3rd-4th Grade Music
5th Grade Music
Kindergarten Music
The Kindergarten year in music is a very busy one. Using Orff instruments, drums, and rhythm instruments, students learn how to read basic beats and identify syllables in words and how they fit into music. They also learn how to keep a steady beat.
With games and cooperative activities, children learn how to work as part of a team and how to follow a leader. Listening experiences teach them high, medium, low, slow, and fast. Colors, numbers, and letters are reinforced. Children learn about form in music, rhyming, emotional components of music and sounds in nature. They learn to sing the syllables “la, sol, mi” and learn about instrument families. A strong emphasis is placed upon literacy in the forms of stories and tales. Several sessions are spent preparing for our spring concert.
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1st and 2nd Grade Music
In first and second grade, we add keyboards and computers as tools to learn to read music, in addition to the Orff instruments and rhythm instruments. On the computer, we play note reading games. We learn the difference between the eight note scale and the pentatonic scale and learn to identify major and minor sounds.
Children learn how to sing in two parts and how to sing rounds. We sing folk songs and legends in those songs.
Dance forms become more sophisticated and we even learn the Minuet. We talk about syllables and notate them to strong and weak beats.
Instrument families are reinforced. We learn how to describe music and evaluate it as to form and how it relates to other cultures. The last part of the year, we are preparing for our spring performance.
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3rd and 4th Grade Music
The first nine weeks of school are spent playing the recorder where we further emphasize the treble clef and reading skills. Children also play the keyboards and notation computer games. We learn to sing in 3 parts by using combination songs and rounds. We learn how to divide beats into measures. We write rap songs that we perform for the class.
Children learn about syncopation and how it relates to ragtime and jazz. We watch the movie “Beethoven Lives Upstairs: and then learn to play “Ode to Joy” on the recorder and keyboard. We also review instrument families.
Children become proficient in the treble and bass clefs and learn to play in both. A strong emphasis is put on music from other countries.
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5th Grade Music
In 5th grade, we still reinforce music reading with the keyboards and computers.
Students are introduced to many more rhythm patterns and forms in music.
We study American music and how it relates to history. We learn about national anthems, freedom songs, songs of the Depression, Native American songs and other culturally related music. We spend time studying different American composers and their lives. We learn to play some of these songs on the recorder.
We learn to sing in parts. We study a wide range of note values and rhythms and write our own rhythms. We learn to play rhythms from other cultures.
We watch the video “Handel’s Last Chance” and talk about his life and works.
In the spring, we prepare for our spring concert.
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