Winter Choir Concert 2015

Dear parents,

We are busily preparing for our upcoming Cluster Concert and Holiday Breakfast concerts! The students have been working on three songs and are excited to share them with you next month. The more we hear music and read over lyrics, the better we learn a song so to help your child, lyrics are available below for all our songs. Each song is hyperlinked on the cover page to a website where you can listen and sing along. Links are below each image.

Angels in the Snow

Click the largest snowflake on the first page for the music!

First Flakes

Click the snowman on the first page for the music!

I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas
Click on the hippo on the first page for the music!

Getting to Know the Composers

     This year, I decided to do a composer of the month series with my 4th and 5th graders. Each class, we listen to a seminal composition and challenge our ears to hear pictures in the music. For September, we chose George Gershwin. Throughout the month, we've been getting to know about him, contemporary musicians that worked with him, and even making take-home books to share what we've learned.
   
     To start off the month, we read a brief biography from Kathleen Krull titled "Lives of the Musicians: Good Times, Bad Times, (and what the neighbors thought). Each biography gives a comprehensive overview of both the composer as a musician but also as a normal person. Many times students struggle to connect with composers because they only know their music, not their hobbies. Each entry explores the necessary details of their birth and death dates, how they were introduced to music, and followed by information about their best-known works but also shows they actually had interesting and sometimes wacky lives in the process.

Next, we reviewed thing we learned and populated a list on the board before we listened to "Summertime" from Porgy & Bess. My 4th graders do a jazz centered focus during Jazz month in April so this year's 5th graders recognized Ella Fitzgerald's voice on the recording. Little did I realize that it would turn into a historical timeline discussion of how their lives overlapped and where did I fit into the picture? So it wasn't on the lesson plan. Big deal. The fact the kids wanted to expand their understanding was well worth it! 

After we had listened to a few key compositions, we did a make-and-take flipbook. Jena Hudson over at Sew Much Music has these *adorable* flipbooks for all different genres and historical periods!

American Composer Flipbook Freebie

     Each flipbook has 6 pages for students to fill in historical era, important works, birth and death date, interesting facts, and more! Several students mentioned they're excited to take it home and teach their families about Gershwin and share his music with them. Man, I love it when teaching gets contagious!

To top it all off, the incredible Sara Bibee has Composer of the Month series which make wonderful mini bulletin boards. These are going to be fantastic to put up each month. There's even an updated version that has QR codes for students to scan and go on a musical scavenger hunt. Hmm...which version to choose?! :)

I can't wait to see what we discover with our composer for next month!

Work Hard, Play Hard!

This year I took on a new challenge in my career, a percussion ensemble. Having been a percussionist for the last 16 years it is truly part of my core. I've wanted to create an ensemble for the last 4 years of my career, but it never felt right until I had enough time truly learning my students and knowing with confidence their level of musical ability. In September, I invited representatives from 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade to push themselves to a level of musical repertoire and ensemble not reached in the general lessons. These students accepted the invitation and have blossomed tremendously into incredible young musicians and even more than the musical aspects, have developed accountability and leadership skills that reach beyond the ensemble itself. It is with excitement I plan for the next year with these students and see the next step of this group: mentoring the new invitees and truly building feeling of student ownership!

Here's some of the highlights:

Friday rehearsal for Brisa Cambiando. Check out that focus! 

Practice makes perfect!

I took some old advice from my 8th/9th grade band director for this one. She would always have us sing and pat through our parts on the bus right before we got to contest to help get us in the right performance mindset. I love seeing so much focused concentration from them - its a testament to how much they've really grown since September. 

Work Hard, Play Hard! (End of year party at JumpStreet)

This past week we gave our spring concert during the End of Year Awards Assembly. Performances can make you nervous, but the kiddos came up with their own way to shake out the nerves! 

All I can really do is snicker...

and record it! 

After all the rehearsals, parties, and antics to break up our nerves....I couldn't be more proud of these kids and what they've accomplished. 

Spring Rondo

Brisa Cambiando

Love these kids to death. Can't wait to see how they continue to grow next year!

More Music Technology - At Home!

A great way to expand music curriculum is with providing students access to great at-home websites they can use to continue exploring different concepts such as pitch names, orchestra families, ear training, and composition. I've used similar websites with my piano studio to help with note recognition on the staff and identifying keys on the piano. Most of the time, students will even pop in after school asking to play against me on the big board! There are a ton of different resources for kids to explore in all different skills - no worry about getting bored. Not to mention, its a fun way to let students review concepts as we come down to the final days of school.

