Week of January 30

First and second graders are looking for dinosaur costumes or costume pieces to use in their Spring Sing!  If you have any that you would be willing to lend them, please send them to school with your child or contact Mrs. Crutchfield!

This week, Kindergarteners in Ms. Tepper’s classes reviewed quarter notes and quarter rests by playing various rhythms on maracas and tambourines.  They also reviewed high and low sounds by playing the xylophones, metallophones, and glockenspiels.  Students in Ms. Waller’s class sang a song called "Engine, Engine" and read a book of the same name.  They focused on the difference between rhythm and steady beat.  They played the steady beat on the gathering drum and the rhythm using egg shakers.

First and Second graders were very excited to learn their parts for the Spring Sing this week!  They began putting the entire show together and piecing all of the instrument parts and speaking parts together.  Please be sure to note the date change for the 1st-2nd Grade Spring Sing!!  Due to a conflict, it will now take place on Thursday, March 8 at 7pm at Elm Place Middle School.  More specific information will be sent out when the concert is a little bit closer.

Third and fourth graders were very excited to begin their Spring Sing music this week!  Their concert is about pirates, and they are already having lots of fun with it!  They learned their first song this week, and were surprised at how much of an adjustment it is to sing in the "pirate language!"

Fifth graders began the music for their Spring Sing this week!  In the process of learning their first song, they learned about radio call letters and the reasons why some start with different letters.  They also reviewed some of the tricky aspects of reading a "musical road map," like following multiple repeat signs, first and second endings, D.S. al Coda, and many more.

Music Fact of the Week

National Inventors' Day is celebrated each year on February 11, in honor of Thomas Edison's birthday, which was in 1847.  Thomas Edison invented the phonograph, which was first used to record and play sounds.  This invention changed music in many ways!  How has recorded music changed in your lifetime?  Have your child interview his grandparents and compare the inventions they used to record and play music with those that are used today.