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 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!

Recorder Time

The time has come for 4th grade to begin their musical journey into recorder! We learn using Yamaha Soprano Baroque fingering recorder. This is a three-piece instrument for easier cleaning, and has a better sound than most student recorders. What I particularly enjoy about these specific recorders is they are translucent and come in three bright, candy colored options. Students may choose the color of their choice and even have the opportunity to swap out the body joint (middle) and foot joint (bottom) with a friend so they can have a multi-colored instrument. However, the mouthpiece MUST stay yours - no swapping. 

All students will be receiving a parent letter and order form just like the one below. If you are a 5th grade student who is new or did not order one last year, this is the time to order one for yourself! I will be taking orders through Friday, October 10. After that date, no more orders will be placed and students will need to contact a local music store for their inventory. 

It should take about a month for orders to be processed and returned to campus. Once they are delivered, cases will be labeled with student names. Check back around Thanksgiving Break to see how things are going and see what we've learned to play!

Week at a Glance

Hey Cougars! The past two weeks have FLOWN by with the kickoff of Percussion Ensemble, Cougar Choir, and all the excitement that happens in our regular classes! Here's a rundown of what's been happening in the classroom lately...

5th Grade has been preparing to travel back in time about 500 years to the Medieval Era for our upcoming musical - JOUST! Last week students had the chance to audition for speaking roles such as Merlin, Damsels, Court Jesters, and many more! Lyric packets went out this week to begin memorizing words at home. Stay tuned for what kind of transformation the stage will undergo in a few weeks...

 

Fourth grade learned about their opportunity to join this year's Cougar Choir, met George Friderick Handel and his "Hornpipe from Water Music", and enjoyed an African passing game called Obwesana. For it to be such a catchy and fun melody, you'd never think it means "The rock has crushed my hand, Grandma"! Crushed hands or not, its plenty of fun.  

Third grade happened to luck out with the most pictures, so lucky them! We started off reviewing songs with Do, Re, Mi, and Sol using what we know about pitch relationships to label iconic notation. Once we could sing it on solfege (that's the Do, Re, Mi business) with our hand signs, we transferred that knowledge to standard notation and figured it out on little xylophones. The little rainbow ones really come in handy when everyone is practicing the same melody. Once its solid, we can transfer to the full Orff keyboards. Later, we reviewed rhythmic values with a rhythm dice game. Quarter notes, Half notes, Whole notes, and their coordinating rests. The students had a fantastic time making their dice with their partner and seeing whose score came out higher at the end!

Second grade has been preparing for their field trip in February to the Dallas Symphony with a review of instrument families. We've really dug into the string family with some video performances, seeing how a bow is made, and even getting to experience a bow and rosin up close. Its pretty astounding to find out that the strings on a bow are actually horse hair! (I apologize for the lack of photo - I could have sworn that I snapped one during one of our small group activities.)

First grade started training their ears back in Kindergarten to recognize melodic direction, but now its time to label it. We've learned that high and low notes are actually called Sol and Mi, notes can live on lines or spaces, and there are three ways a melody can move: up, down, or repeat. 

Once we mastered Sol and Mi, we moved on to battle some aliens and blast them with asteroids with Galactic Goonies! Gotta be quick because we only have 10 seconds to identify the melodic direction before the aliens slime our astronaut with their Galactic Goo Guns. Eww!

 Find out this weekend what the final cast list is for the 5th grade JOUST! production...

MineSTAFF!

With the popular craze of MineSTAFF, I decided to jump on the bandwagon for a bit of a music theory review. Last year, 3rd grade students learned how to read standard musical notation from a staff while 4th grade enhanced their ability by applying it to reading sheet music for recorder. Hoping they didn't forget this skill over the summer, we've been reviewing note names with MINESTAFF!

Students divided themselves into teams to be represented by characters from the popular game such as Steve, Pig, Zombie, and Creeper. (Considering I've never played the game, I hope I picked the good ones!) Students then chose their world of choice and worked as a team to figure out which pitches were shown. 

 

Sharing thoughts with teammates...

So much excitement! If you're not sure, make sure to use the resources around the room to help you...

 One 5th Grade Cougar explains how she figured out lower ledger lines. Remember, the staff has a pattern of line,space, line, space and the music alphabet only goes A-G!

After plenty of review, some frenzied competition, awesome teamwork and tons of fun, I'd say 4th and 5th grade Cougars are ready to go!