Ever notice the lists of student names on our white board? Those were volunteers wanting to perform for the class. They had the first few minutes of class to sign-up, and performances happened at the end of class when there was extra time. Whatever they performed was supposed to be practiced, not made up on the spot. Most students sang popular songs - I heard a lot of "What Does the Fox Say" at the beginning of the school year and "Frozen" towards the end. Some students performed on piano, other percussion, or they wrote their own rhythm patterns. (pictured above)
Our last day of music class, we had party day. Students could join the 'rock band' by playing drum set, guitar, ukulele, maracas, cow bell, or sing in the microphone. They also could color, put together puzzles, or dance. I'm going to really miss these students and hope to see them making lots of wonderful music in the years to come!!!
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We had some fun times last week in music class after our "Little Red Hen" performances! Friday classes enjoyed the nice weather by playing our "Charlie Over the Ocean" game/song outside. We added our featured instrument, the ukulele, after students were taught one of the chords in the song. (pictured above)
We also watched a fantastic performance given by Footnotes, the show choir of CCHS. Some of our students even got to participate! (pictured above) Today Miss Frye and I combined classes and co-taught to reinforce an important part of the 1st grade Science curriculum and how it relates to music - sound waves and vibration.
We began our lesson recalling what we know about sound and vibration. Students then felt their own vocal chords vibrate as we sang in a high voice and low voice. Showing that sound creates vibration, we did a demonstration by taping a piece of paper to the stereo, then watching it vibrate with the music. We then divided into rotating groups. Miss Frye's group used a tube to hear how sound travels. My group used the bass xylophone to feel how an instrument vibrates as it gets played, where the vibration is strongest, and what happens to the vibration if something interferes. Showing that vibration makes sounds, we talked about the different instrument families. Percussion vibrates by being struck or shook. We demonstrated this with the gong, vibra-slap, and thunder tube. Strings need to vibrate to make a stringed instrument sound. We demonstrated this with children's guitars. Woodwinds and Brass vibrate with a combination of air, embouchure, and / or reeds. We demonstrated this with bassoon reeds. Miss Frye ended the lesson by showing students a 'guitar' that she made out of rubber bands and kleenex boxes. She also reminded students that they can make an instrument out of almost anything as long as it can vibrate! First Grade students performed our mini-musical "The Little Red Hen" by Donna Dirkson this week. During 1st Grade music classes, at least one Kindergarten class and sometimes a pre-school class came to be our audience. We didn't stage our musical, but every 1st Grader had a speaking part, an instrument, and sang all of the songs. They did a fantastic job! (pictured above)
Last week was our final week for the entire class to use xylophones and glockenspiels. One of the learning standards for music includes improvisation. We improvised on our pitched percussion instruments each day we played. Below are samples from a few of our first grade classes…. Besides xylophones and glockenspiels, we worked a lot on our mini-musical "The Little Red Hen." Mrs. Rhodes'/Mrs. Phillips' class: Mrs. Stewart's class: Mrs. Vigna's class: Mrs. Wilkinson's (Mr. Shaffern's) class:
With so much going on at this time of year, I've had a difficult time updating this site!
Since the last update, we prepared for our assembly with Jim Gill by listening to "A Soup Opera" (pictured above). Also pictured above are photos from the actual assembly. First graders played the bongos along with Latin music (pictured above). For Easter we listened to "Easter Parade" while following along with the book. We also did a musical egg shaker hunt in the music room using our ears to help us find the eggs (pictured above). We worked on playing a rhythm chart and continued to work on notation. The high school jazz band performed for us (pictured above). We began our unit on xylophone and glockenspiels (pictured above). Other featured instruments have included the tuba and steel drum (pictured above). As for singing, we learned the movement song "Ricka Bamboo." We started learning music for our mini-musical "Little Red Hen" we will perform for Kindergarten this month. And we had a sing-off assembly with Kindergarten alternating our concert songs. Pictured above, first graders are preparing for their concert, "Squirm!" Mrs. P helped make a snake out of tunnels. Students practiced moving the snake by walking around the school one morning. We also used packing tape to make a huge spider web to hang on stage. Students in most classes got to help prepare the tape for the web.
VOICE: We are one week away from our concert so we have spent most of our time singing concert songs. Students who received special dancing parts have been coming to the music room after announcements for about 15 minutes some mornings to learn their moves (pictured above).
INSTRUMENTS: We made our own shakers with 'worms' for our concert (pictured above). Students also experienced the flute, piccolo, clarinet, bassoon and oboe. VOICE/CONCERT: Students were assigned microphone and dancing parts this week. They were asked weeks ago if they wanted either. If they said yes to a microphone part, they got one (unless they were chosen for a dancing part). If they said yes to a dancing part, they were told I would be watching how well they were learning our concert songs and following directions.
NOTATION: Students started their 3rd turn with rhythm patterns. This time they work with a partner to compose 4-beat patterns using magnets. (pictured above) Click on the link below to hear an example of a student-composed rhythm pattern. INSTRUMENT: Our featured instrument was the French Horn. Thank you to Mrs. Ruzinok, the CCMS band director, for lending a French Horn to us this week. Students got to see and hear it in person. Then we watched a short YouTube video of a French Horn player doing cool arrangements of John Williams' music. MOVEMENT: Students played with bean bags while listening for French Horn music. |