Weekly Review 9/17 - 9/21

Welcome back to school! We made it through our first full week - congratulations to everyone!

The first graders are so excited to have music class this year! We discussed the rules and fun things like BRAVO and Music Superhero. The students also sang or spoke their name as a solo in our "Chicka Chicka Boom Boom" activity and chant! We started another new song this week called "Welcome Back," which helps students explore musical opposites: fast vs. slow, and loud vs. quiet. Then, students learned about "Lucy Locket," and started a new game to practice singing loud and quiet.



Can you believe that our second grade students were jump roping in music last week and this week? We learned a a fun song called the "Skipping Rope Song." Each round, we sang a different child's name as they jumped over the rope (making sure to stay with the steady, even beat!). During their second music class, they played a fun game called "Grizzly Bear."



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. They also started a great circle dance called "Tideo" - we will finish this next week. Lastly, there was some friendly competition between classes as they played Rhythm Telephone.





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). Then, we used hand drums and bongos instead of our laps.  EVERY student had a drum to play! It was fun to play and sing at the same time. After they finished playing the drums, we started a stick passing game to the same song.



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. It was a blast (and quite loud)! They also learned a stick passing game which we will continue next week!

We hope you have a fantastic weekend!