Tuneful Singers, Wonderful Beat-keepers, and New Instruments!

New xylophones at the Elementary building

What a way to start the year! I've been pleasantly surprised by what children remember from last year—and what beautiful singers we have! Every level has some amazing individuals, but there are whole classes singing lovely songs already.

Audio recording of Kindergarten singing Ten in the Bed (no video, but great sound!)

This year I see Transitional Kindergarten through Third Grade twice a week and have time to fit the morning sessions of 3-year and 4-year old preschool in both Rockwell City and Lake City. Our focus at the beginning of the year is to get back into singing tunefully and making our rhythms come together on a common beat. Here are some second graders creating machines to fit the beat. Making music is all about working together to make things happen!

Machine 1                                        Machine 3                             Machine 5

Machine 2                                        Machine 4                             Machine 6

 We've played games and a few instruments, so there's been a lot of fun happening in the Music Room.

Here Kindergarteners create short and long sound compositions with balloon pictures. Next they will add triangles and rhythm sticks.

Singing, Stories and Orff Instruments at the Middle School

At the Middle School we're enjoying new carpeting and paint in the music hall. Even more exciting is the addition of bass bars! Fifth Graders tried them out this week (along with autoharps and Boomwhackers), and they are really excited to add them to the concert.

Although they have music only once a week, we're planning an interesting performance. Students voted on a story and chose The Bakers' Dozen. Now each class is preparing to play one piece of music and move to another piece to make the story come to life. We'll have actors and narrators, too. Their concert is Friday, December 16 at 7:00 pm.

Titan Orff Ensemble with our new bass metalophone in the lower right of the photo