Greetings Findley,
Since the last time I posted, life has been very busy. We
had a third grade concert, I went to a music teacher’s conference in February
and have unfortunately had to be out of school several times for one reason or
another.
Today’s blog post will attempt to recap some of the things
that each grade level has been working on over the last month or more.
Fourth and Fifth
Grade
In February, the fourth and fifth grade continued working on
the ukuleles for a few weeks, getting to the place where they could play chords
while singing. I placed stickers on the fretboards of the ukuleles, which made
it easier for the students to learn and retain chords. We played two chord
songs in the third week of February, and then we stopped ukuleles to move on to
other things. Ukuleles are likely to come back in some form after Spring Break.
In the last several weeks, we have been working through a
composition unit. It started out with students working through identifying the
underlying rhythms of words that they speak, and then stringing those words
together to make a longer rhythm. Those word strings didn’t often make much sense
so we moved on into writing rhythmic phrases, which could be a rhyme or simply
a saying.
In the process, I discovered that I needed to alter the
assignment for the fourth graders, as it was taking them much longer to do the
same assignment that the fifth graders were working on. So now, all but one
fourth grade class is using a modified assignment that is somewhat of a musical
mad-lib, meaning that they had to fill in blanks or make a choice of words in
some of their rhythms. It made it a much faster process for them.
Classes should be completing those assignments this week or the
week after Spring Break, which means that you will get to hear their
composition on Seesaw. We will be taking the rhyme, adding rhythm, and then
adding instruments.
Third Grade
Third Grade had a concert at the end of February. Most of that
month was working with the various classes on their specific concert needs. All
together it was a wonderful event. I now consider it one of the top three
concert experiences I’ve had at Findley.
In the last couple of weeks, I’ve been working with the
students on mallet skills on the xylophones and glockenspiels. We were reminded
of proper care of the instruments, how to hold the mallets, and playing in a
respectful way. Students are right now playing music based on the pentatonic
(5-tone) scale. This reflects the ear-training that we’ve done in class, and
will be reinforced in future weeks.
Second Grade
February began with the final performance of The Noble Duke
of York, which we put on Seesaw.
Following that week, we focused on black history month for one
week with some videos on Jazz music and the book Follow the Drinking Gourd.
In the third week of February, I used a rhythmic rhyme to do
a name activity with the students that was connected to the focus on names in
the mother tongue that was happening across the school that week.
In recent weeks, we have introduced the music for the Volunteer
Celebration that will be happening in May and had some lesson time with hand
drums. When we focused on hand drums, we worked through the proper technique of
how to hold them, gave students time to explore different sounds and then
finished with an activity where they had to step to the beat and play the
rhythm on the drum at the same time.
Last week, we focused
on two diverse areas: mirroring in movement and Mi-Re-Do on the barred instruments
(xylophones and glockenspiels). For the first part of class, we worked through mirroring
the movement of a partner. This is a great starter activity for developing
musical expression in young students. The latter half of class was spent
working through ear training with the first three notes of the scale, and then
transferring those notes to the xylophones and glockenspiels in a specific song.
First Grade
Looking back, I see the first week of February had a variety
of rhythm and melody activities. We worked through basic first grade level
rhythms (quarter note, paired eighth notes and quarter rest) in various
combinations. We also began some activities that introduce the note La in our
ear training along with So and Mi. Again with ear training, the goal is to
train the ear of the students to understand the melodic relationship between
those notes that we know already. We started with So and Mi, the first two
notes that many students hear in a “playground” relationship.
Following that week, we focused on black history month for one
week with some videos on Jazz music and the book Follow the Drinking Gourd.
In the third week of February, I used a rhythmic rhyme to do
a name activity with the students that was connected to the focus on names in
the mother tongue that was happening across the school that week.
Since the end of February, first grade students have begun
working on music for their first grade concert mid-April and music for the
Volunteer Celebration in May.
Kindergarten
In the first week of February, we had an alphabet theme.
Students read the book Chicka Chicka Boom Boom and acted it out. We also made
the shapes of letters of the alphabet. This is to help us practice expression
in music. A final activity that week was an organized dance called The Skaters.
Not every kindergarten class got to that activity.
Following that week, we focused on black history month for one
week with some videos on Jazz music and the book Follow the Drinking Gourd.
In the third week of February, I used a rhythmic rhyme to do
a name activity with the students that was connected to the focus on names in
the mother tongue that was happening across the school that week.
In recent weeks, we began learning songs for the Volunteer
Assembly in May. I focused on those songs for two to three weeks in my classes
(depending on the class day), and will return to practicing them in late April
or May.
In the last two weeks, we have been practicing songs that
use long and short sounds, getting students used to the basic premise of
rhythm, that sounds can have different lengths. We have also been practicing
some basic beat-keeping activities together.
As always, if you have any questions, please let me know.
Until next time…
No comments:
Post a Comment