Last week, I had the privilege of attending a national music conference in San Diego, CA. It's through my main music organization called AOSA- American Orff Schulwerk Association. What is Orff, you ask? Well, it's an approach to teaching music that gives the creative power to the students. Orff teaching uses the media of speech, song, instruments, and movement to allow kids to explore musical ideas and develop musicianship. Basically, it's super hands-on and crazy fun. The conference was 3 long days filled with 12 workshop sessions, concerts, and meals share between hundreds of music teachers. In short, it was inspiring. I returned from that trip with so many new ideas to try in my classroom. Already this week, I tried a couple of new things out with success. Never a dull moment in music class!
This week in...
Kindergarten- we finished up our mini-unit on high and low sounds. We took a short quiz to show that we can hear the different between high and low sounds. For the quiz, we circle a picture of a mountain if we heard high sounds, and a submarine if we heard low sounds. We played a couple of fun Thanksgiving themed games that got us singing and wiggling around the room.
1st grade AND 2nd grade- we are getting so close to or winter concert! Wednesday, December 9th! All first and second grade classes have shown lots of leadership in preparation for this program, and we can't wait to share some fun poems and songs with you. Don't miss it!
3rd grade- this week, we began our work around the theme of our spring concert (Wednesday, March 9th): TREES! We listed all the kinds of trees we could think of. We saw images of many types of trees and showed body shapes to go with each image- a challenging task. We made tree shapes using high, medium, and low levels, and also smooth and pointy shapes. We made shapes alone, with partners, and in groups. We then learned about banyan trees. They are unique because the branches go out horizontally and then begin to drop wisps that eventually reach the ground and become new trunks! This means that one single banyan tree can have many, many trunks and look like an entire park or forest. We explored how to move like a banyan tree and had some really amazing moments of calm, focused energy. We finished by learning a Jamaican folk song called "Banyan Tree."
4th grade- this week, we did some groove walking! A groove walk goes with swing music. You step on beats 1 and 3, and clap/snap on beats 2 and 4. Step, clap, step, clap, etc. It's harder than it sounds! We explored groove walking in many styles (heavy, light, sneaky) and pathways (straight, curved, circular) alone and in groups. We also continued learning about the jazz legend Duke Ellington, or as he is better known, "Sir Duke."
Sir Duke
5th grade- we finished up composing some "what's for lunch" rhythms with drums. We now know how to create rhythms using quarter notes, eighth notes, two sixteenth notes with one eighth note, four sixteenth notes, and half notes. We are beginning to work on some fun drum circle music where we have multiple parts going on at the same time with different types of drums. It's fun to play these drumming patterns along with pop songs like "Firework" by Katy Perry, "Come With Me Now" by KONGOS, and "Best Day of My Life" by American Authors.
Happy Thanksgiving break!
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