Here's a list of some favorites I've used over the years:

Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra Safari: http://listeningadventures.carnegiehall.org/ypgto/index.aspx

Incredibox Vocal Arranging: http://www.incredibox.com/

Raindrop Melody Maker: http://www.lullatone.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/raindrop.swf

Opera Maker: http://creativekidseducationfoundation.org/kids/opera/base.htm

San Francisco Symphony: http://www.sfskids.org/

Dallas Symphony Kids: http://www.dsokids.com/

Note Name Speller: http://www.classicsforkids.com/games/notename/notename.html

Chuck Vanderchuck: http://pbskids.org/games/music/

Instrument Storage Room: http://www.sphinxkids.org/Instrument_Storage.html

Music Tech Teacher: http://www.musictechteacher.com/music_quizzes/music_quizzes.htm


Hope there's a website or two that's new to you to explore. Have fun!

iPads in the Music Room

3rd grade has been spending some time checking out the Garage Band app on the library iPads! They've been having a blast creating their own melodies with string sections, guitar riffs, and drum kit. A class favorite has Smart Drums where they can combine various instruments and experiment with what happens when they move and instrument closer to one of the settings like this: 

 Here's some of the ladies recording each other's compositions and then editing it in the Audio Recorder. 

The boys really have a knack for some keyboard chops!

Fifth grade students have been using an app called Animoto to create video presentations for their composer research project. They've spent several days researching all sorts of information about musicians ranging from Mozart and Beethoven to Bob Dylan to Carlos Santana and just about anyone in between! With this app, students have been collecting images that represent aspects of their musician such as portraits, awards, album covers, famous concerts, etc. Once they built a picture timeline of their musician's life, they needed to create effective captions to explain what each image represents. 

Here's a student brainstorming creative captions about the electric guitarist and rock musician, Jimi Hendrix!

Sample finished project about George Gershwin!

Catching Up!

Life went a little off course last week and now we've got STAAR testing so needless to say, I've missed my kiddos and can't wait for Thursday when I get to be with them again! In the meantime, here's a few things we were working on the last 2 weeks.

2nd grade learned the folk song "Sarasponda" accompanied by a stick game. Some folk songs have a clear history, but this one was unique because the origins are unknown and its full of nonsense words! David Row over at Make Moments Matter does a wonderful job creating bundles that explore the history and little known facts about songs various folk songs. We took 2 days practicing the stick game and got the hang of it after a while. Check out some of my students showing off below...

Third grade found out what a Rondo form was when they met Antonio Vivaldi and his Four Seasons.  In this particular piece, there are 5 different sections each with a distinct sound. As students listened, they were challenged to sort out the cards into the correct order

Sometimes it got a little tricky since there was a "Singing Birds" and a "Return of the Singing Birds", but that wasn't enough to stop us from figuring it out! After we got the cards laid out, we noticed in a Rondo form the A section happens every other time. That's what makes it a Rondo! Next class, we took this new knowledge and explored it even more by creating a movement rondo. Students created their own movements to represent each section of the music and took turns performing their creations for each other. 

(Thanks to Cori Bloom for making such phenomenal resources for listening!)

April is Jazz Appreciation Month so I asked 4th grade to dump some thoughts out on the board about Jazz. What do you know? How does it make you feel? How does it sound? What questions do you have? They certainly had a lot to say!

Over the next few classes we'll be exploring more about jazz, improvisation, and who some of the jazz greats were. We've already explored some improvisation with our recorders and had some really great melodies come out of it. Can't wait to see what else we'll dig up!

A Trip to the Islands

Over the past 10 years I've had a few spontaneous introductions to Polynesian music and cultures. Whether it is the catchy melodies or rarity of this culture's music where I've lived, the experiences have stuck with me and always brought a smile to my face. I've had a chance to experience first-hand some moments of Polynesia thanks to a Samoan acquaintance and a music tour in Hawaii. However, last year I got curious how I could share these moments with my own students.

While visiting Oahu last year, a trip to Polynesian Culture Center was an absolute must. They are a tremendous resource of authentic exposures to cultures such as Maori (New Zealand), Tonga, Samoa, Fiji, and Hawaii. The Maori culture was probably my favorite just for how involved their activities are and the ability to try things out for myself. I got to try twirling poi for myself (despite constant tangles) and sit down with others to attempt a traditinal stick game called Tititorea.

Its always important to toss the stick vertically and catch with open palm toward your partner. It helps avoid getting accidentally hit in the face. 

