HI Wildcat Families! It's been a whirlwind around the music room the last few weeks but we've been having a blast. Last night, 4th grade shared their grade level performance "Hooked on Books" where we added instrumentation, dramatization, and recorder motifs to popular children's books. The students began studying recorder back around November and when you look at it as a 3 month timeline including Thanksgiving and Winter breaks, they really did a fabulous job! We had a solid turnout and it means so much to see so many families supporting their students and school community by attending evening events. Your support does not go unnoticed. If you missed it, you can see Mrs. Robinson's class perform "Caps for Sale" below.
5th grade is continuing to work on Zimbabwean style marimba pieces and working in partners to perform harmonic parts. We're currently working on a rhythmic pattern of 2 against 3 and learning to feel it through our bodies. Sometimes, rhythm is easier felt than counted! They got super excited last week when we pulled out the Mega Blox for rhythmic composition with quarter note, quarter rest, eighth note, and beamed sixteenth notes. The great thing about these 3 values is that each one receives one beat but the duration of individual sounds changes. Several of them made the connection to fractions which is a perfect connection to make! We then created text based on different themes to perform as rhythmic chants.
Fifth grade also attended the Corvallis-OSU Symphony on Tuesday, February 6th at the LaSelle Center. Students who are in level 2 of the elementary strings program got the opportunity to perform with the symphony on a piece titled "Viking" to start the concert. What an incredible opportunity! The symphony included a viola concerto, "Bugler's Holiday" which featured 3 trumpet players, the Radetsky march with a student conductor, and a few excerpts from John Williams soundtracks. By the way, John Williams was our musician birthday yesterday and he turned 86.
Third grade continues to refine their pieces for next week's performance of "The Day the Crayons Quit" by Drew Daywalt. We've practiced instrumental pieces with original lyrics for 9 different crayons, have student narrators, and the students worked in teams to create original choreography using ribbon streamers. I'm so proud of how hard they've worked on this show and can't wait to share it with you all on February 15. We will have a school preview of it at 12:30 on February 14. Many of the students have taken advantage of morning recess to come in for extra practice and one-on-one help. I'm so touched to get to witness their dedication, peer coaching, and encouraging words to each other through this process.
First grade has been mastering rhythms involving quarter note (Ta), beamed eighth notes (Ti-Ti), and quarter rest. Taking advantage of the Valentine's season and how the steady beat in music is similar to our own heartbeat, they worked in small groups to composer 4 beat patterns.Then they transfered it to various unpitched percussion instruments including triangles, castanets, egg shakers, and jingle bells. We also worked on basic notation where they had to dicate the patterns they heard using popsicle sticks. Echoing something is easy, but having to decode it and transfer it to written form takes major brain power and they are rocking it!
Kinder has been focusing on fast and slow through songs, movement, and stories. They're learning the vocabulary words of presto and largo so we are speaking about music in academic vocabulary. We've explored different tempos through train songs, "See the Ponies Galloping", "Rig a Jig Jig", "Presto Largo",making our feet match the drum as it changes tempo, reading the Tortoise and the Hare and much more. Our current favorite activity is the Old Gray Cat because it lets us pretend to be mice and enjoy using our imaginations through song. It's so much fun!