I hope everyone had a restful and fun spring break! We are back to making music and having fun doing it!
5/6 - The fifth and sixth graders are working hard at memorizing music for our musical and are signing up for speaking roles, dancing roles and featured parts this week.
4- Fourth graders are beginning recorder! We have many recorders for students to use at school which I clean (with very hot water and liquid dish detergent) after each use. Students are also welcome to bring their own recorder. If parents wish to purchase a recorder, please e-mail me and I can direct you to several places to buy cost effective and nice quality recorders (many are less than $5). This week students are learning the proper way to hold the recorder, working on 'easy air' to use to play it and can play a "B". Next week recorder workbooks will be on their way!
3- Third grade students are finishing up their study of opera. A few weeks ago we listened to a duet from Mozart's The Magic Flute and looked at a copy of the 'libretto', the words to the song. This week we are reading the libretto to a song from Amahl and the Night Visitors by Menotti. Amahl and the Night Visitors is a short opera in English, which is much easier to follow than the German libretto for The Magic Flute!
2- In music for second grade, we are exploring listening and movement using scarves. Students are listening to "Spring" from Vivaldi's Four Seasons. We discussed that different parts of the song can represent different parts of spring such as birds, a storm or trees. Students separate into different groups depending on the color of scarf they hold and become different parts of spring. When they hear the music for their 'character' they come to the center of the room to become the spring storm, trees, birds, sun or water. This activity is quite a listening challenge! (It has also been very fun for me to see students' interpretations of nature). :)
K/1- Kindergarteners and first graders are learning about the many sounds we hear everyday and how they relate to music. We are also working on using our voices to imitate these sounds. If you hear strange noises coming from the music room, it's probably just some of the whale language or car noises we are practicing this week!
