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!
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