Music Notes: End of February 2014

Music Notes

February 2014

Greetings from the Lannoye music room!

Please check out the new posts at lannoyemusic.blogspot.com. Don’t forget to sign up for email updates in the upper right corner, underneath the Lannoye Dragon. February posts include a video of kindergarteners singing “Johnny Works with One Hammer,” a list of links where 4^th and 5^th graders can practice their treble clef note names (super helpful for our recorder unit!), “The Star-Spangled Banner,” a post about musical onomatopoeia, an explanation of the Google Voice DRUM card opportunity for 4^th and 5^th grade recorder players, and a bunch of entertaining covers of “Let It Go” from Frozen. There’s plenty to enjoy!

In addition to preparing two school-wide songs for Grandparents Day, here’s a grade-by-grade breakdown of what the students have been learning:

The kindergarteners are working on beginning music reading while playing instruments, using boxes with pictures (Rhythm Band). We’ve also continued learning about dynamics (forte and piano), by thinking of loud and quiet animals, moving to recordings and showing forte/piano with our movements, and moving to live music.

The 1^st graders learned about Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart early in the month, and they really latched onto some of the fun facts about him! (See if they still remember any…it’s been a while!) We also worked on showing high and low pitches with body movements, which we then turned into solfege! The 1^st graders now know “so” and “mi” – see if they can show you those pitches and their hand signs!

The 2^nd graders learned low “do” and have sung songs and have played singing games for songs with low “do” in them. We have also learned how to sightread music by clapping the rhythm, finding the pitches based on where the “do” key is, and finally singing the melody (rhythm + pitches) together. We’re still talking through it together, but it’s a good skill to have!

The 3^rd graders have learned high “do” and just started learning low “so.” They can sign and sing an extended pentatonic scale (do, re, mi, so, la, high do) without any help from me! We’ve been singing rounds and partner songs in two, three, and even four parts, and they’ve been doing splendidly! We have also just begun to add a new rhythm to their toolbox: ti-ta-ti.

The 4^th and 5^th graders have been working hard at playing their recorders. We’ve talked a lot about the importance of practicing and practicing correctly. I emphasize that they should choose tempos based on their abilities – I’d rather hear right notes slowly than wrong notes quickly! We’ve also talked about the quote, “Don’t practice until you get it right. Practice until you can’t get it wrong.” Some of the students were even ambitious enough to call my Google Voice number and play three songs for me to earn a DRUM card! J

Have a lovely March!

Ms. Corinne Galligan
(920) 822-0433
cmgalligan@pulaskischools.org
lannoyemusic.blogspot.com