Trimester 2 Update 2017-18

Trimester 2 Update 2017-18

This trimester has been an amazing journey filled with singing, playing, dancing and composing. While the students have been learning, I’ve been doing the same! I am taking two online classes at VanderCook College of Music: Social Emotional Learning in the Music Classroom and Engagement/Retention in the Music Classroom. The children are the inspiration for my work in these classes. Everything I learn is getting embedded into their lessons...and everything the children teach me is then shared with my classmates! A big thank you to our AGS students for their part in this educational adventure!

Kindergarten
As usual, my time with the kindergarten classes went by too quickly! We sang, danced, played, and became beginning music readers! They learned about steady beat, high/low, fast/slow, steady beat, quarter notes/8th notes, and more. I can't wait to see them again in 1st grade! My next crew begins this week. Our favorite Kindergarten memory this trimester was making a rain storm (and dancing) to the “Thunder” song!

1st and 2nd grade
Obviously, a highlight of this trimester was our “Happiness Concert” in January! This was the most joyful event ever! Our talented 1st/2nd and Chorus members of AGS poured their hearts out on the stage. They proved that they have a superpower...to make others HAPPY! Their voices and smiles brightened the stage, and lifted the spirits of everyone in the room.




Social-Emotional Learning has been alive in our music classes this trimester. The 1st and 2nd grade classes are split into small cooperative groups. They decide on a team name, participate in musical team building activities. In these teams they rotate to different musical stations, cooperate together, come to mutual decisions, help each other understand musical targets, solve problems, work through social situations, deepen their musical learning by asking questions and making discoveries.

Major musical targets for this trimester:
   Gather information about the functionality and workings of pitch/melody in music
   Make the connection between note placement and sound
       “high” on the staff = “high” tone
       “low” on the staff = “low” tone
   1st: Reading So and Mi on the staff, gain understanding of notes “on a line” and “on a space”
   2nd: Reading So Mi and La on the staff, learn alphabet letters for staff lines and spaces

In cooperative groups, these are some activities the children have experienced ...
    “Squish a pitch”
    “Leapfrog”
    “Throw a pitch”
    “Coloring pitches”
    “Compose and play”
    Composing on www.SFSkids.org

3rd - 5th grade
We’ve been busy working on our 3rd-5th Spring Musical! “And the Olivia goes to…”
Save the date - April 26th at the Batavia Fine Arts Centre 7:00 pm

*Big news: We bought a green screen so we can make a movie mashup for the show!
We also have many other creative ideas for using the green screen in future lessons too!

Other HUGE areas of focus for 3-5th grade this trimester:
Reading pitch staff/note names
Dynamics
Tempo
Instrumentation

I strongly believe that a major part of musical learning is embedded in CREATING music. For this reason, I feel strongly that students acquire so much knowledge and skill from the act of COMPOSING!

This trimester...
3rd-4th graders have been composing on www.sfskids.org
5th grade have begun composing on Flat.io

We were able to buy a 1 year subscription for all 5th grade to “Flat.io”, a 1 year subscription to a wonderful, educational composing site that connects to Google Classroom. The fifth graders have shown such a great interest and passion for composing, I decided that it was finally time. “Flat.io”! The possibilities are endless. They can compose music for any instrument, collaborate with others, comment and receive comments/suggestions from me as their teacher, save their compositions as an .mp3 file and MORE! I’m beyond excited about this amazing opportunity!



As you can see, we’ve been extremely busy this trimester! It has been a pleasure, as always, working with the wonderful students of A.G.S.! Now let's begin Trimester 3!

My Philosophy and "Why do my students enjoy studying music?"

MY PHILOSOPHY FOR MUSIC EDUCATION

Inside this safe, respectful and joyful music classroom, I foster creative and resilient thinkers, lifelong music learners and future advocates of the aesthetic value and cultural significance of the art of music.

PIECE BY PIECE… WHY DID I CHOOSE THESE WORDS ABOVE?

“Safe, respectful” - The culture in my classroom is positive and students feel like their voices matter.

“Joyful” - Making joyful music helps to foster a love for the art, a passion for the power of music.  Giving them a positive experience helps them grow as musicians and get “hooked” for the future.

“Creative” - When students create music, they are engaged in problem solving, utilizing high-level thinking skills, revising, improving and using multiple areas of their brains.

“Resilient” - I want my students to always get back up again.  Keep trying.  Never give up.

“Lifelong music learners”, “Advocates of the aesthetic value and cultural significance” - As they step into the future, I want my students to hold on to the value that music brings to their lives and to the world around them.

*My project results from my 1st VanderCook class

Why do my students enjoy studying music?   I asked over one hundred of my third, fourth and fifth graders the above question on a Google Form.  Their answers were surprising, funny and enlightening.

Here are a few of my favorite answers:

“because I think I have a great singing voice and I feel like expressing myself with music it makes me feel very very very very very happy.

“because you can let out the voice that know one hears and sing with the songs you like wich makes me cupfterble” (I love “comfortable” is spelled!)

“I like it because I really like how you let us do so many things with the instruments.”

“My favorite part of music is the dancing because you get to move your body around. I also love the musicals!”

“I like studying music because you can construct and create whatever music you want and sometimes the music you make can be really powerful.”

“Music is all around you, it's a big part of everyone's life, it's full of emotions. And that is why I like music.”

“because then i can write songs that is fun this is a very useful because you can make money off of those songs you could also learn how to play instruments that is good because it is collaborative team building activities and will help you learn how to work together it is also good because some songs are soft and soothing”

“I like studying music because I like having Mrs Jensen as a music teacher.”

After reading their answers, I decided to keep track of the specific words I kept seeing over and over again.  I came up with these categories below and put a tally mark in my spreadsheet every time that particular word was mentioned.  The results were a bit surprising to me! After counting the tallies in each one, I could easily see that their favorite parts of studying music were “singing” (35) and “playing instruments” (35). They clearly love to be making music as much as possible! Many replied that they enjoy music for because it is “fun” (21)!  I was also impressed that quite a few mentioned emotions and feelings evoked from the art of music (13).  I’m thrilled to see that they feel such joy in my classroom! Knowing this information is going to be so helpful to make future engaging lessons!  

This assignment was extremely valuable for me.  I feel like my students’ responses greatly reflected my philosophy.   As they create music together, they enjoy having fun, and experience joy in their lives!

In the future, I plan to continue this dialogue with my students so I can keep a closer watch on their journey through this musical learning process.  This information will help me create engaging and exciting lessons that are unique to their needs and interests!