January Fun

I apologize (again) for the lack of updates... keeping a weekly blog with videos and pictures is harder than I thought it would be!  Since Point O'View has had so many new kids come in since September, I am working to make sure the newer students have media releases before I can post videos and pictures that might include them. 

A few of you have been asking about kindergarten spinning time.  I first encountered this activity when I was student teaching in Franklin, TN.  The kindergarten students met for one hour every day for SMART time.  The first 15 minutes of this time was spent as a whole group.  We would begin by spinning and stopping in 15 second increments.  I found that this was a great way to get students up and moving.  Every music day we spin for 3-5 minutes while listening to classical music.  Not only does it encourage exercise, it also introduces them to different types of music and forces them to listen for directions while music is playing.  Here is a small clip of one of the classes during their spin time.  I let the kids spin at their own rate.  Sometimes we are tired and spin more slowly, while other times we are more excited and spin more quickly.  When we stop, the kids are encouraged to put their hands on their knees and close their eyes so we can regain our balance and having time to just listen.

Since I last posted, the first graders learned about the so and mi family that live on Music Lane.  They are now singing songs using these pitches.  If you ask them, they should be able to tell you that the so family is higher and the mi family is lower.  Hopefully they can even sing them for you!

Second graders have been learning many new pitches on the Music Lane scale.  We now know the 5 notes of the pentatonic scale, which are do, re, mi, so, and la.  We have been dancing and singing and learning all about the different ways songs can be formed.  So far we have learned about the forms A, AB, ABC, and ABA.

Third graders just learned a new pitch, too!  We learned that "high do" sounds the same as "low do," just at a different octave.  Here is one class singing a song using the pitches we know.

Fourth graders are continuing to practice our recorders.  We are learning another new note this week, low D.  This is the note right under the treble clef staff.  It is a difficult note to play.  I have encouraged the students to take their recorders home and practice when possible.  If your child watches TV, they could practice just during the commercials of one 30 minute show.  This would give them 5-10 minutes of great practice time, split up into increments that would not be stressful or overwhelming for them.  If this is too much for other family members' ears to take, the front porch is a great place to practice:)

Fifth graders have been singing, dancing, and playing instruments.  We been practicing movement improvisation for the last few weeks.  This means the students are creating their own ways to move without me giving them many limitations.  This video is an example of one type of movement improvisation.  The students were given a scarf and asked to get into groups.  I then gave the scarves a characteristic and had the students pass them to one another, showing that characteristic.  It is pretty funny to watch!  The kids did a great job with this.

Economics Rap

The third graders have been talking about economics in their classrooms.  Miss Johnson, our Gifted Resource Teacher, told me that two boys made up their own rap about economics.  I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!  We have some super talented kids here!

Brand New Year!

Welcome back!  We have had such a great first week back in school!  The topic this week for most of the grade levels deals with new beginnings and what we did over Winter break.  The kids are doing a great job getting back into the swing of things.

In kindergarten, we practiced using our singing voices to share what we did during our vacation.  Some of the students shared a gift they received, a place they went, or an activity they did.  We used our high and low voices and I assessed their accuracy of imitating high and low.  We then read a book called The Snowy Day and the students pantomimed the story.  One of my goals in my music classroom is to provide a safe place for improvisation and creativity.  Watch these students in Mrs. Meltzer's class as they act out the story.

First graders explored triple meter this week, though they have not heard that label yet.  We learned a poem about the holidays being over.  The students had to show me a steady beat on their legs and in their hands as we spoke.  This is challenging for some students, as they have to think of both words and movements at the same time.  We then used words from our poem to create a word chain on the board.  The first graders will be assessed soon on their accuracy of rhythm reading.  We took our word chain and notated it rhythmically.  We also had fun on instruments this week.  We learned about the pitches so and mi and practiced playing a steady beat to a song using those pitches.  Here is Mrs. Pfeiffer's class playing a chord bordun, which means they are playing two notes at the same time underneath the song.

The second grade classrooms learned the same poem that the first graders did, but with a twist.  Instead of keeping just one steady beat, they had to show me two different types of steady beats.  First we spoke the poem while patting a quarter note steady beat, then we spoke the poem while patting a half note steady beat.  Ask your children how a quarter note and a half note are different.  We learned a song called "Taxi, Taxi."  This song contains 3 pitches: so, la, and mi.  We have been practicing writing these pitches on a 3 line staff.  This skill will also be assessed in the coming weeks.  The students also began learning "The Noble Duke of York," to which we will add a dance next week.

In third grade, the students learned a fiction song about 3 monkeys.  This song will be used in the coming weeks to reinforce the sounds of the pitches do, re, mi, so, do'.  In this song, one of the monkeys is said to be smoking a corncob pipe.  We took this important opportunity to discuss fact vs. fiction and had an important discussion on the dangers of smoking.  You would be so proud of your kids and the reasons they gave that smoking is bad for your body.  We also practiced the skill of mirroring.  This is the first time they have mirrored one another rather than mirroring the teacher.  Take a look at their creative movements!

The fourth graders began with a dance this week.  We danced with partners to "Pattycake Switch."  This folk dance is very challenging, but the kids did an amazing job.  We defined the term "do-si-do" and learned how to do this movement with our partners.  We also learned about concentric circles, where one partner was in the outside circle and the other was in the outside circle.  After our dance, we learned a simple song called "Chipper Chopper Joe."  We used a chart on the promethean board to color code different lines in the song.  Each student was given an instrument and asked to play only on their color.  This was quite a challenge to some, but is a great lesson in tracking as we continue learning to read music.  The video for this is on my school computer and I will upload it on Monday :)

Fifth graders delved into the exciting world of mixed meter!  Most of the music we hear on the radio is in either duple or triple meter.  We practiced "Chick, Chick, Chatterman" in duple and triple.  We then combined the two- we combined a line of triple meter (3 beats) with a line of duple meter (2 beats) and came up with mixed meter (5 beats).  Ask your student to show you the movements we added to our song.  We will keep practicing this- it feels very unnatural to move to music in mixed meter!  Fifth graders will be assessed next week on the 4 major instrument groups.  We reviewed these groups and the instruments in each.