Poi Twirling! Originally used to train wrist and finger dexterity, now just a really fun hobby. :)

A quick jaunt across the Pacific (or just the pathways) took me to Tonga. There are so many different instruments part of the Tonga culture, I honestly lost track of what was what. However, I do have some pictures of the shells and slit drums they used to begin their demonstration. For a full Tonga musical experience, there is a link to a Ma'ulu'ulu in my TPT product. 

Large drums with a slit in the top played with oversized drumsticks. I'm pretty sure it is called a Nafi, but the generally accepted word for wooden idiophones is Lali. 

After experiencing the previously mentioned performance and more that I unfortunately didn't get pictures of, I wanted to find a way to share these Polynesian cultures with my students. Polynesian music has so much fun energy to it and isn't readily heard unless you're around the culture itself. I got to looking around on the internet and wasn't finding much Polynesian music for kids. That's when I decided to highlight 4 of the primary cultures in Polynesia; Hawaii, Tonga, Samoa, and Maori. Each of these cultures are highlighted with 3 fun facts and some form of music. Included in the bundle are 3 songs (Maori: Epo i Tai Tai e, Samoa: Savalivali. Hawaii: Mele Kahuli), 2 choreographed songs, hyperlinked recordings of all songs, performance videos of these cultural ceremonies and more!

Click HERE to be taken to my TPT store and check it out!

My first graders spent this last week learning the Maori song "Epo I Tai Tai E". While I'd usually use this for syncopation with older students, the opportunity to keep a steady beat in different places on the body and expose younger students to a totally new language was well worth the challenge. We echoed the lyrics through rhythmic chant before echo singing the melody just to get a clear pronunciation. All choreography is included in the lyrics pages of the bundle. 

Check out my 1st graders learning the choreography while rhythmic chanting!

Once we learned the actual song, we had to take a break to try out Poi Twirling! I happened to buy 3 sets while out in Oahu and watching the kids' excitement learning basic moves like jump rope, backwards jump rope, and helicopter was too much fun. :)

Polynesia has so much to share and its energy is infectious. Hopefully your curiosity has been sparked to learn more about the islands and possibly try your own hand at their dances!

Oh, and a BIG THANKS to Lindsay Jervis for having me as a guest blogger and helping promote Polynesian Music on her page as well. 

A Very "SPECIALS" Night

Last night Thompson Elementary hosted it's first Open House for Specials (Music, Art, PE). Providing exposure for our curriculums, parent education, community involvement, and interactive learning all came together in a fabulous carnival style event.

Each department (Music, Art, PE)  designed 4 interactive stations that summarize large concepts for students to lead their families through and serve as the expert. After all, parents and even homeroom teachers aren't the people who are in our classes learning these skills. Why not give the student the spotlight and let them teach others! It was such a joy to see students taking such pride in being the expert on these skills and showing younger siblings and parents how to do the same things they do.

To guide them through these stations, each student was given a ticket card to be signed off after station completion. Given a goal of 2 music, 2 art, and 2 PE students eagerly found favorite stations and took on challenges. If the ticket card was filled out completely, they were entered in a prize raffle for items such as baseball & bat set, soccer balls, art supply buckets, family 4-pack tickets to Dallas Opera and Plano Symphony Orchestra, and more!

Here's a few highlights or jump to the bottom for the digital scrapbook!

Folding Origami Cats 

Mystery Melodies - play the notes and try to identify the well-known tune. 

Spot Shot - pick a spot and make a basket :)

Saxophones are tricky! Does it belong to the brass family or the woodwind?

If you're interested in designing a similar style event, I'd be happy to share any information in how this was planned! 

Click here for the Digital Scrapbook!

Research Project

Each year, 5th grade students do a large research project on different composers and musicians who made significant impacts in the course of music history. They work in partners to complete a guided research question list and then spend a few days composing an essay and preparing a presentation to share their new knowledge with their classmates. Each pair of students receive a cover page to start their project and share 3 reasons as to why their musician is on the research list. 

Musicians range from the "big wigs" of Mozart, Beethoven and Vivaldi to more contemporary artists such as Gershwin and Stravinsky and even popular musicians such as Carlos Santana, Stevie Wonder, Elton John, Bob Dylan and more!

Students will conduct their research through approved texts and websites, video interviews with the musician (if available), and school/public library databases. They are allowed to bring their own technology devices of smart phone or tablet to supplement available resources. Once they complete their research, they will design a presentation to share with the class. This presentation can be as creative as they want to make it: poster, PowerPoint, Prezi, youtube video, iMovie, etc. As long as the visual aid is informative and is well put together, the sky is the limit!

