Pictured above: some students admiring their Music In Our Schools Month hallway display during dismissal. To continue our celebration of Music In Our Schools Month, we took another look at Because by Mo Willems (yes, the same author of the Elephant and Piggie books, and the Pigeon books, too!) and illustrated by Amber Ren. One of the wonderful things about this book is that the author and illustrator do a great job of highlighting all the people it takes to put together an orchestral production, and we were able to identify music careers on every page. Some classes found as many as 42! Third Grade spent all week learning and preparing an American folk song called Rocky Mountain. We learned how to sing the song, then added physical motions (clapping, patting legs, snapping, and stomping). This was great practice for audiation, which is when you internalize the song by singing it in your brain but not out loud, and seeing that our physical motions would still line up together! We put a simple ta-titi rhythm together using tambourines, and created an ABCBA song to review form, and then transitioned our physical motions into patterns on the xylophones and hand drums. The video below is the culmination of our efforts this week - five parts happening simultaneously, with great success!
Our First Graders experienced "centers" in the music room for the first time this week, as well. We rotated through three different activities: reading non-fiction books in preparation for their study of sound in their science/PLTW classes, reading songs (think Mary Had A Little Lamb in illustrated form), and working with the teacher drawing ta's, titi's, and sh's in preparation for an activity next week. Surprisingly, the students' favorite activity was the non-fiction reading!
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This week, all of our classes are starting our celebration of Music In Our Schools Month! During the month of March, we will do many activities that highlight the music that happens within our music classroom but also in our students' everyday lives. Our first activity: a school-wide puzzle! Students answered prompts such as, "I like music because..." "My favorite instrument is..." "Music is fun because..." "The best thing about music is..." and "Without music, life would be..." and then colored their puzzle piece while listening to some instrumental music. Here are students in action: Here is our wall before: And here is the completed project! (until we add more on Monday, of course) Our First Graders also spent some time learning about spirituals and began learning "Somebody's Knocking At Your Door." We talked about how it sounds like there's space for knocking on a door, which we filled with wood blocks. They were so loud and so fun to play! Our Young Fives continued working on our songs for The Mitten and even added instruments. That video is coming soon, so keep your eyes peeled for the finished product!
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Mrs. BergerTeacher, parent, dog mom, traveler Archives
March 2024
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