alone, with partners, and in groups. We are also learning a bit about Ella's history and how she became such an influential jazz musician.

5th grade- we reviewed our name rhythm compositions and added rhythmic notation to our pieces this week. For names that are one sound long (like Sam) we added quarter notes to go with them. For names that are two sounds (like Sarah) we added eighth notes. For names that are four sounds (like Alexandra) we added sixteenth notes. We don't know the rhythm to go with three sound names yet...that's coming soon. :) Now we are giving the hand drums a break in favor of the bigger tubano drums! We will start learning more about Africa and the places where our African pieces of music come from.