Weekly Review 1/20 - 1/24

This week in music, the first graders started studying Sergei Prokofiev's "Peter and the Wolf." It is a story and musical piece by the Russian composer.  We read the book first, then started a listening map in the second class.  As the students listened to the story and orchestral music (narrated by Patrick Stewart), they completed the activities in each box.  Each part of the map included a fun activity, such as drawing the different characters and identifying different instruments. We will be finishing this activity next week. Here is a list of all the character in the fairytale. Each character in the story represents an instrument and has a musical theme:

• Bird: Flute
• Duck: Oboe
• Cat: Clarinet
• Grandfather: Bassoon
• Wolf: French Horns
• Hunters: woodwind theme, with gunshots on timpani and bass drum
• Peter: String Instruments

The second grade students continued their instrument family unit. This week they learned about the brass and woodwind families. 

Common Brass Instruments:

• Trumpet
• Trumbone
• French Horn
• Tuba

Common Woodwind Instruments:

• Piccolo
• Flute
• Clarinet
• Oboe
• Saxophone
• Bassoon

The third graders visited the amazing Cary Hall to see the Lexington Symphony perform! The student saw a few familiar faces in the orchestra - from when the symphony's quartet visited Memorial.

They were taken on a musical journey through time, starting in the year 900.  Music was primarily vocal (sung by voice) until the Renaissance, when recorders and drums were popular.  Little by little, instruments were added, such as violin, viola, cello and bass (very common in the Baroque period).

In the late Baroque and Classical periods, concertos were performed! Unfortunately, the young musician who was going to perform was sick and unable to attend. We hope he feels better soon!

In addition, more wind, brass, and percussion instruments were added to the ensemble!

Pretty soon, everyone was on stage, and the students were introduced to some lesser-known (but still important!) instruments such as as the contrabassoon, bass clarinet, and English horn.

By the end of the concert, there was a full modern symphony orchestra on stage!  As a finale, they played a medley of Star Wars, composed by John Williams.  This was certainly a favorite!

 Big thanks to the parents who volunteered to chaperone- we hope you had fun too!

The fourth and fifth graders are learning how to play ukuleles! If your child has their own ukulele, they are more than welcome to bring it to their first music class of the week (Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday). This week, they learned the parts of the ukulele and how to play a C-chord. Changing chords is very important so we practiced changing from an open strum to a C-chord. 

The fifth graders remembered some of the chords from last year, so they were also able to review A minor and F major. Then they did a ukulele play along on YouTube! 

We hope you have a fantastic weekend!