First week(s) in music - August /September

Posting this school year will be a bit of a challenge since in specials at GRE this year, there are 3 different rotation schedules running concurrently:

• The Kindergartners come to music every 3rd day - twice in 6 days, with one extra time for each All Day Kindergarten_
  So as of this post Kindergartners have had 10 days in music (with the Day Kindergartens having had 4 or 5 extra times.

• The 5th graders come to music for a week every 4 weeks (1 week of music, 3 weeks somewhere else) so this post will tell you about the first 2 'weeks' of music, although one group is still on their week 2_

• 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th Grades come to music in a 3-week rotation (1 week of music, 2 weeks in other specials) so this post will tell you about the first 2 weeks of music, although one group is into their 3rd 'week'.

With all that in mind, here's what happened in music in our first weeks together - August / September:

Kindergarten:

• Opening song / gathering routine to start each class period  "Such a Makin' a Circle
• Explored new verses with physical motions to show the 'heart beat' of the song
• Each individual student got a turn to take their solo walk / run to the poem "Let's Go Walking" and we then added their name to our class chart based on the number of claps (syllables) in their name
• We began exploring the space with different locomotor (traveling) steps, without bumping into others
• We explored a nursery rhyme, Wee Willie Winkie, through speech, actions and a dramatization, adding instruments for the clock chime, knocking at the window, and 'creating' the town
• The All-Day Kindies also explored the space with a couple of directed singing games:  Look at How I'm walking and Back to Back/Face to Face

In the coming weeks Kindergarten students will be introduced to the various un-pitched percussion instruments by timbre groupings.

First Grade:

• We began with a movement/listening game Move and Stop.  
• We established some expectations for working together in the Music Room and did some Name Game activities so I could learn and re-learn everyone's names
• This is My Place / This is My Space - navigating the shared space in movement and returning to a home space
• It's So Good to See You - Welcome song with movement - exploring the beat in stationary (non-locomotor movement) and locomotor movement (traveling).
• Hand Drum piece, Big Drum, Small Drum in a Rondo Form (look for a video clip on the In the Spotlight page)
• Uncovered the musical symbols in Big Drum, Small Drum - tah, tee-tee and rest
• Used these symbols to practice Rhythmic Dictation with stick notation and Rhythm Reading patterns
• Movement with tah team and tee-tee team - moving when 'your' sound was heard
• New poem:  Two, Four, Six, Eight
• Used this to explore different voices, phrase and conductors
• We enjoyed a Folk Dance Friday

In the coming weeks we'll turn Two, Four, Six, Eight into a song and add some accompaniment on tone bars.

Second Grade:

• We began with a movement/listening game Move and Stop.  
• We established some expectations for working together in the Music Room and did some Name Game activities so I could learn and re-learn everyone's names
• It's So Good to See You - Welcome song with movement - exploring the beat in stationary (non-locomotor movement) and locomotor movement (traveling).
• Hand Drum piece, Big Drum, Small Drum in a Rondo Form (look for a video clip on the In the Spotlight page)
• Uncovered the musical symbols in Big Drum, Small Drum - tah, tee-tee and rest (a review from last year)
• Used these symbols to practice Rhythmic Dictation with stick notation and Rhythm Reading patterns
• Movement with tah team and tee-tee team - moving when 'your' sound was heard
• Solo assessment of Rhythm Reading 8 beat patterns [Solo / Whole Group] 
• We enjoyed a Folk Dance Friday

In the coming weeks we'll be learning about the Pentatonic scale and accompanying our singing with the tone bar ensemble 

Third Grade:

• We began with a movement/listening game Move and Stop.  
• We established some expectations for working together in the Music Room and did some Name Game activities so I could learn and re-learn everyone's names. 
• We spent a week on Drum Circle activities - including echoes to introduce two different strokes:  Bass and Tone
• Question and Answer phrases, extended with whole group echoes
• Drum Ensemble piece:  Ice Cream with tubanos, hand drums, maracas and cowbell
• New song:  The Staff has 5 to introduce the lines and spaces of the treble clef
• Students completed a homework page, creating an original E-G-B-D-F sentence with an illustration.  These were shared over the course of the week.
• We began on two songs for an upcoming Parent Sharing which aligns with a science unit - Our Rock Concert.
• Rock Concert opener
• Rock Concert reprise
• Rock Passing game from Ghana:  Obwisana
• We enjoyed a Folk Dance Friday

In the coming weeks we'll revisit the Rock Concert songs we've started on and add to them with some new ones and vote as a class on our top 3 picks for new EGBDF sayings to display in the hallway.

Fourth Grade:

• We began with a movement/listening game Move and Stop.  
• We established some expectations for working together in the Music Room and did some Name Game activities so I could learn and re-learn everyone's names. 
• We spent a week on Drum Circle activities - including echoes to introduce two different strokes:  Bass and Tone
• Question and Answer phrases, extended with whole group echoes (Q/solo Answer, Q/tutti answer)
• Drum Ensemble piece:  Ice Cream from text with tubanos, hand drums, maracas and cowbell; adding an improvised Q/A extension
• We reviewed the lines and spaces of the treble clef with the song, The Staff has 5 learned in 3rd grade.  We extended the music alphabet pattern - line, space, line, space to discover the note names of the notes above and below the staff.  After daily practice in different ways on this information we had our first try at the 50 in 5 challenge - which is a timed note naming challenge.
• We began working on some pieces that will be part of a parent sharing later in the school year, focused on songs that connect with 4th graders study of Colorado:
• Symbol Song - each student selected one of 5 verses to sing, and also learned the parts we all sing in unison
• Stegasaurus Stomp - reviewing the notes B, A, G on soprano recorder we learned this piece from the music notation
• We enjoyed a Folk Dance Friday

In the coming weeks 4th graders will review these two Colorado Connection songs and get started on a Cheyenne [Native American] piece from the region.

Fifth Grade:

• We began with a movement/listening game Move and Stop.  
• We established some expectations for working together in the Music Room and did some Name Game activities so I could learn and re-learn everyone's names. 
• We spent a week on Drum Circle activities - including echoes to review two different strokes:  Bass and Tone
• Question and Answer phrases, extended with whole group echoes
• Drum Ensemble piece:  Peter, Peter if you're Able from text - featuring tubanos, with guiros, maracas, buffalo (bass) drum and cowbell.  
• We extended the piece with drum improvisation over the small percussion ostinati
• We learned two separate pieces that fit together:
• Piece for Body Percussion with two parts layerd
• Piece for Paired Pitched Percussion (woods and metals)
• Class Videos can be seen on the In the Spotlight page
• We enjoyed a Folk Dance Friday and/or a First Talent Time / choice day

In the coming weeks students will review recorder technique and learn a musical piece as a model for their first music composition project of the year.