Week of February 12

1st and 2nd graders will participate in Informances during their music classes next week.  Parents are invited to attend your child's music class to see what it is that they do every week!  See below for specific times.

Kindergarteners in the morning class performed a Valentine-themed partner dance this week.  They enjoyed getting to dance with so many different people during this activity.  Students in the afternoon class did not have music due to Friday's early release.

First graders are studying sound during their Inquiry times, so they continued their learning about sound during music this week.  They know that sound is created from vibrations, so they felt the vibrations in their own voices and several different types of instruments, including Orff instruments, string instruments, and percussion instruments.  I used glass pop bottles to demonstrate how the pitch changes when different amounts of water are in each bottle.  They observed how I blew across the top of the bottle to create the sound, just like on a flute mouthpiece.  They really enjoyed these connections to their learning in Inquiry!  We would love for you to join us for your child's Informance next week on Wednesday, February 21 at the following times:

1 Hoffman - 10:00-10:30

1 Christus - 10:30-11:00

1 Markoff - 1:50-2:20

Second graders sang a song called "John Kanaka-naka" this week.  They worked with partners to compose rhythm stick movements on the response sections of the song.  We would love for you to join us for your child's Informance next week on Thursday, February 22 at the following times:

2 Elman - 10:30-11:00

2 Meekhof - 1:50-2:20

Third and fourth graders learned movements for their second Spring Sing song this week.  They also began learning the vocal part for their third song, which is quite difficult.  They are working very hard to hold their own parts in this song, as there are sometimes four different parts going on at once!

Some fifth graders have said they need more practice identifying the letter names of the notes on the treble clef staff, so we paused the recorder unit this week to review the note names.  They played Note Name Twister to help them review this concept.  The Twister games were purchased through a Foundation Grant from the 112 Education Foundation.  We are so grateful for their support of our music classroom!

As always, please free to contact me with any questions or concerns: ecrutchfield@nssd112.org.