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 )

Spooky Story Time

Through the month of October, different grade levels enjoyed musical stories about "spooky" pieces of music, accompanied stories with sound effects, and sang along with familiar folk songs. Here's a look at some of the books we enjoyed!

Kindergarten is reading Linda William's "The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything". Stories read with funny voices are great and all but we took it one step further and added sound effects! We've been getting to know some of the different percussion instruments found in the music room and thought this would make the perfect opportunity to play SIX of them! Students added woodblocks, jingle bells, maracas, rhythm sticks, triangles, and frame drums. Talk about fun!

First grade enjoyed a sing-along story to Lucille Colandro's "There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Bat". Its just like the classic sing-along of "There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed Who Swallowed a Fly" but with different words to go with the holiday spirit! In this adventure, she swallows a bat, an owl, a cat, a ghost, a goblin and even more! Talk about a full stomach!!!

Second grade students met the composer Camille Saint-Saens back in first grade when they explored his "Carnival of the Animals". We've been exploring Mr. Saint-Saen's music a little deeper with a Mystery Song where students drew pictures that represented what they heard in the music. Then, they found out the actual title of the song was "Fossils" and it was FROM the Carnival of the Animals they already knew about! Another famous composition of Saint-Saens' is his Danse Macabre. We found out that it was inspired by a trip to the underground catacombs in Paris, France and he used the help of his friends Henri and Augusta to help figure out exactly how he wanted his music to sound. 

Third grade learned the mystery of the Phantom Cat! Its actually the story of the Phantom of the Opera, but the author chose to turn all the characters into cats. I guess he thought its more entertaining that way? I certainly thought so! Students found out that musicals are divided into acts just like stories are divided into chapters. In this adventure, we learn of a Phantom that has been haunting the Paris Opera House and how he loves a singer named Christine. The only problem though is there is ANOTHER man who loves Christine! What happens when you have a beautiful singer trapped between the love of two admirers? You'll have to read to find out!

There were two more books we read, even though they weren't of the "spooky" variety. Check them out below!

Kinder got to meet another of the Music Class Pals with Deborah Diesen's "The Pout Pout Fish". They were introduced to Mr. Fish, but its okay...you can call him by his first name, Nemo. :) 

Nemo loves it when he gets to sing the chorus and say "Blub, Blub, Blub". After we read his story students learned how to play Nemo's Game and his song. It was an ocean-ful of fun!

Second graders are familiar with all sorts of instruments but they've never met a didgeridoo before! Nick Page wrote a super fun book titled "Do you do a Didgeridoo?" where a quirky customer searches all over the music store for a mysterious Didgeridoo and brings even quirkier pals along with him for the search! After we read the book, students saw a didgeridoo performance by William Barton with the Youtube Symphony Orchestra. I'd even say some students found a new favorite instrument!