First grade students celebrated Valentine's Day by singing, "Heel, Toe, on the Line." There were two words that the students did not recognize- "Ja" and "Nein." These words mean "Yes" and "No" in German. Each student dances with a partner in a circle and on the word "Nein," the partners turns their back against each other and ends up with a new partner. It was so much fun to see who our new partner was going to be!
Chinese New Year was celebrated on Friday, Feb. 16th so our students learned a Chinese song and the traditions of this holiday. The Chinese New Year is based on the traditional lunar calendar and this year is the year of the dog!
The second graders continued their fun instrument family activity: the Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra interactive game! They finished the game with the percussion family!
This was a BIG week for our third grader friends! They all took their notation test, then finally received their recorders! If your child is in third grade, here are a few important things to keep in mind:
- The students need to bring their recorders to class for each music day.
- Mrs. Rzasa and I will be taking "recorder attendance," and three or more unprepared days will result in a call home. The students will learn best when they have their instrument in school!
- Recorders are only allowed to be played in music and outside of school. Please remind your child not to play on the bus or in their regular classroom.
- To help students succeed, home practice is necessary. Please have your child aim for 5 minutes each day. Of course, more is always good too! Since the recorders are new, they will likely practice a lot- but this may fade in the coming weeks. Ask your child to play for you to help encourage them!
- To clean the recorders, you may wash them with warm soapy water, or place them in the TOP RACK of the dishwasher.
- Thank you- we appreciate your patience and support as your child learns a new instrument!
The fourth and fifth graders started working on rhythm compositions with different musical forms. The fourth graders are composing in ABA form, where the beginning of the song is the same as the end. A good example of a song in ABA form is "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star." The fifth graders are composing in rondo form, or ABACABA. The students are using half notes, half rests, quarter notes, quarter rests, eighth notes, and sixteenth notes.
We did a fun ABA form activity where students froze in different positions to indicate the two parts. Here are some videos:
We hope you have a fabulous and relaxing February vacation!
No comments:
Post a Comment