5th grade has been receiving their packets and assignments this week and will jump into formal research on Thursday. Let's get going!

Let's Move!

This past week, 1st, 2nd, and 3rd grade students got their wiggles out with creative movement exercises. Due to our unexpected snow and ice days, students didn't always get recess and this makes movement day even better! (Sorry for the lack of pictures, but its hard to capture energetic bodies without a blur.)

1st grade students met Joseph Haydn and studied his Surprise Symphony. This was a great opportunity for us to review quarter and eighth note patterns as well as discuss dynamics of piano and forte. As students listened and identified the surprise, we brainstormed movements to help demonstrate forte and piano with our bodies. For piano movements, they came up with tiptoe, sneak, and creep. For forte, we used march, stomp, and jump. It was so much fun splitting up into dynamic groups and moving through space as we listened critically. Thanks to Cori Bloom over at Rhythm & Bloom  for coming up with such great listening and movement lessons!

2nd grade students kept with the winter listening and movement theme by getting to know Claude Debussy's The Snow is Dancing from the Children's Corner collection. It was so exciting to be able to teach this lesson on days when we actually had snow (which doesn't happen in Dallas!). Lessons are always better when we can pull in different subjects to create an integrated lesson and this was a perfect one to brainstorm action verbs to describe how the snow actually moves. We used some included movement words such as gliding, dropping, twirling and brainstormed to add waving, melting, and swaying. Watching the students dance through the space like little snowflakes was such a beautiful experience. As an ex-dancer, it is truly breathtaking to watch the unbridled creativity of a child's mind as they move. Again, thanks to Cori Bloom for creating this one too!

3rd grade students explored a folk dance to go with their sixteenth note study with the song Paw Paw Patch. This is such a fun song and lends itself to a great folk dance. I'm pretty sure my student's favorite move is "Peel the Banana" and not just for its silly name! Check out how much fun they're having below.

"Make a Bridge"

"Around and Thru!"

Peter & the Wolf

Every year, I do a series of lessons on Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf with 2nd grade students. It's a great way to become familiar with more specific instruments of the orchestra, enjoy some memorable characters, and hear a great story all in one! This year was extra special since the Dallas Symphony Orchestra included Peter and the Wolf in their educational concert series. What a way to end the unit!

Over the last few weeks we've read the story, made composer flipbooks, analyzed musical themes, watched the animated version, worked with partners for a matching game, and finally loaded up to hear it LIVE with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra! Here's some of the highlights:

There are numerous publications of the story, but this is one of my favorites. Not to mention, the artwork is beautiful. 

Each student got to know Sergei Prokofiev a little bit better by making a composer flipbook to take home. Each book had 6 tabs that revealed different facts about Prokofiev. Did you know that he loved to play chess? In fact, one of his best friends was a world chess champion! It's always easier to connect to a composer when you realize their whole life wasn't just music. Thanks to Jena Hudson for creating these fantastic books! Check out her other composer book sets at Modern Composer Flipbooks

Here's an extra little gem we didn't get to in class, but definitely worth the watch! Sergei Prokofiev plays his character themes for Walt Disney at one of the collaboration meetings for the animated movie. It's not often you see the behind-the-scenes moments so take a look. Walt Disney and Sergei Prokofiev

Speaking of the animated movie, we loved it! It is about 14 minutes long and part of the Make Mine Music collection. Of course there are other versions, but this is the best I've seen. Plus, my Disney fanatic side can't help but love hearing the voice of Winnie the Pooh narrate such a classic story. :)

The whole video is available online at: Walt Disney's Peter and the Wolf

To recap, we discussed the main characters and thought about how we would describe them. I always enjoy integrating different subjects to create a more rounded and thorough understanding. Check out some of the adjectives we decided for each character.  

After hearing the whole composition, it was time to dig a little deeper with the characters. Being able to sit quietly and really listen for musical elements is a tricky skill and takes a lot of practice, but these listening glyphs make it a lot easier. Students had to listen for dynamics, tempo, pitch, instrumentation, and then decide their own thoughts about the music. (Why couldn't my listening tests in college have been this way!?)

You can find them here: Peter and the Wolf Listening Glyphs

Lastly, we worked in small groups to match characters to the instrument of the theme. Sometimes it got a little tricky like when you hear both strings AND timpani for the hunters or when you're trying to distinguish a bassoon from an oboe, but they pulled it off!

