Weekly Review 9/2 - 9/5

Welcome back to school!  I hope everyone had a wonderful (and relaxing) summer!  We are so happy to be back and school and to see all of our awesome students.

Here is what we were up to this first week of school:

The first graders learned a bit about beat, and we practiced finding the beat on our bodies, and walking with a steady beat to music. We discussed the rules and fun things like BRAVO and Music Superhero, and danced along to a funny song about clapping, jumping, swaying, and freezing.  The students each sang their name as a solo in our "Chicka Chicka Boom Boom" activity and chant!

The second grade students learned a new song called "Grizzly Bear."  The song explores various dynamics, including piano, forte, and crescendo.  It's tricky to sing loud without screaming, but the students did a lovely job!  There is a game that we played along with the song: one student was a grizzly bear, and one student was a hunter. The hunter sang part of the song as a solo, and the bear had to guess who it was!  It was fun to identify our classmates by their singing voices.

In third grade, the students played along with one of my favorite beginning of the year activities- "Hey Children."  The students learned the song first, followed by a clapping routine.  Once the routine was mastered, the clapping routine was transferred to the rhythm sticks so we could play the name game!  It was a lot of fun.

The fourth grade students learned a song called, "Rocky Mountain."  This song explores high and low voices, and was a bit tricky at first!  The song has a hand routine that goes along with it- we did the routine in whole notes (4 beats), half notes (2 beats), quarter notes (1 beat) and eighth notes (1/2 beat).  For the second class this week, we were able to use drums instead of our laps.  EVERY student had a drum to play!  It was fun to play and sing at the same time.

In fifth grade, we sang an African song called "Sansa Kroma."  Ask your 5th grader about the meaning of the song!  Once we learned all of the words, we did a drumming activity similar to the one the fourth graders did with their song.

We hope you have a fantastic weekend!