Weekly Review 9/28-10/2

This week in music, every student learned about Ludvig Van Beethoven. Beethoven was born in Germany and was one of the first composers to make a living without being employed by the church.  When he was 26 years old, Beethoven started going deaf. Even though he could no longer hear well enough to play the piano, Beethoven composed some of his best music after he was deaf! He is most well known for his nine symphonies, and his piano music. Grades 1-3 watched this movie about Beethoven's life

In first grade, we practiced our "sol" and "mi" using hands signs and tossing a ball. We also had fun learning a fun chant called, "Loose Tooth." Mrs. Rzasa and I realized that so many of our first grade friends are beginning to loose their baby teeth, so we wanted to teach them this little chant. This chant had body percussion parts for the following words: loose tooth- two claps, wiggly jiggly- alternating pats on your knees, and bed, head, and thread- snaps. Next week we will transfer these body percussion movements to three different instruments so stay tuned!

The second graders continued working on the challenging song called, "Come and Follow Me."  Each phrase is sung a little bit higher than the last, with one phrase ("singing together, as one!") completing the phrases. After we finished learning the song, we sang it in a round.

In third grade, the students continued to practice the clapping routine for the song,  "Four White Horses." During the interlude of the song, students got into a conga line. Here is a video of a group of students from Mrs. Keating's class performing the clapping routine:

Here is a video of Mrs. Keating and Mrs. Kipp's class singing, "Four White Horses"

In fourth grade, students finished the cup game routine. They performed the routine with many variations such as performing with their eyes closed, performing without saying the words, and collecting the cups unique way. Here is Mrs. Gonzalez's class proudly displaying their pyramid after working hard on their routine.

Our fifth grade students performed a cup routine to the song, "In the Hall of the Mountain King." Here is Mrs. Burn's class:


Fifth graders also learned a folk song dance. We will continue learning this dance next week. Here is what we have learned so far:



In chorus, both the fourth and fifth grade students continued to learn, "Jingle Jazz." Fifth grade students will be singing the melody part and the fourth grade students will be singing the harmony part of this song. The fourth graders also continued to learn their feature song, "Once Upon a Wintertime" which is a sweet song that has a waltz feel.  Fifth graders continued working on their featured song of, "Cool Yule."

Have a wonderful weekend and we hope you stay warm!