Kindergarten & 1st Grade Students Sing Solos

It's time to hear the kindergarten and first grade students sing alone for the winter semester.  It's fun to hear how their voices are closer to matching pitch and how their confidence in many cases has grown since the fall.  Kindergarten students are singing Purple Light and 1st graders are sharing Candy-man (fitting for February~).  Shy students often feel more comfortable at the end of the year, encourage them to sing out, have fun and think like a performer!
1st Grade Yellow Group   1st Grade Red Group   1st Grade Blue Group
K Yellow Group               K Red Group                K Blue Group

1st Graders Orchestrate "In the Tall Tall Grass" and "My Many Colored Days"

Books are coming to musical life in class!  1st graders have been working with the books In the Tall Tall Grass by Denise Fleming and My Many Colored Days by Dr. Suess.  In the Tall Tall Grass you will see students practicing an ostinato pattern on xylophones.  (They are working on playing do and sol to the rhythmic pattern six eighth notes followed by a quarter note.)  Students also picked rhythmic instruments to depict a character in the story.  Their task was to think about the musical concepts fast/slow, high/low, loud/soft and smooth/bumpy and pick and play an instrument in the way that creature would move.  In My Many Colored Days students are picking instruments to express the emotions displayed by colors in the book.  Other students are creating movements that go with the color/emotions.  Enjoy!
  Red Group   Blue Group   Yellow Group

3rd Graders Work Together to Create Train Movement Pieces

The 3rd graders used movement to create a representation of a train ride.  The components of the ride include: pulling out of the station, going through a tunnel, traveling over a bridge, an emergency stop, going up and down hill(s) and pulling into the station.  Students worked in groups with the following guidelines:  they must use a formation (circle, line, staggered,etc), levels (high medium,low) facing (direction each person is looking) and connection (hands, elbows, waists etc).  Each group had the same tasks but the end results are all varied.  It's fun to see their creative thinking at work!
Blue Group   Yellow Group   Red Group

5th Grade Take 5 Creative Movement

The 5th graders created musical movements to the jazz piece Take 5.  They had to show a formation, use levels and decide how to connect (or not) while showing movement to the music.  A formation is how they are set up~ in a line, a circle, staggered, random etc.  Levels refers to how they are positioned in space- near the floor- reaching up high or in between.  They might connect by touching feet, hands, elbows, toes, backs etc.  We haven't had a chance to explore the 5/4 meter formally, yet some of the groups intuitively are moving in groups of 5 beats (unusual meter for American culture) watch for movement ideas that follow 1,2,3, 1,2 (which = 5).  It's really fun to see how they create their dances using these tools to show their movement ideas.  Some of the groups decided they did not want to share with the blog this time even though their dances were great!  So I posted the brave groups- enjoy!       Blue Group.      Red Group.      Yellow Group 1.        Yellow Group 2

Recorder Tutorial

I've created several video segments on how to the play the recorder.  The first video outlines the basics, how to hold the recorder, breath and tonguing.  There is a segment on how to read the fingering chart and BAG on the staff.  Another on how to practice and play Hot Cross Buns, Closet Key and Merrily We Roll Along.  I've included a trouble shooting video and improvising with BAG.   I hope this guide will be helpful to our musicians as they work to master the recorder.  Practice builds confidence and skills as students work to produce the most beautiful tone; demand excellence, you can do it!

Recorder Basics
How to Play BAG
Recorder Troubleshooting 
How to read BAG

Playing Hot Cross Buns - part 1
Playing Hot Cross Buns- part 2










Playing Closet Key

How to play Merrily We Roll Along

Improvising to Higgelty Piggelty Pop

5th Grade Blue Group Sings The Little Birch Tree

The 5th graders are working on a choral arrangement of a Russian folk song entitled The Little Birch Tree.  The blue group sounded so good I had to record them.  Click on the link below to hear them sing.  Enjoy~ The Little Birch Tree

1st Graders Sing Purple Light

First grade singers are working on building their confidence, singing independently with a clear beautiful tone and matching pitch using a singing voice.  Enjoy the piece Purple Light; click on the text to watch each link.  Yellow Group   Red Group   Blue Group