It was an odd week because we were virtual on Monday and Wednesday, and then in person on Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday. The pictures you see below are a mishmash of our adventures in learning music while being flexible! This week, Kindergarten and First Grade used our time together to sing a song about a snowman. The words are: I have a little snowman, he is so fat and round. I made him from a snowflake, that fell upon the ground, I gave him eyes, a nose, a mouth, a nice warm scarf of red. I put some buttons on his coat, a hat upon his head! Watch him as he melts to the ground. The students learned the song with actions when we were in virtual learning, and then when we were together in person again, we added Boomwhackers. The students loved trading colors with each other and playing a new note of the song!
Second Grade had the awesome opportunity to learn about Jingle Dress Dancing, which comes from the Ojibwe tribe of North America. We learned about the history of the Jingle Dress Dance, including how to make a jingle dress, and then we spent some time learning how to do the dance and made our own! Check out our dances below, with music from the Black Lodge Singers (link here). This week, Third and Fourth Grade students continued their Snow Day work - learning how to play the song on the virtual xylophone as well as the real xylophone. We specifically learned the harmony part to accompany the melody, and put them together. Then, we learned about Haikus, which are a Japanese form of poetry, and created our own. The topics ranged from beautiful nature and frogs to eating cheeseburgers and all sorts of silly things. The goal is that we will compile these together for a performance! Our Fifth Grade learners continued our Ukulele Unit this week by learning about the differences between playing chords and playing tabs. Here are two videos that we used for comparison, featuring "We Don't Talk About Bruno" from Disney's Encanto:
Our youngest learners, our Young Five's, focused this week on The Mitten by Jan Brett. We are going to collaborate with the Kindergarten students for our program, to retell the story of Nicola's mitten and its journey! You can just imagine the kids trying to all fit under this mitten - stay tuned. :)
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It has been a very busy, ever changing few weeks back to school this January. I apologize for not having the last two weeks' posts up yet, but they are coming. Look what just happened in our classroom - perfectly timed for our fifth graders as they begin our ukulele unit! Many thanks to our physical properties personnel as they worked to make this happen, and to our Rotary Club of Ann Arbor donors who sponsored the ukuleles, tuners, and wall hangers!!
The 2022 Martin Luther King Day video: For our first week back in January, we've been virtual - unfortunately my entire family has been sick and the students had a guest teacher this week. However, the students focused on learning music about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., quiet/loud, Blue Man Group, Chrome Music Lab, and so much more!
I hope that it was a restful, joyful, and re-energizing winter break for all, and truly look forward to making more music together very soon. |
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