Week Seven in Review (Oct. 19 - Oct. 23)

Greetings from the music room! It was another exciting week of singing, moving, and playing instruments! Here are some of the highlights:

Kindergarten students reviewed the sounds of drums, maracas, woodblocks, and tambourines by playing a listening game and singing the nursery rhyme Peter, Peter Pumpkin Eater. Students also created new verses to the chant The Witch Has an Itch while passing around a stuffed witch and providing her with scratches. We also continued to explore different movements to Dem Bones, This is Halloween, and Hey, Betty Martin.

First grade students practiced their loud and quiet voices with a chant called Stirring My Brew. Students also continued to explore the presence of two sounds on a beat using beat charts. Students were asked to place one or two spiders on each beat in order to show the rhythm of Spider, Spider Legs and All. Students learned a new song called Hippity Hop and were each given the opportunity to sing the name of their favorite candy using melodic notes sol and mi. Students also began learning a song called See Saw that will be used to help students learn to identify the notes sol and mi.


Second grade worked together as a class to place see saw icons onto the staff in order to represent the contour of the song See Saw. Students were also introduced to the names for two new melodic notes (sol and mi). Students then learned the rules for these notes. If sol is on a line, mi is on the line underneath. If sol is in a space, then mi is in the space below. Next week, students will practice reading these two notes from the staff. Students reviewed the song Must Be Halloween and decoded the rhythm of the song using their bodies and construction paper. The class was then introduced to quarter rests and placed quarter notes, eighth notes, and quarter rests into ghosts using the interactive board to create a 'B' section for this song.

Third grade students all had the opportunity to be a leader for the improvisation activity The Halloween Cat. Students were invited to the front of the classroom in groups of five to take turns creating different ways of describing the Halloween cat. Students also played a beat tag game in which students were only allowed to step on the first count of each whole note. Additionally, students reviewed quarter and eighth note rhythms by participating in a rhythm telephone game and began decoding the melody to the song Closet Key by using a five line staff and key icons.

Fourth grade worked very hard this week to practice identifying the letter names of notes on the treble clef staff. They completed a story that used musical notation called Grandma's Farm and a Word Maker worksheet. At the end of the week, students were able to see how much progress they have made in the past two weeks when they had the opportunity to play Staff Wars and Note Squish on the music department ipads once again. Many students surpassed their previous high scores on these games! Students also had the chance to review a patting/clapping game called Double Trouble.

Fifth grade students continued to practice dotted quarter note and single eighth note rhythms through activities such as flashcard reading along with recorded music and moving around the room to find flashcards on the floor that match a clapped rhythm. In honor of the upcoming Halloween holiday, students listened to a 1925 composition of American composer Henry Cowell entitled The Banshee. Students discovered how the strings inside a piano could be used to produce chilling sound effects. Students also viewed the score to this piece and discussed the non-traditional use of the piano in this composition.