November News

____ Here's what happened in music recently (November):

• Kindergartners continued learning about the unpitched small percussion instruments we have in the music room - studying both the Scrape and Ring families (with a Circle pass and the Listen game) as in previous weeks.  We have been using these instruments with some movement response games, too.

• First Graders spent the first half of the week focused on reading and writing rhythm patterns with tah (quarter note), rest (quarter rest) and tee-tee (pair of eighth notes).  The second half of the week we focused on melody patterns - reading and writing - with Sol-Mi-La on a 2-line staff.  These patterns come out of the Apple Tree song from the last rotation.  Friday we had a 'Talent Time' in class musical sharing and some choice time of favorite singing/movement games.

• Second Graders continued learning with our pie theme - with a focus on rhythm the first part of the week and shifting to melody on Thursday.  We reviewed Great Big House in New Orleans with our 'pie response' challenge.  We sorted pictures of fruits and vegetables used as pie ingredients (rhubarb, strawberries, blackberry, boysenberry, peach, lemon, cinnamon, apple, cherry, pumpkin, etc) - based on the rhythms.  Students then worked in small collaborative groups to create a word chain with these words/rhythms.  Using 4 of the 2-beat building bricks (with the last one being pie), at least one of the word/bricks had to be a berry so that students had a pattern with 2 eighth notes (tee-tee) in their word chain.  Once the word chains were created and practiced - student said them and then transferred them to a small percussion instrument with each group playing the same kind of instrument.  We put the whole piece together in a Rondo form (A B A C A D A) with the A section being a spoken poem - I like Pie.  Some classes made a recording of their work which you can find on the In the Spotlight page of this blog.  After this project was completed, we switched our focus to melody and hearing and writing melodic patterns with Sol-Mi-La on a 2-line staff.   

• Third Graders performed their Rock Concert for parents.  We added in the extra 'special' parts with each student choosing to either take on a Narrator part, stage hand role or help to create the 'volcanic eruption' for Earth Changes.  On Monday we sifted out who would do what and practiced those new parts.  Tuesday and Wednesday we reviewed each of the songs and pieces in order, including the student created portions of the Rock Rondo.   Thursday we had our live audience of parents, grandparents, siblings and friends.  A video recording was made of the sharing for any of you that were not able to be a part of the live performance - or to watch back with your child even if you were there.  You'll find the recording on the In the Spotlight page of this blog.

• Fourth Graders reviewed the State Song, "Where the Columbines Grow" and added a new song, "Cripple Creek" which they are singing in two voice parts (our most complicated).  This new piece not only has two voice parts, but also a soprano recorder descant that required us to learn a new note on the recorders - F#.  This rotation we also wrapped up the 4 separate train themed recorder pieces small groups were working on - making a video recording that will be incorporated into one file eventually with a voice over of a train poem.  That way we can share these pieces with parents separate from our in school sharing of the Colorado Connection Concert happening in the spring.

• Fifth Graders - Two groups (Purple and Green) focused on Rhythm through Rhythmic Canons.  We warmed up with some rhythmic echoes, then switched it to an instant canon by staying 4 beats behind while the leader went on.  We learned a rhythmic canon - discovering the form by listening with the notation fragments in front of us - and transferred it to hand drums.  These activities led students to creating their own Rhythm Canon compositions.  We also played a listening challenge with their pieces - Stand Up if You're the Composer.   The Blue and Orange groups will get a chance to do this after our Freedom Assembly in January.  In the meantime they are working on songs for that assembly.

Remember there are 3 different rotation schedules running concurrently in specials ___

• The Kindergartners come to music every 3rd day - twice in 6 days, with one extra time for each All Day Kindergarten_
  So this post covers Rotation 9-11 in music (with the Day Kindergartens having a few extra classes).

• 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 'week 4/5A of music.

• 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 cover  instructional week 5 of music (although one group is just starting this).