Starting Out Strong!

Hello Parents, Gaurdians, and Visitors,

I am SO excited to share with you what has been happening in the K-3 Music Classroom at MLE. Each grade level has been working hard and making some incredible music. If you are interested in learning about your specific students class, please scroll down until you see their grade level heading and read from there.

Here we go....

Kindergarten

Kindergarten is such an incredible time. Students are making new friends, learning new things, and making strong connections. That type of experience moves right into the music room.
Kindergarten started the year by making some very different friends.

"Sammy The Shark" is a daily visitor to the Kindergarten music room. A few important things to know about Sammy is that he loves singing and he HATES fruit. Unfortunately, all Sammy has to eat are blueberries, but naturally, he spits them out whenever we feed him any.
Lucky for me, Sammy's great distaste for blueberries has helped my kindergarteners find their singing voice. Whenever Sammy spits out his blueberry into the air, the student follow it's path with their voices, creating a vocal siren that warms up our voices, helps us find our head voice (high voice), and gets us singing right as we walk in!

Kindergarten also recites our 5 rules of music each day:
M-ake good choices
U-se kind words
S-how respect to others
I-mmediately follow directions
C-arefully care for instruments

These rules help us to stay safe in the music room while exploring, singing, dancing, playing, and moving in all kinds of musical ways!
One of the Kindergartens favorite new ways to move is with my Dancing Scarves. Students have been working on listening to music and moving our scarves appropriately to each new song. I began with the students following my scarf but soon the Kindergartners were able to pick motions for the entire class to follow. It has been great to build our fast, slow, steady beat, and improvisational skills.

Currently, kindergarten is learning all about our Four different voices: Speaking, Singing, Whispering, and Calling. Students can identify these different voices in music as well as perform them when prompted verbally and Visually.

Next, we will be diving into our "Same Pattern" which we will later learn is called the "Steady Beat" in music!

Kindergarten is moving fast, learning a lot, and making Great musical connections. I am so thrilled to see where we will be in the coming months!

Stay posted to find out!


Bonus: Ask your kindergartner to share their favorite song from music class as "dessert" for after dinner this week. Allow students to sing and perform is a GREAT way to grow their singing voices and spend some quality time together as a family. Kindergarten has learned the following songs for you to select from:
Grizzly Bear, Wolf, 3 Little Muffins, Allee Galloo Gallee, Alice the Camel, Johnny Works with 1 Hammer, and Apple Tree!


1st Grade
1st Grade has been reviewing all concepts from Kindergarten: Steady Beat, Fast/Slow, Loud/Soft, and High/Low!
1st Grade soon began working with beat versus "the way the words go", or the rhythm of our songs!

Now, students have been working hard on identifying the rhythmic pattern of what we are singing.
Students can now identify by listening if a beat has 1 sound on it, which we labeled as "long", or two sounds on it, which we labeled as "short-short"!
We have been using picture icons to help us show visual representation of the rhythmic pattern on the carpet as we sing.
A card with two small pictures represents our "short-short" rhythm, and cards with 1 picture represent out "long" rhythm.
1st grade did a fantastic job of building the rhythmic pattern for one of our favorite songs, Apple Tree, using our picture cards!

Now that students are so successful with identifying our two rhythmic sounds, we are now learning their musical names, Quarter Note and Eighth Notes, and how we count them "Tah" and "ti-ti". By using a counting language and giving each rhythm its own unique sound, students are able to process much quicker and accurately count complex and varied rhythms with ease. Also, rhythm syllable systems have been proven to improve music reading skills! Here is a helpful and informative article about the benefits of rhythm language if you wish to learn more about its benefits.

Students will soon move on to the identification of High versus Low pitches in music. We have been exploring songs that contain two of the first pitches that we will learn and students will soon be deriving these two pitches from the music that we sing each day!

Stay tuned for more information all about our upcoming pitch work!

Bonus: Ask your student to sing one of their favorite music songs in the car. Have them first clap the beat while singing, then have them clap the "way the words go". Finally, have the students use their "tah" "ti-ti" language to speak the rhythm of the song!
Here are a list of songs that they have been working on for our rhythm concept:
Hey, Hey Look at Me, Apple Tree, SeaSaw, 2, 4, 6, 8, Bee, Bee Bumblebee, and Rain, Rain.


