Thursday, September 17, 2015

New Beginnings

I'm using some new curriculum materials that build knowledge through the ear and the body, so class starts much differently in the music room this year. Children start singing as soon as they enter the room. The singing circle becomes a movement game circle, and we're off on the learning process! We've already covered steady beat, low/middle/high levels, stationary/traveling movement, and stop/start (in Kindergarten).  It's been wonderful to hear the beautiful harmony in the third, fourth, and fifth grade classes! And the games make it a much more fun-filled way to start class! 

The Kindergarteners are wonderful singers this year! We're learning the Titan Fight Song to get ready for Homecoming, so we made a clip of some excellent singers in Mrs. Grantham's class.

 Titan Fight Song

Here are First Graders creating “string melodies”. They made a shape with the string and used their voices to sing the shape as if it was a melody. This gets them ready to understand how notes go up and down on a staff.















The Second Graders are doing a fantastic job reading rhythms! They remember so much from first grade and are begging for harder notes to read.

Here is a group of Third Graders singing simple harmony on Make New Friends.

Make New Friends

The Fourth Graders did a movement project making human machines. The goal was to work together using stationary movement without sound and create something that has multiple moving parts. Check out this wonderful creativity!

 Machine 1

Machine 2

Machine 3

Machine 4

Machine 5

 Machine 6

Machine 7

The Fifth Graders have been learning accellerando, the musical term for speeding up. Mrs. Folsom's class won the challenge to stay together as we got faster. This is a clip of their top speed on Flea Fly.

Flea Fly

What a great start to the year! What a wonderful bunch of musical kids we have! Until next time . . . keep making music!