Music

We were preparing for our Halloween Night and sang many songs about Halloween before choosing a song called, “By The Bay.” The chorus of the song is in a minor key and the verses are in a major key. We discussed how this made the song eerie at first and then exciting at the verse.  We changed a word or two and those who wanted, did their own movements to the song as we sung it. For example, instead of the word, ‘mommy,’ one student said, ‘mummy’ and his movement was representative of  a walking dead person!  We composed our rhymes too, such as “did you ever see a spider, drinking apple cider?”   Since the Kindergartners did a play, they got to support the First Graders, by singing with them in the audience.

We have continued to practice beat and rhythm using iconic notation and body percussion.  We have started to explore stick notation and are discussing dynamics, (loud and soft) and tempo (fast and slow), while still creating our own movements to known songs. We sang Peace Canon, Dreidel Song, Kwanzaa Song, Deck The Halls, and Feliz Navidad, along with many other favorites for the Winter holidays.  Students have worked on sol, mi & la songs, such as Rain, Rain, and songs to practice ta & titi, like Blue Bird.  We enjoyed playing percussion instruments while marching. We dance to stories about turtles, and other animals.