Kindergarten – I can’t believe how quickly our Kindergarten classes are developing their singing voices this year!  It is so much fun to watch and hear them progress each week.  This week we used instruments (rhythm sticks) to help us perform “The Wheels on the Bus” as a way to practice performing the steady heartbeat.   We also reviewed our alphabet game where students have to create letter shapes out of their bodies.

*****I actually had a video of this, but I accidentally deleted it!!!!*****

1st GRADE – this week we introduced the music staff, explored how it shows high and low sounds, and practiced identifying notes on lines and spaces.  This was all done using fun, interactive games at the smartboard of course!!!

2nd GRADE – What a great week of work on the musical and a special thank you to our parent helpers who are working with students to practice lines for the musical.  We started practicing on the risers this week and I must say that this group of 2nd graders has exceptional riser behavior.

3rd GRADE – This was our Pitch Hill week where we met the solfege syllable FA and learned her hand symbol.  Pitch Hill is a story created by a colleague of mine that I use to teach pitch reading skills in solfege.   We finished class with a game called “I Lost My Partner” where 1 student plays and instrument and the other has to follow the sound of the instrument with his/her eyes closed…so much fun and so great for training our ears!

4th GRADE – Form is the way music is organized.  We explored form using letters, listening games, and in the folk song “Oh Susannah.”   Students also discovered that folk dances follow the form of their accompanying folk songs as we learned the folk dance for “Oh Susannah.”

5th GRADE – Students learned the “secret of Pitch Hill” this week and met the “secret” twins who live below Pitch Hill.    Students also performed a drum/movement activity called “Play 1 / Walk 7” which involves internalizing the steady beat while moving stylistically to different types of music.