Weekly Review 1/15-1/19

In first grade students learned a fun little song with movements called, "A Sailor Went to Sea, Sea, Sea," Each time we sang the song, we replaced the word "sea" with hands, chop, knee, toe, and Oo- was- she was." We came up with movements to reflect those words. We also began our  "Peter and the Wolf" unit which is a story and musical piece by the Russian composer.  We read the book and learned about the different characters and the instruments they represented. Next week, we will begin a listening map.

Here is 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 instrument

The second graders learned two new instrument families this week:  the percussion family and the  string family.

Common Percussion Family Instruments:

Snare Drum
Bass Drum
Tambourine
Maracas
Timpani/Kettle Drums

Common String Family Instruments:
Violin
Viola
Cello
Double Bass
Guitar

Next Friday, Jan. 26th, our third grade students will take a field trip to Carey Hall to watch the Lexington Symphony perform. We will leave at 9:15am and will be back by 11:30am. Dressing up is highly encouraged! We will also have our recorder test on Tuesday, Jan. 30th for Mrs. Cyr and Mrs Ferullo's class and Wednesday, Jan. 31st for Mrs. Keating and Mrs. Kip's class. Don't forget to study! Everything that you need to know is on the study guide!

Our fourth graders practiced playing chordal accompaniments to, "Auld Lang Syne" while the fifth grade students practiced playing chordal accompaniments to the famous 80's hit, "Take On Me." Here is a video of Mrs. Weinberg's class performing, "Auld Lang Syne."

Orchestra Rocks!

I want to congratulate the fourth and fifth grade orchestra on an amazing performance at last month's winter concert!  (Yes, this post is quite belated...sorry!)

To celebrate their hard work, we had a lunch group upstairs in the conference room. We listened to music, chatted, and enjoyed our lunch together.  I can't wait until our next lunch party after the spring concert this May!

Weekly Review 1/08 - 1/12

Happy Friday!

This week in music, the first graders learned a silly movement chant called "Hands, Hands." We warmed up our cold bodies by moving just one body part at a time. I think we could all agree that our favorite was singing and moving our tongue. We also sang a winter song called "I Have a Little Snowman."  It explores movement and pitch in a scale.  As the song continues, the pitch of the song rises, and when the snowman melts the pitch returns back to the starting note (do).  They also learned a fun song and game called, "Doggie, Doggie." One student played the part of the dog who was sleeping in the middle of the room while another student distributed the bone to one person in the room as the class sang the song. Whoever had the bone on the phrase, "Who stole the bone?" got to sing the solo part of "I stole the bone!" It was so fun to see students guessing who they thought had the bone.

Second grade students reviewed a musical term from last year: tempo.  Tempo is the speed of a piece of music. We practiced listening and moving to various tempos with a song called "Freight Train." Check out their trains in the photo below! Students also had a chance to compose a "tempo story." The class chose a topic, then as each part of the story was added, students determined its tempo: adagio, andante, or allegro (slow, medium, or fast).  Then, we "performed" the story on percussion instruments, following the changing tempos.  It was so much fun! 

The third graders have been reviewing instruments and instrument families to prepare for their visit from the Lexington Symphony Orchestra.  We played a really fun game of "Instrument Family Four Corners."  We assigned these families to each corner of the room: Percussion, String, Woodwind, and Brass.  Then, we announced an instrument - students had to determine which family it belonged to, then quickly travel to the appropriate corner.  To extend the activity, we then played a recording of an instrument.  The students then needed to figure out what instrument they were listening to before moving to the correct corner.  Some were very tricky!

On Thursday, four members of the Lexington Symphony came to Memorial to talk to the students about their instruments and what it's like to be in an orchestra! These four talented musicians (Liz, Rebecca, Bill, and Jobey) will be performing during the students' field trip on the 26th!  We can't wait to go!

The fourth and fifth grade students started a new unit - chords!  A chord (unlike a pitch or interval) is a group of three or more pitches played at the same time.  There are MANY different chords in the music world, but we focused on chords with three or four notes.  We explored the different tonalities that the chords can possess, and a process for building a chord that will sound good every time!  Once everyone knew how to build a chord, we used the classroom floor staff to learn how to notate and label them.

The fourth graders also learned a song for the New Year, "Auld Lang Syne" (a Scottish tune that is typically heard right after the ball drops in Times Square!).  Next week, we will be adding a chordal accompaniment to the song using the tone chimes.

Tone chimes:

The fifth grade students will get to play chords along with a fun song from the 1980s by a Norwegian band...you'll have to wait until next week to find out what it is!