Thanks to Tracey King for making such cute matching cards! You can find them here: Peter and the Wolf Bundle

Now that we've learned ALL about Prokofiev and his most famous composition, Peter and the Wolf it was time to load up the buses and hear the Dallas Symphony Orchestra perform it! It was such a treat getting to listen to a real storyteller narrate while the dancers from Dallas Black Dance Theater performed as the characters. For many of my students this was their first time hearing a symphony and from their reaction, I think they're going to be asking their parents to take them again.  

"Thank you for taking us to the symphony, Mrs. McKinnon!"

A Visit from The Dallas Opera

On Tuesday, 4th and 5th grade students were treated to a performance of Donizetti's Elixir of Love by the Dallas Opera. The plot is a classic love triangle: Adina is a wealthy landowner who is the desire of 2 different men. Nemorino, a poor famer, genuinely cares for Adina but doesn't feel he can ever get her attention. Belcore, an overly confident Army sergeant, is looking for a lady and proposes to Adina only 5 minutes after meeting her! Fearing he may lose any chance he has, Nemorino purchases a love potion from Dr. Dulcamara. Little does he know how this potion will affect him, Nemorino quickly drinks it and hopes that it will cause Adina to love him. Adina originally chooses Belcore, but after finding out the lengths Nemorino went to for her affection, she realizes his true intention and agrees to be with Nemorino.

To prepare for this performance, students studied the plot, characters and discussed who they would choose if they were Adina. They even developed ways to infer more information about the plot by noticing body language, facial expressions, and props. Luckily our performance was in English but sometimes you need more than just the lyrics to help understand a performance.

Here's a few highlights of the performance:

Dr. Dulcamara comes to town peddling his potions.

Here Nemorino...the Elixir of Love...it will give you what you need!

Finally Nemorino and Adina are together, but Belcore doesn't seem happy with the Dr!

If you are interested in seeing the performance again, the Dallas Opera has two more performances on Saturday, January 31 and again on Saturday, March 22. Tickets are $5.00 each and can be purchased online at dallasopera.org/family. 

For even more opera, check out the simulcast of La Boheme at Cowboys Stadium on March 21. This is a completely free event and you can even sign up for a student workshop before the performance to learn more about the plot and characters, just like we did for Elixir of Love. More information can be found at http://dallasopera.org/simulcast/

Carnival Time

Over the last four weeks, first grade students have been exploring musical elements such as pitch, dynamics, and tempo with Camille Saint-Saens' Carnival of the Animals. It is a 14 movement work, but we highlighted 7 movements to explore further. Each day we started off with a short excerpt from Barrie C. Turner's book that helped guide our ears toward the day's movement selections.

Each lesson we focused on a different musical element, beginning with a steady beat led by our puppet Roger, the Royal Lion. Now, Roger loves to dance but he only knows 3 moves: march a steady beat, roar on a glissando, and nod proudly on accented notes. 

For tempo, we met Pokey the Turtle to explain a slow tempo and lead us through mirror movement dances. Students followed Pokey's lead and then buddied up to lead each other through an improvised turtle dance. Be careful to not go too fast...you want Pokey to be able to dance too!

To contrast Pokey's slow movement, we met Jack the Mule. Mules aren't fast, you say? Well, Mr. Saint-Saens loved to play jokes and his carnival is one big joke! That's why the mules are fast. 

Story carpet time with Jack :)

For pitch, we met Ellie the Elephant and found out that she, like Pokey and Roger, loves to dance! Ellie dances a waltz with the double bass. A waltz is a dance in a meter of 3 so students learned how to conduct a meter of three and took turns wearing the elephant conductor hat to lead their class in a body percussion pattern of 3 (pat-clap-clap). 

Exploring a low pitch (double bass) with the Elephants! 

For our last element, we talked about texture. Does the music feel bumpy? Smooth? Gentle? Slimy? We chose the Kangaroos and Swan to represent bouncy and smooth textures, respectively. As you listen to the Kangaroos, you can hear them pause and look around for a new place to hop. These pauses gave us a fun opportunity to try out some directional movement and hop like kangaroos to different places around the room. Be careful to pause and look around when you hear the kangaroos do the same though!

The swans glide so gracefully across the water. We created our own ribbon dances to imitate their graceful movements and fill the room with beautiful colors. 

As a finale to all this fun, back in 1976 the San Fransisco Symphony teamed up with Warner Bros. and the Looney Tunes gang to have Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck present their own take of Mr. Saint-Saens Carnival of the Animals. The whole production can be found in 3 parts on YouTube. 

(A HUGE shoutout to Sara Bibee for her tremendous guided unit! https://www.facebook.com/SaraBibeeMusic )