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!
M-ake good choices
U-se kind words
S-how respect to others
I-mmediately follow directions
C-arefully care for instruments
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.
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!
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
