Weekly Review- 3/17-3/21

The first grade students watched the movie,  " Peter and the Wolf"  After studying the story and the music in class, it was fun to see it portrayed as a cartoon.  Next week, we will finish the last 15 minutes of the movie and create our own "Peter and the Wolf" book. 

The second grade students continued to play the Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra. They are learning so much about each instrument family, and the instruments that belong in each. We have a few more games to unlock before we complete the Safari trip! It is amazing to see how much our students remember about each instrument family and their various sounds.

Many of our third grade students are on the green belt so we did some warm ups using the low note E and also went over how the eighth notes are suppose to be played. Please don't feel bad if you are not on the green belt yet! We would just like to see each child do his/her best and make progress during this recorder unit. Since all the students have visited each Recorder Center at least once, we will have new games and new worksheets next week! Feel free to use Joytunes to practice your recorder!

The fourth grade students were excited to compose music for the book,  "Jabuti." Students got into groups of four and began composing music for the pages that they were assigned to. Many of the groups experimented with a lot of the percussion and melodic instruments.

The fifth graders continued their composition of "Where the Wild Things Are." Many of the students began notating their compositions. We can't wait to hear what type of music they created for each page of the book.

Mrs. Rzasa and I were at a music conference on Thursday and Friday so we did not have chorus this week. We will resume next week.

Hope you all had a wonderful weekend!

Violin Assignment

Assignment for next week: page 18 and the new Concert Sheet

This week I gave the violin students a sheet containing a few of the songs that we will be performing in our Spring concert!  Although the assignment for this week is to work on that sheet, I don't expect the students to master all of the songs.  We will be working on these for the next few weeks :)

Weekly Review 3/10 - 3/14

Happy Pi Day! :)

This week, the first graders finished their listening map for Peter and the Wolf.  They now have a better understanding of the themes which represent each character in the story, as well as the instruments that are played.  Ask your child which character is their favorite!  They also prepared for St. Patrick's Day by singing "If You Ever See a Leprechaun?"  Once the students were familiar with the song, we added a glissando on the glockenspiel, as well as a part for the hand drum.

Another first grade activity from this week.

The second grade students reinforced each instrument family in the orchestra.  This was done through an interactive Touch It Board game called, "A Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra." It is based on Benjamin Britten's musical composition of the same name.   It is a listening game that takes you on a safari adventure as you visit the four instrument families and unlock each of their games.

The third graders continued to enjoy their musical centers on Recorder Testing Day.  Remember:  If a child would like to get ahead on their Recorder Karate belts (or if they need extra help), then may visit us before 8:30 on their assigned day.  Some students are up to their green belts, so we reviewed the note E. We also had a blast playing Joy Tunes!!

The fourth grade students read the book, Jabuti.  It is a fable about a turtle in the Amazon rain forest.  The students will be composing music in small groups to go along with the story!  To prepare for this activity, we reviewed all of the hand percussion and melodic percussion instruments in our classroom (as well as the proper technique for playing each).

The fifth graders have started composing their music to go along with "Where the Wild Things Are"- and we are thrilled with their progress after only one class period!  Check out the video below of a group from Ms. Conceison's class:



In chorus, the students have been working on completing their pirate song, "Oceanus," and "I'se the B'y," so that we can focus on the last piece for our concert- "Reflections of a Lad at Sea."   This is a piece with three movements- each section evokes a different mood, and is sung with a different tempo. This song will be a lot of fun to sing because it tells a fantastic story!

We hope you have a wonderful weekend!