Week of January 19

It's been another busy week in the music room!  I was at a music educators' conference in Indianapolis Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, so that's why this post is coming on Sunday instead of Friday.  I'm coming back to Wayne Thomas with all kinds of new ideas to enhance your students' learning experience!  Here's a look at some of the things that happened last week in music...

Kindergarteners in Ms. Tepper's morning class watched the stories Musical Max and There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed A Fly and sang along.  Students in Ms. Murphy's class watched "I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing" and moved to the steady beat to songs from various cultures.


First graders continued their instrument family unit this week by learning about the string family.  They also started watching "Peter and the Wolf," a children's story spoken by a narrator and accompanied by an orchestra.  Both the music and the text were written by Sergei Prokofiev.  Each character in the story is represented by a theme played by a particular instrument.


Second graders sight-sang phrases using sol, mi, and la on the five-line staff.  They also used the song "Miss Sue" to learn about macrobeat and microbeat and to review dynamics, including pp, p, mp, mf, f, ff, crescendo, and decrescendo.  They reviewed the instrument families by listening to and discussing the story Manuelo the Playing Mantis.


Third graders learned sixteenth notes this week!  They discovered that none of the notes they already knew could complete the rhythmic dictation for "Tideo," so they learned that four sixteenth notes barred together get one beat and are counted tika-tika, and one sixteenth note on its own gets 1/4 of a beat.  They worked with fractions to compare the value of a sixteenth note to the value of an eighth note.  They also learned about George Gershwin and composed movements to demonstrate the form of his song "I've Got Rhythm."


Fourth graders played the brown belt song "William Tell Overture" together on the recorder.  Most students are currently working on their blue or red belts.  They will have one more week to test for belts in class.  If they wish to continue working on their recorder music, they can schedule a time to meet with me outside of class.


Fifth graders continued working on their newest recorder notes, low C and F.  Most fifth graders are still working on their orange or green belts since we did not have school on Monday, which is their testing day.