Weekly Review 11/26 - 11/30

I hope everyone had a great long weekend for Thanksgiving!  It's always nice to have the time to get together with family.

This was an exciting week for the students!  Here's what we were up to:

The first grade students learned a song called "Doggy, Doggy."  We first reviewed the rhythm of the song, then added solfege (using So, La, and Mi), before we added the lyrics.  Once the students mastered the song, we played a fun game with a rubber dog bone!  In the second music class this week, the students learned a new vocabulary word: tempo.  The tempo is the speed of the beat.   We learned a song called "Pass the Shoe"- and it has a fun game too!  Ask your child what happened to the tempo of that song!

Building upon skills from last year, the second graders reviewed the concept of tempo.  They also learned some new music vocabulary words that go along with it: adagio, andante, and allegro (which mean slow, medium, and fast).  We listened to "Freight Train" while moving to the beat.  Ask your child what happened to the tempo of that song!  In the second class, we continued our Conversational Solfege by decoding So, La, Mi patterns.  Then we played a silly game called "Mixed Signals.  Since Hanukkah is approaching, we read the story "Latkes and Applesauce" then learned a special Hanukkah song!

In third grade this week, the students started to learn how to read music notation!  This important skill will come in handy when we start to play the recorder in the new year.   Here are the terms we have covered so far:

• staff (5 lines that music is written on)
• treble clef (found at the beginning of the staff)
• time signature (tells you how many beats are in each measure)
• bar line (separates measures)
• measure (where the music is written!)
• double bar (the end of the song)
• repeat sign (go back to the beginning!)

We learned all about the musical alphabet (ABCDEFGABCDEFGABCDEFGAB...etc.  Only 7 letters!!), then sang a great song called "I Don't Know the Notes."  This song helps us remember the order of the lines and spaces on the staff!  Once we learned the refrain to that song, we jumped on the floor staff while singing, making sure that our feet landed in the correct part of the floor.  It was tricky, but a lot of fun.  We will be continuing to review these terms and skills every music class to prepare for our notation test (more information on that later).

The fourth and fifth grade students sang their chorus songs without sheet music for the first time this week!  Overall, they are are doing a fantastic job, but there are some songs with lyrics that are more difficult to remember.  If your child is having difficulty with the chorus songs, please encourage them to check out our Lyrics Page, and of course they can always check in with us.  We are here to help!

The students are so excited to share their songs with you and the rest of the school at our Winter Concert!  Next week we will be having our combined rehearsals on the stage, and adding fun things like movement and instruments!  We will also discuss the details of the concert with them, including concert etiquette.

We hope you have a wonderful weekend!