3rd Grade becomes composers!

The 3rd graders are transforming themselves into composers this week.  Their assignment is to create a rhythm composition using prescribed rhythms with a partner and be prepared to perform it for the class.  Once their rhythms have been written, the students began to work with our new "Composition Menu" to make their piece more interesting.  It is like adding adjectives to a writing project to make it more pleasing to the ear.  Choices on the menu included dynamics (loud or quiet) and expressions (choppy or smooth).  Students will be performing their compositions for their classes starting today!  By the middle of next week, all students will have performed their compositions for the class.  Be sure to ask how it went!

Have a great weekend everyone!

Yankee Doodle Comes to Music!

Level 3 students have been learning about the Revolutionary War in Literacy this trimester.  In Music, the 4th graders have extended our learning about that era with a Yankee Doodle project.  The students learned several verses of the song and a hand-clapping game to play while singing the song.  Students also learned about the use of drums and drummer boys during the Revolutionary War.  We took these two parts and created an AB pattern (first sing and play the game, then march to find a new partner).

After this, we created a C section to our pattern by adding in I and V chords to play along with our singing.  But this wasn't enough for us, so we added in two sets of circle dances to perform when singing and playing chords on the instruments.

In the end, we ended up with this form:  ABCBCA. 
A = hand clapping game and singing
B = march to instruments and/or dance and game places
C = circle dances

The students have worked very hard and were excited to create these videos for you!  In one music class, we were able to take one video, critique that video, discard that video, and make another one that made most of us happy with our performances.  Enjoy the final products!

Mr. Bower's 4th Grade
Mrs. Everett's 4th Grade
Mr. Klingberg's 4th Grade
Mr. Pindar's 4th Grade

4th Grade Jingles

The 4th Graders have been creating jingles to promote healthy choices.  Some students have chosen to write a jingle about a food while others have decided to write about exercise or the importance of sleep!  Below are links to some of our jingle performances.  Keep checking back here- I will be adding to the list over the next few weeks!

Mrs. Mendell's Class
Pineapple
Oranges!
Hami
Watermelon
Carrots

Ms. Gauri's Class

Pick a Pineapple
Apples
Carrots, Carrots, Carrots
Blueberries!
Bananas

Mr. Bower's Class

Potatoes
Lemons
Exerci-ee-i-ee-i-ee-ize!
Clean Water
Peanut Butter

Ms. Capenigro's Class

Muffins
Ba-Na-Na
Go Outside!
Sports of all Sorts
Exercise

Mrs. Vail's Class

A-P-P-L-E-S
Plums
Carrots
Go Swim
Apples

4th Grade Recorder Centers

WOW, did students work hard on our recorder centers!  Check out our slide show below.

Centers in 2nd Grade

2nd Graders have been very excited to have centers come to the music room!  Many of our activities coincided with 1st grade centers, but are focused around concepts we are learning in Music (i.e. half note and melodies using So-La-Mi-Do).  Check out some of our successes!

We listened to 'A-Tisket, A-Tasket' performed by the great Ms. Ella Fitzgerald.  We had a great time listening to this new style of music and completed a listening log to show what we heard in the music.

In the reading center, students worked to match the iPods.  One iPod had the melody pattern written on the music staff and the matching iPod had the melody pattern written in pitch syllables.  Students had to work together to match all of the iPods.

We played our new favorite in the games center!

The Instrument Center looks similar to the center completed in 1st grade this week but with one change- 2nd graders wrote melodies using 3 notes (So-La-Mi) instead of the two used in 1st grade.

In the writing center we completed a worksheet about half note and half rest.  Once the worksheet was completed, students practiced writing various music symbols found in written music.  Some of them are quite strange to us!



The students and I agreed that centers were great fun.  I can't wait to put together the next round of centers!

Centers in 1st Grade

The 1st Graders have been working through centers this week.  There are 4 centers the 1st Graders are working through including Listening, Reading, Composing, and Instruments.

At our Listening Lab, students used iPods for the first time to listen to 'A-Tisket, A-Tasket' performed by Ella Fitzgerald.  Students learned how to use an iPod and completed the listening log.

 Teaching each other how to use the iPods.

One of my favorite answers of all time!

In the Reading center, students had to match the letter notation with the staff notation.  This helped us practice our So-Mi reading skills!

 It looked a little chaotic at first.

 Success!

In our Composing center, students used the Brown Bear, Brown Bear folders to compose melodies using So and Mi on both lines and spaces.

Singing with handsigns and melody names.

The Instrument Center was the most interesting to everyone- write a So- Mi melody using cottonballs then play your melody on the instruments.  The students had a great time creating and playing music.

So- So             Mi-Mi           So 

Written on the left, instrument on the right.

Students are having a great time with our centers and cannot wait to do them again.  Thanks for checking out the blog to see what Lincoln musicians are up to this year!  

Kindergarten composes High and Low sounds

Did you know that the book Brown Bear, Brown Bear what do you see? was written by Bill Martin in the year 1962?  Mr. Martin's book is 50 years old, just like Lincoln school!  This week, the Kindergartners and I read this wonderful book together.  I was so pleased to hear many of them reading right along with me!  After we read the story, we talked about some of my favorites from the book:  the purple cat, yellow duck, blue horse, goldfish, green frog, and red bird.  The class was divided up into 5 groups and given one of these file folders.

 I found the images on Pinterest

 Blue Horse File Folder

Inside of the folder.  Some folders have high and low on spaces, 

other folders have high and low on lines.

The students then worked together to compose music for their part of the story, using high and low sounds. To compose, the students were allowed to choose where their sounds would be placed- either high or low! After all of the pieces had been placed, students sang their compositions with me while following the picture notes placed on their 2 line staff.  Check out their super work!

Writing with our riser buddies

 Goldfish, goldfish

So PROUD of our work! 

We made AB Patterns too! 

 So proud!

 Many hands make light work 

2nd Grade Composes

2nd grade has been hard at work composing and practicing a song about Fairy Tales.  We all had the opportunity to work in groups to create parts of our song.  Each class was divided into 5 groups and given a snowman outline.  Students worked together to use the bottom part of the snowman to write their rhythm and lyrics for their part of the song.  After our first day of work, most of our projects looked like this:

 During our second day of work, students gave their snowman a melody in the snowman's midsection.  Each group had a soprano glockenspiel in which they could experiment with three pitches, So La and Mi to create the melody for their part of the song.

 The finished product included the dynamic marking in the top part of the snowman.  Not many groups reached this part of the project but all groups worked hard to complete as much of their part of the song as they could.
Here is a finished product:

I took the completed student projects and pieced them all together, adding a beginning and ending to help the piece feel complete.  We have practiced and will perform our song this week!


Students performed their song at the Holiday Sing on December 21.  It took two takes before we were able to capture this video of the 2nd grade singing their creation and you can hear how difficult we made our song- we had no idea!  I hope you all enjoy their composition!

http://viewpure.com/ffmAoyVnfI8