Welcome parents! I'm so excited to be teaching music to the 3's, 4's and kindergartners this year! Although each age group is working on a different curriculum there are concepts that we are working on in all classes. These include:
developing a steady beat
listening for specific sounds and instruments
rhythm patterns in both duple and triple meter
singing in major and minor tonalities
working as a group to coordinate circle dances to music
Here is what each age level has been working on!
Pre-K 3's: We have been celebrating autumn with some fun poems and songs! The children really enjoy the poem Two Red Apples and have been having fun making the apples fall to the ground! We've listened to barnyard animals and worked on steady beat with our song "See the Pony Galloping." We also worked as a group to dance to the song "Sing Alleluia." We will be continuing with our fall theme over the next few weeks.
Pre-K 4's: T
he four's have been working on some musical "stories". They used their imaginations to act out the story of "The Cobbler" which included lots of dancing and singing. We'll be moving onto our "Johnnie Appleseed" story which will include singing and the playing of different percussion instruments. We have been listening to the sound of different tools used to build a house and used a song to mimic this process. Over the next few weeks I'll be guiding the children into working more as an ensemble rather than as individuals.
Kindergarten:
The kindergartner's have been busy working on graphic notation. We used pictures to represent sounds we were making in class. Then we used those pictures to create a class composition. We've also spent time having the children work as an ensemble where students were divided into different groups and were given different beats to play altogether. Students also were taught to move as a group in a circle dance where they had to follow multiple steps. In the coming weeks, we will be talking about the members of the brass family, working on writing duple notation, and learning songs for our upcoming Christmas concert in December.