Happy Halloween Everyone

 Wow, what a crazy week! I was away for most of it but I was so happy to be back today to see everyone in their costumes.  This is my favourite day of the year! 

This week in music there has been a variety of things happening. 

The Kindergarten continued to play, sing and move to Halloween songs.  They loved casting spells on their classmates, turning them into all sorts of creatures.  We also started to read music.  We looked at quarter notes and eighth notes.  We clapped and counted them as ta and ti-ti. We had fun creating these rhythms with body percussion. 

The grade 1/2 played Halloween games as well.  They also tried their hand at bucket drumming.  We used Halloween words to represent different rhythms and then we played our creations. Mrs. Campbell's class did some work on learning the Acknowledgement of the Land.  Please look for an assignment in the Music Google Classroom with the video for them to practice to.  

The grade 3/4's did a variety of things.  Mrs. Zwack, Mr. Kelly, Mrs. McLean, Mrs. Watterson and Mr. Neily's classes all spent time working on their pieces for Remembrance Day.  If you are in Mrs. Zwack's or Mr. Kelly's class please remember to bring your black top (shirt/sweater...) for next music class. Mr. Kelly is Tuesday and Mrs. Zwack is Wednesday. 

All classes participated in Halloween games and activities.  We also started to watch Mickey Mouse - The Haunted House.  Each grade 3/4 is taking a small piece of the video and we are creating the sounds that go along with the video with the instruments in the class. 

Looking For Dracula! Kindergarten

This week kindergarten had music on Monday and Thursday.  We have been singing and acting as we explore many Halloween songs.  We really enjoyed putting our detective gear on and looking for Dracula. The students had a chance to act out what they would like to be for Halloween and we all guessed what they were going to be. We have been practicing our echo singing and speaking voices with both songs and poems.  Today kindergarten will get to watch their first peace assembly! I am excited for them to learn one of our favourite peace songs, peace in my fingers. 

Witches and Cats - Grade 1/2

 Continuing with the Halloween theme, the grade 1/2's had fun today turning the class into different animals and characters. Abracadabra you're a ....! We practiced acting as something and then quickly refocusing back to our normal selves so we could move on to another game.  

We sang some echo songs today about a wacky witch and Frankenstein. Some of us created some Monster dances as well. 

Halloween!

 Normally I do one week of Halloween activities before Halloween but it felt like this year we needed a bit more spookiness.  For the next two weeks we will be working through Halloween material - songs and games.  Of course there will be lots of movement and drama as well. 

Halloween activities look a little different from grade to grade but there are some favourites that we all do every year.  Unfortunately we can't play my favourite Halloween game this year, Pass The Witches Broomstick but I have discovered some new exciting Halloween activities. 

Grade 3/4

Mr. Kelly's class started working on the sign language for Imagine today.  I have set up a Google Classroom assignment with the parts of the song that we learned so far.  Please look on the classroom and practice so that we can really know it. We are going to have to film it for the Remembrance Day Assembly. 

Mrs. Zwack's class continues to work on their Remembrance Day movement piece as well. Please check your Music Google Classroom for the choreography. 

All the grade 3/4's spent some time listening to Camille Saint-Saens piece The Danse Macabre. It is not easy to sit and listen to a 7 min. piece of music but we followed a listening map with some fun pictures.  We tried to see the song come to life as we listened.  We discussed how the different instruments represented different parts of the story. 

We also had fun "creating" a witches brew.  Ask your student what they threw into the Brew!

We discussed 6/8 time signature and how math and music are related.  We also discussed dynamics (volume) and how we can create effects using different ones. 

Excitement in Kindie

 We have so much fun in Kindergarten music.  I really appreciate their willingness to take risks and try out new things.  

This week we took some time to create some characters from our imagination.  We explored how our characters might move and stand, how they might vocalize. We loved exploring with our voices. Every student had an opportunity to introduce themselves as their character to the class, every student participated!! It was so great. We are building confidence.  

We continued experimenting with our voices using the poem, Jelly in the bowl.  We loved wiggling around like a bowl of jelly. 

We used our listening skills to figure out what was put into a pumpkin stew and then we wrote our own version of the song.  There are some pretty crazy things going into these stews :) 

We always try to dance in music as well and we pretended to dance as different animals to an alphabet song.  My favourite was tango like a tap-dancing turkey.  Ask your student what their favourite animal was to dance like!! 

Watercolour Art - Gr. 1/2

 This week we have gone back to our musical art.  

The first time we connected art to music we looked at pitch going higher and lower. We used chalk pastels to create gorgeous art.  This time we used watercolours to represent tempo.  We did one canvas as fast and one as slow as we were inspired by the Carnival Of The Animals.  The students did an absolutely beautiful job.  

We started the class with some drama - creating a character. We looked at character traits and how to act like a certain character. This was so much fun.  We also did some movement games with high and low pitches. 

Using Our Hand Staff - Gr. 3/4

This week Mrs. Cox and Mrs. Huebner's classes continued working on their peace assembly.  Mrs. Zwack's class is working on their Remembrance Day piece.  Everything is going to be a little bit different this year and it has been interesting trying to figure out how to make this all work. 

The grade 3/4's have been working on reading the notes on the staff and playing the xylophone.  This week we learned that our hand (facing us) works like a 5 line staff. The pinky is line one.  We talk about the easy ways to remember the note names and names the notes we needed for the xylophone.  

The mnemonic device for the notes on the lines is : Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge

The rhyme for the spaces is: Space rhymes with face - F, A, C, E 

Both of these start from the bottom up.

Exploring Autumn and Thanksgiving

 This week the grade 1/2's sang a song that originated in Ghana.  We looked at Ghana on the map and discussed some interesting facts.  Did you know they speak approximately 81 different languages in Ghana?! 

We challenged our acting skills by creating picture tableaus of different events in our life. 

We talked about the sulfate hand signs so and mi and the students were able to sing a song without knowing what it was just by reading my hand signs.  We also discussed ta (quarter notes) and ti-ti (eighth notes), how to count them and that they are worth 1 beat each.

We finished off our class talking about what we are thankful for and playing a Thanksgiving guessing game! 

Grade 3/4 Xylophones

The grade 3/4's have all been doing different things this week.  

Mrs. Huebner and Mrs. Cox's classes have been practicing and filming for their upcoming video peace assembly.  We have some pretty neat ideas about how Peace education works and the purpose of peace in our selves, school, and wider.

Mrs. Zwack's class is working on a movement piece that will be featured in the Remembrance Day Assembly.  

If your class is doing something specific that you need to practice you will find the information you need in your Google Classroom.  I will let you know if class if you have anything there.  Please accept my music classroom request. 

The rest of the classes have been playing Thanksgiving games and playing the xylophones to some autumn songs.  We have been playing individual parts but we are hoping to get three parts going at the same time eventually!

Drumming and Autumn Movement

 This was the last week of drumming for the grade 3/4's. I have noticed some improvements in keeping a consistent tempo and being able to follow rhythms on a piece of music.  We really enjoyed playing along to some songs.  We will be moving into all sorts of different things coming up. Some groups will be working on Peace Assembly songs, some on Remembrance Day songs and some on new fun material.  If your student's class is doing a specific number for something coming up, they will be given as assignment on Google Classroom so that they will have the music and video to practice with.  Please make sure that you have accepted the Music classroom request. 

Kindergarten had so much fun today playing with scarves.  We spoke a lot about Autumn and pretended we were falling leaves.  It was fun to swirl in the wind with our scarves.