Weekly Review 5/27 - 5/31

This week in music, the first graders continued their lesson on Camille Saint-Saens' "Carnival of the Animals."  Early in the week we focused on Fossils.  Most people associate fossils with dinosaur bones, but any petrified bone or skeleton is considered a fossil.  After moving their bodies along with the fast tempo of the song, they worked on a listening map. The students distinguished the xylophone sounds from that of the strings, piano, and clarinet.  It was fun to listen for the familiar tune, "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" that Saint-Saens incorporated into the piece!  For their second music class, the students culminated the unit by watching a video of each song being performed by the different sections of the orchestra.  It was a lot of fun!

The second grade students have started 2 new songs this week, "Ah Poor Bird" and "Hey Ho."  Both songs are in the minor tonality, and can be sung as partner songs!  Partner songs are two songs of the same length that line up harmonically so that they sound good together.  We added 3 Orff percussion ostinati.  The alto xylophone was used for a simple pattern, the soprano xylophone for one of medium difficulty, and the trickiest pattern was played on the glockenspiel.  A few students helped those performers by playing a steady beat on a hand drum.

The third graders had their very last Centers Day this week.  **Please note: We will not be testing students in the morning or during recess any more this year.  Any student who wants to continue practicing their instrument may do so, and we have copies of all of the belt songs in the classroom for them to take home.  We are SO proud of everyone's accomplishments on the recorder, and we encourage the students to consider joining band next year!  In their second music class this week, the students learned a new song called "Old Brass Wagon." This folk song was sung, played on the recorder, and one class even started to learn the circle dance!  We will continue this activity next week.

Fourth and fifth grade students started compositions on the iPad using an app called "Looptastic."  Last year, I wrote a post with more information about the program, and you can find that HERE.  The app is free for iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch.  You can also download additional loop sets for free or for a small fee.  The students had fun experimenting with the texture of their music, along with tempo and dynamics.  Next week, we will use the iPads once more to finish the compositions, then share them with the rest of the class.

For their second music class, the fourth graders revisited the Cup Game from the beginning of the school year.  Fifth grade students continued to work on "Today is the Day," in preparation for their Moving Up ceremony.  Two classes learned the second part, and all students are helping us with dance moves for the refrain.

~~This year's Musical Showcase is during the week of June 17th for all classes ~~

We look forward to seeing the students' performances!