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2nd graders have been playing classroom instruments such as shakers, rain-sticks, vibraslap, xylophone, metallophone and glockenspiel. Ask your child what each of these instruments is! They have been discovering and developing the self control that is needed to successfully play music with a group. They have been singing and playing games along with our practice and really enjoying "as many turns as possible!" In the first video, students are singing a song about bats and accompanying on xylophone. In the second video, students are playing a game called "Pass the Pumpkin" and rotating through the instrument stations set up behind the circle. This game reinforces steady beat, quarter, eighth and half note rhythms, and singing and playing in a minor key. It's also really fun!
First grade students have been singing songs, moving with purpose to music, and playing games that reinforce steady beat and tuneful singing. Here, two classes are playing a well loved game called "Pumpkin Patch". This week, we will be listening to and moving to "The Wild Horseman" by Robert Schumann and "In the Hall of the Mountain King" by Edvard Grieg. Play these songs at home and see what your children can tell you about each piece!
Each day in music class we sing songs and play games that help develop tuneful singing and a sense of steady beat. Tuneful singing is not necessarily something that comes naturally to all children and so we spend time each day on vocal exploration, echo songs and chants that help students learn more about how to make high and low sounds, how to change between their singing and talking voices, and how to keep the beat. Here, two brave students are demonstrating Acorn Song into the "microphone". I was so proud of them for volunteering and singing in front of all of their friends!
Students have been working hard to develop a beautiful tone on recorder and they are making great progress. This week, classes began playing B A Superhero, Hot Cross Fun and Gift of GAB. This class is watching an orchestra perform The Flight of the Bumble Bee by 19th century Russian composer Nikolai Rimsky Korsokov. This piece is an excellent example of how composers can vary dynamics and expression in music to achieve a specific sound or feel. Students will begin to practice our parody of this piece on recorder called Fright of the Blunder Bee. They can practice at home along with recordings found in the Google Drive folder on the homepage of this site! Please encourage them to practice for 5 minutes every day. 
1st graders have been singing, playing musical games and moving to music this past month. We've been exploring locomotor and non-locomotor ways of moving to music and we've begun to record these ideas with our Alphabet Actions chart. We read the well loved book Bear Snores On by Karma Wilson and Jane Chapman. As each new animal enters the cave, students contribute the sounds that the story requires! We decode the rhythms of these sounds and will transfer them to instruments this week. Here is a clip of on class practicing their favorite rhythmic pattern, "burp, burp, burp, excuse me!" which becomes "ta, ta, ta-di, ta-di".
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