2nd Grade

2nd Grade has been working hard to review pitches, rhythms, and vocabulary from 1st grade concepts. So far, we have showed mastery of So/Mi pitch work, Ta/ti-ti rhythm work, quarter rests, and repeat signs.

2nd grade also started the year by being introduced to a brand new "long note" and a brand new "mystery" pitch.
Students began identifying our new "long note" in songs as we played, moved, danced, and sang. Soon student identified that the new note received TWO BEATS per note. This is twice as long as our quarter note from last year.

Students began using foam cards to identify rhythms clapped by me in class. They used the symbol of two quarter notes tied together (with a musical device called a "tie") to visually represent our new "Long Note".

Currently, students now know the musical term for our "Long Note" is Half note and it receives two beats of sound! Students can count and clap half note rhythms using a "ta-oh" counting syllable to represent our half note.

2nd grade has been working hard with flashcards, dictation cards, and SMARTboard activities to build, read, and create half note rhythms.

Most students are anxious to learn our new "mystery" pitch as we began identifying it in songs we are singing. Students can hear and identify our new mystery pitch by raising a hand or a thumb each time it is sang. We have discovered that it is higher than both So and Mi but lives closer to So in our voices as we sing each pattern.

Next week students will be learning the name, hand sign, and staff location of our new "mystery pitch"!

Stay tuned for videos and audio clips of students performing our newly named "mystery pitch"!

BONUS: Have students count and clap that following flashcards before bedtime. Then, challenge them by clapping each card silently and having them clap the same rhythm back using the proper counting syllables! Double Bonus: Have them write 2 - 3 NEW half note patterns to add to these!

3rd Grade 

3rd Grade has been working on one of the more difficult musical concepts! Syncopation!
Syncopation refers to displacing the beats in (music or a rhythm) so that strong beats become weak and vice versa. And, Yes! It is just as complicated as that definition makes it sound!

However, despite its difficulty level, 3rd grade has EXCELLED and is confidently clapping, counting, identifying, reading, and creating using our new syncopation language of "ti ta ti"!

This new rhythm brings the 3rd grade knowledge base of rhythms to include quarter note and rest, eighth notes (single and paired), half note, 16th note, and syncopation! They are truly rhythm ROCK STARS! One of the more fun games we were able to play using syncopation was the exciting passing game of Big Bunch of Roses. Students learned the song, identified the syncopated phrase, and began modeling the passing pattern we would use for the game. 
After students had mastered all parts, Out came the roses! Students passed, clapped, and counted their way through the game!

Currently, students are extending their practice of syncopation and identifying some brand new pitches!
Our 3rd graders have been working on the song Hot Crossed Buns for several weeks and using it as a reference for the three neighboring pitches it contains. We have been working hard to compare sections of songs, such as John Kanaka, Liza Jane, Button you Must Wander, and Ida Red, to see if they contain our neighbor pitches! 

Next week, we will be building out knowledge of these pitches by identifying if they are close together, which is highest, lowest, and in the middle!

Stay tuned for new songs, activities, and a DANCE that helps us answer these questions!

BONUS: One of the 3rd grades favorite new games is called "Bump Up Tomato". Ask your student to teach this game to the family, including the song and freeze game. Enjoy 15 - 20 minutes together learning to play and sing as a family! 

Here is a video of Bump Up Tomato being played for reference!


What an exciting year we have going at MLE in the music room!
Soon students will be preparing Christmas songs in addition to all of the Up and Comings I have listed here in this post!

Enjoy singing and playing with your students as you share in the "Bonus" at the end of each section!

Hope to have you all back for a visit to my blog in a few weeks for all of the new music making videos, pictures, and updates!
Thanks for reading!!


Musically Yours,
Abby Hoselton 

"Gearing Up for Great"

I've been seeing a lot of Office Depot commercials lately. All of which are dealing with the same topic: Back to School! Although I can't say that I was thrilled when I first spotted these commercials and ads in the first week of July (Personally, I believe we deserve a summer and should keep it school supply free until August), I will admit their tag line is really capturing my mood perfectly: "Gearing Up for Great!"
I am doing just that in Maple Lake right now. I am gearing up for an absolutely Great start to the 2016-2017 school year.
The music room will have a slightly different look this year with all new bulletin boards, displays, and posters! However, the REAL excitement comes from the changes that will take place inside the music room once the students have arrived back. As some of you might remember from last summer, I was blessed enough to further my music education by enrolling in the Kodaly Music Institute at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, MN. (If you are not familiar, please see here.) I have completed my second year of the institute and am now certified in Levels I and II!
2nd and 3rd grade concepts are the focus of level II and I have been hard at work revamping my lesson plans and curriculum. Students in these two grades will have a more comprehensive, sequential curriculum which will allow for better retention of musical concepts and allow us to work with more complex elements!

