Level 3 Drumming begins!

Over the past two weeks, Level 3 students have started drumming in the Music room.  We have learned to play open tones on the drums and have tried our best to avoid the 'poison patterns' (thank you Aileen Miracle!).  Soon everyone will have learned "Annie Ate Jam" (from Hands On!) and how to play bass tones and open tones on the drum.  Be sure to ask your child about it!

Students!  If you read this blog entry, come and tell me the secret password sometime this week (September 7-11).  I'll have a prize if you do!  This week's password is 'Italy'.  See you soon!

Jazz in Level 3

We have been studying form and order again in Level 3!  This time, we worked with one of my favorite jazz pieces called "Potato Chips" by Slim Galliard.  I used a sequence I learned from Marcie Kumor at an institute day several years ago with the students to create our motions to go with the form of the song.  Students had to remember what music went with what stick patterns.  Students also had to improvise a section of the music by using the names of different kinds of chips (i.e. crunchy cheesy, cool ranch, sour cream and onion, etc.).  You can hear several of the students (and sometimes me) speaking the different chip names during the videos.  You'll also see some stick tricks which were tricky but super fun to learn!

Brennan AM

Brennan PM

Harte-Naus AM

Harte-Naus PM

Mason AM

Mason PM

Vail AM

Vail PM

Thanksgiving Dinner Fun

It's the week of Thanksgiving and we are all dreaming of the plate we will construct for Thursday's dinner.  Whatever your favorite, everyone's plate looks just a touch different even when the same dishes are on the table.  Level 3 students used Thanksgiving Dinner Rhythm Cards (click here for the TPT link) to create a rhythmic Thanksgiving dinner to perform for the class.

Some groups went back for seconds (it's hard not to on Thanksgiving!).

Students performed their Thanksgiving dinner rhythms for the class on the drums.  Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Things are getting Spooky!

October is a spooky month, so why not celebrate with some spooky songs in music!  First grade is currently working with a song called "Mrs. White had a Fright" to learn about music syllables (rhythm).  We are working with this adorable set of ghost pictures made by Emily at The Sweetest Melody (click here to link to the TPT store).

Level 3 is working on reviewing sixteenth notes and sixteenth/eighth note combinations with Aileen Miracle's Ghost Rhythms (click here to link to the TPT store).

On the less spooky side, Second grade is singing a song about Columbus and adding in the notes they know on the xylophones (so, la and mi) while singing the song.

I'm hoping to post some pictures and video of the fun soon.

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!

ZAP IT!

 
2nd and 3rd Grades learned how to play the game Zap It! over the last few weeks.  Mrs. DeFrang (music teacher at Franklin) taught me this game and I am so thankful that she did because we LOVED IT!!!

We learned to play in our riser groups.  Each riser received a Popsicle stick with a rhythm printed on the end.  Each riser had to perform their rhythm by clapping and saying the rhythm (we used quarter note and rest, eighth notes, and half note).  IF the riser group clapped their rhythm correctly, they kept their stick.  If not, I took their stick back.  Tricky, eh?

But that's not all!  Students then began to pick their own sticks from the cup to perform in their groups.  If a student pulled a stick that had the words 'Zap It!' on the end, I collected all of their sticks.  *insert maniacal laugh here*

We had so much fun that we will play again.  Next time, the 3rd grade will add dotted half note to their game to make it even tougher.  *maniacal laugh*

2nd Grade Bounces through Music!

Music uses combinations of comparatives/opposites to create interest.  One of the opposites 2nd grade has been exploring is strong vs. weak beats.  Strong beats are something you have to feel, so we have been practicing locating strong beats with our bodies, instruments and tennis balls.  Yes, tennis balls! 

Students practice feeling the beat by bouncing their tennis ball on the strong beat and catching it on the weak beat.  Some of us are still chasing the runaway ball across the carpet but most of us are really feeling the strong beats! 

One of our first attempts to bounce the tennis balls.  So far so good!

 If a ball bounced away from any student, he or she raised a hand and a classmate would roll the ball back to the hand that was up.  It worked fantastically well! 

Here we are trying strong beats with the tambourines.  While students were not playing the tambourines, they were clapping along to show the strong beats.