Mrs. Niu - niu@bpsk12.org Mrs. Rzasa - rzasa@bpsk12.org
For all information regarding the Memorial String Orchestra Program, please click HERE.  

Friday, January 15, 2016

Weekly Review 1/11 - 1/15

Happy Friday!

This week the first graders reviewed the important musical concept of beat.  We played beat leaders,  then walked to steady beats in different tempos.  The students also sang the fun Snowman song that they learned last week.   The movement is so silly - especially when our snowmen melt!  We then reviewed our Doggie Doggie song by counting the rhythm then adding solfege on sol, mi, and la. The students enjoyed playing the game with different doggies, bone hiders, and soloists for each round.

The second grade students have started their instrument family unit. For their first music class, we learned about the string family.  This is my (Mrs. Rzasa's) favorite instrument family!   We read a book which introduced the family, then discussed the violin, viola, cello, bass, harp, and guitar.  These are not the only string instruments, but they are the most common here in America and in Europe.   We also learned about the percussion family - so much fun!  For movement this week, the second graders danced to Soldier's Joy, which is a popular fiddle and banjo tune.

The third graders had a VERY exciting week!  Four members from the Lexington Symphony Orchestra visited Memorial to help prepare the students for next Friday's field trip.  Please check out our post HERE to see some photos and videos from this exciting visit!  To help review the process of reading/writing notes, we played two really fun games on the staff!  The students enjoyed the beanbag toss game, and "On Your Mark, Get Set, Notate!"  Our practice test is next week  :)



The fourth and fifth grade students have been doing an awesome job with the tone chimes.  We first reviewed the process for building a chord, and then drew chords on the staff.   They looked like little snowmen!  Then, the fifth graders played a chord accompaniment on the tone chimes to "Take On Me" by the band A-Ha.  The fourth graders played a chord accompaniment along with the song "Auld Lang Syne."

In chorus, we started working on songs for our spring concert.  We had a great time learning about opera and listening to different excerpts from Mozart's Don Giovanni, Rossini's Barber of Seville, and Bizet's Carmen.   The tunes are so much fun to sing with our silly words!  The fifth graders started Ode to Beethoven, which includes tunes from his 9th Symphony and Moonlight Sonata.  The fourth graders began their featured song, which is Haydn's Surprise Symphony.

No comments:

Post a Comment