Students will be doing much more folk dancing and instrument playing as part of goals that I have set for my classroom for the new year. Students will also be working on singing in cannon, part-work, and simple harmonization for concerts and school performances!

All in all, the music classroom is shaping up to be even more... well, MUSICAL!

I am so excited for the students to return in September but until then, I want to leave you with a few important pieces of information:

1.) I will be teaching K-3rd grade this year. This is a change from last year when I was only teaching K-2nd.
3rd graders will return to having their concert in the WINTER, not the Spring trimester.

2.) I will be accepting new piano students into my studio starting in October. All returning students have a guaranteed place if they choose to continue lessons, however, I have several new slots opening up each day of the week due to my new schedule. I will have a booth at Open House! Come check it out if you are interest!

3.) I am hoping to add some small musical performances for each grade level in the Spring, in addition to the Winter concert. I will be seeking parent/guardian feedback as the school year begins. Please be watching and voice you opinion!

4.) I will be sending out a Newsletter each month with musical happens and activities to share as a family from the music classroom. This is an exciting new addition to my classroom so look for the contact slip in the first few weeks of school!


Enjoy the final, fading days of summer! I am SO excited as the new school year approaches. Please visit in a week when I will be posting pictures as the music room comes together!

Music and Blessings,
Abby Hoselton

The school year in Review!

It hardly seems possible, but I am sitting in an empty classroom with cleaned walls, instruments, white boards, and teacher desks! All undeniable signs that the school year has come to an end. I would like to take this opportunity to thank each and every one of you reading this post. I want to thank you for your interest in your child's musical education. I would like to thank you for your support of the arts and music here at MLE. Most importantly, I would like to thank you for your child! I am all too fortunate to work in a school system with such disciplined, respectful, and dedicated students and that doesn't happen without amazing support at home! So THANK YOU! Your hard work makes my job possible!

As an end to the 2015-2016 school year, I wanted to take a few minutes and review each grade level and what we accomplished in music class this year! Please feel free to read about each level, or skip to your child's grade and discover what fine musicians your students have grown into throughout the school year! Each grade has a labeled Header for easy reading!



Kindergarten

Kindergarten is a year of foundation laying. Each concept that I taught to the kindergarten kiddoes this year will be built upon next year to reveal a concrete musical concept of rhythm and/or melody!

Students started the year by discovering their singing voices through Vocal Exploration.
Vocal Exploration introduces students to their two singing voices: Head Voice and Chest Voice. Our head voices produce higher pitches while our chest voice sings lower register notes. We used ball tosses, bumble bee flying, note card doodles, and so much more to move our voices up and down the registers and learn the difference between the two!

Students continued their discovery of the human voice with Vocal Timbre. Vocal Timbre refers to the color, texture, and quality of the human voice. Throughout the first few months we learned about the Four Voices: Singing, Speaking, Whisper, and Calling Voice! Students used all four throughout the year in endless combinations with various folk songs. We are Dancing in the Forest, Muffins, Grizzly Bear, Allee Galloo Gallee, and Naughty Kitty Cat are just a few folk songs that we used to learn our Four Voices.

Finally, students were ready for the most basic and common musical element: Steady Beat! Students will use this term throughout music to describe the pulse, or heart beat, of a song or piece of music. Students marched, patted, snapped, clapped, drummed, and played the steady beat! By placing the beat in our bodies we can feel the music and better understand and learn it!

Kindergarten spent the final trimester of the school year learning Comparatives: Fast vs. Slow, High vs. Low, and Loud vs. Soft. Students also learned the proper music term for Fast vs Slow as Tempo and Loud vs Soft as Forte and Piano!
We will work closely with High vs. Low next year and learn a new musical term for these pitches!

Kindergarten is ending the year with singing games, chants, and play in the music classroom. The final concept we are preparing is "The Way the Words Go!" or Beat vs. Word. We will name this as rhythm next year and begin to explore quarter notes and eighth notes in 1st grade!

