Weekly Review 10/26-10/30

To help bring in the festives of October such as Halloween, first graders listened to some fun classical music in minor while they decorated bats, then played a great game called "Flap and Fly."  Bats are nocturnal, mammals meaning that they sleep in the daytime and are awake at night.  Bats were asleep while the lights were on, then a student (the Sun) turned off the lights so the bats could dance and sing!  When the sun came up, the lights were turned back on and the bats fell asleep.  We also revisted a song from last week called, "The Bats Are All Asleep,"where two musical terms were introduced- decrescendo( a gradual decrease in volume)  and crescendo (a gradual increase in volume). Here is Mrs. Farrell's and Mrs. Gearin's class performing the song:









In second grade, we completed our "Witches' Stew" activity with hand percussion sound effects. Students got a chance to pick various instruments and played them on the words Ew, Ick, Ugh, and Yuck. The students really enjoyed it! We also sang a different song called "Witches' Brew" and composed new lyrics!

In third grade students  reviewed the song "Ghost of John" from first grade and added an ostinato (repeated musical phrase) with boomwhackers. The words, "Ghost of John" became the ostinato on the pitches D/E and B/A.  We also sang the "13 Days of Halloween" in a minor tonality, and some students helped with the lyrics by holding up posters at the appropriate time during the song.

The fourth graders played Orff instruments to accompany "Black and Gold," and learned the partner song called, "Trick or Treat." They also continued to work on their music for Veteran's Day.  Only a few weeks left until the concert! Here is a video of Mrs. Harlow's class performing the partner songs.





The fifth graders learned a spooky song called "Halloween Night."  They read along with the musical score, and identified the different pitches on the staff for the instrumental accompaniment. We  reviewed how to play the Orff instruments and how to hold the mallots properly on a C Major scale. We also learned two ostinato parts of the song, added percussion instruments and ghost and goblins! Here is Mrs. Olshaw's and Mr. Rabazzi's class performing this song:





In chorus, we learned "Happy Holidays/Auld Lang Syne" which has a gospel swing feel that melts into the famous, Auld Lang Syne. We also learned our grand finale song, "Five Favorite Holidays." It is a medley of popular holiday songs that features five different pop styles.

We hope you have a Spook-taculous weekend!