Kindergarten was a fun musical discovery. Students learned and played each day! I cannot wait to begin building up these young musicians next year! :)



1st Grade

1st grade brings so many new discoveries in music. Our first new discovery dealt with rhythm! Students learned that each beat of music can have 1 sound or 2 sounds. We then labeled a beat with 1 sound as "Long" and 2 sounds as "short short".
We used these two prep terms throughout class while we sang songs like Bee, Bee, Sea Saw, Apple Tree, Queen Queen Caroline, Jean Dressed in Green, and so many more. As we sang these songs, we used the SMARTboard to place picture icons on each beat and identify if they had 1 or 2 sounds.
Soon, students were ready to learn the new term for a "long" beat as a Quarter Note and the "short short" as paired Eighth Notes! We count these two notes as "ta" and "ti ti"!

We continued on to learn about high vs low and review from kindergarten! Students used picture icons to place "high and low" sounds on a two line staff. We would also sing the song using "high" and "low" in place of the words to train our ears to hear the difference! Not soon after, students were ready to learn the new musical words for these two pitches. High = so and Low = mi! We use these solfedge pitches to help us become better music readers and singers all while helping build and train our ears! These pitches also help us write more musically and we got to try our hands at composing for the first time!

At the end of the school year, 1st graders started diving into beats without any sound on them. We identified these as "silent beats" and not long after, we named them with their musical name of Quarter Rests!

1st grade students can now read rhythm flashcards, sight sing So-Mi patterns, hear and dictate (or speak back using proper syllables) So-Mi and ta, ti-ti patterns! It is truly incredible how fast they have grown and how much they have learned!

Next year, we will continue to learn new rhythms, pitches, and musical terms to help us read even more difficult music!

2nd Grade

2nd grade was such an exciting time! Students came in already knowing Quarter Note, Eighth Notes, Quarter Rests, and So - Mi!

We focused much of our year on learning new and complex rhythms.
We started first by listening for and singing "long notes" which we later learned the musical name as Half Notes. These notes receive two beats and are counted as "ta-oh"! We have a fun time exploring these new notes and playing rhythm patterns using them!

2nd graders also worked hard and learned the new terms of "Repeat Sign" and "Ostinato". A repeat sign is a musical symbol that appears at the end of a song or section of music and tells us to play the song or section over again! Students worked on several songs to discover this symbol! Amasee was the main song to help us learn this new term.
An Ostinato is a pattern that repeats itself. Ostinati are generally short phrases, 4 - 8 beats long, that are played together to form complex rhythmic passages. We created our own ostinati with themes that each class got to select! It was a great way to work on composing and ostinato!

The most complex, yet fun, new concept in 2nd grade is the learning of 16th notes. 16th notes are very short rhythms that only take up 1/4 of a beat! We used the term "short short short short" to identify these fast notes in the early stages of working with them.
After a few weeks working with songs like Tideo, Pick a Bale, Paw Paw Patch, Dinah, and Chicken on a Fencepost, students discovered the name for the 16th note and how we count it using the rhythm syllables ta-ka-di-mi! :)

2nd grade learned several new folk dances this year as well.
Folk dances are great teaching tools for musical concepts BUT I love teaching them for their connective powers. Shy students come out of their shells, unlikely friends come together, and students make connections with those around them! It is truly an incredible thing that I feel so passionate about that I filmed each class doing their favorite folk dance. Please find your student's teacher and observe your student connecting, smiling, laughing, and ENJOYING DANCING! (Even the boys!) It will shock you how much fun is had as each class dances and sings together!

Mrs. Skay's Class         

Mrs. Schneider's Class

Mr. Hammerschimdt's Class 

***A Special "Thank You" to Mr. Hammerschmidt for sharing his musical talent with us! We loved having you help us make music! :)

I hope that you and your student have enjoyed each musical discovery this year! I cannot tell you how blessed I feel to be closing my 2nd year of teaching with such incredible, hard working students! I cannot wait for next year!

Exciting side note: All of you 2nd grade parents, My schedule has changed for next year and I will be teaching 3rd grade music again! I AM THRILLED!

Enjoy your summer and stay "Tuned" to my blog as I fill you in on my Summer Music Education courses, changes in the music room, and sneak peaks at lessons for next year!

Stay cool, stay safe, stay musical!

Mrs. Abby Hoselton!

... And the students go "BOOM!"

As promised in my previous post, here is a peek at our week with Boomwhackers:

Kindergarten:
Kindergarten is using Boomwhackers for the first time. We worked on holding procedures as well as playing procedures. Students now know how to hold the instrument when we are NOT playing, how to strike their hands with the tube to make sound, and how to put the Boomwhacker back on our "rainbow wall" where the instruments hang.

My kinders are working hard on playing "the way the words" go to Ebeneezer Sneezer. This is a GREAT song to review High vs Low as well as prepare them for learning new rhythms next year in 1st grade. We use a SMARTboard projection to show them the words they are to play and with what color. This has been a great introduction to music reading as well:

We got some "Wacky 'Whacker" pictures on Friday with Mrs. Tongen's class!

1st Grade:

First Grade is using Boomwhackers to review "ta" - Quarter Note- and "ti ti" - Eighth Notes - by composing using out Pocket Chart!

Each student had the opportunity to create a 4 beat pattern using any of 5 pitches from the C scale. We first had to learn that a single block of color equaled a Quarter Note but a Double block of color equaled an paired Eighth Note! They then placed their rhythms in the pockets of the chart and the class was able to perform the composition as a class on their Boomwhackers! It has been great for the 1st graders music reading skills as well as their composing skills! We have really enjoyed playing our classmates compositions and creating our own!

We had a get a nice picture with out Boomwhackers AND a silly one! Here is Mrs. Kolehmainen's Class showing off their Boomwhackers!

2nd Grade:
2nd Grade is really showing how Strong of musicians they are! We have been working on ostinato on our Boomwhackers. An ostinato is a rhythmic pattern that repeats itself. We first reviewed our ostinati on the SMARTboard and had individual colors play according to the box that each rhythm was in:

+After the students were comfortable with their rhythms we explored the other rhythms by trading colors several times.

Then, students were ready to layer the ostinati together by playing them simultaniously. The result is an incredible and intricate rhythmic and melodic piece. Please find your students class below and listen to the sound clips I captured of each class playing this amazing musical piece. Each class has their own little differences that really make the piece shine!

Mr. Hammerschmidt

Mrs. Sky

Mrs. Schneider 

***Note: When clicking the attached link, you will be rerouted the Soundcloud website. Simply click play***

I could not be prouder of the work that the students have done with Boomwhackers this past week! They worked so hard and definitely are reaping the benefits of accomplishing great musical progress! Please ask your students about the Boomwhacker and allow them to share their stories with you! 

I would also LOVE to hear what they have to say... If you would, please share any stories your little musician shares in the comment section below! :)

Thanks for stopping by,

Abby Hoselton 

2nd Grade Music Classroom 

I have to apologize. This post comes MUCH later than I originally intended! Life sure does get busy here at MLE. But, here we go...

The 2nd graders have been working on several new concepts this year in music. Here is a quick overview of what they have learned! 

Our first few weeks of school found us working on past concepts of quarter notes and rests and paired eighth notes which helped us transition to our brand new note: Half Notes! We learned that these notes are longer than quarter notes and get 2 beats of sound!

We continued work on independent singing and part work and can now sing a round successfully in 3 parts. A musical round occurs when multiple voices sing a song in unison but begin at different times so that different points in the melody coincide. We sang and played with songs such as Sally Go Round the Sun, Row Row Row your Boat, and Now We'll make the Rafters Ring!

Ostinato is an all new concept for 2nd graders this year. An ostinato is a rhythmic and/or melodic pattern that repeats itself. Students improvised and composed their own ostinati while we worked on this new concept. Classes were even able to vote on and pick their individual themes for their ostinati compositions!

Our most recent adventure has taught us the most advanced rhythmic concept yet... The sixteenth note! Students are now familiar with its name, its rhythmic duration, how to count it and how to read it! We have been experiencing 16th notes through the use of several different flashcards, folk songs, a folk dance, and a new game called "KA-BOOM!" that the kids are begging to play each day! 

Please feel free to ask your students about this new game at home and see what they think! :) 

The 2nd grade music classes have been growing into strong musicians all year and will continue to prepare for new 3rd grade concepts next year as the school days draw to an end! 

ALL PARENTS: Please keep posted, as next week we will be utilizing Boomwhackers across all classrooms in K-2 music! It is sure to be a bright and colorful time! :)

***For more information on Boomwhackers, please see the following post from last year which offers a complete explanation!

Enjoy the up and coming spring weather! 

Musically yours,

Mrs. Abby Hoselton