January 26 - 29 (Music Week 16)

 UPCOMING DATES

Performing Arts Club @ Lunch - Thursday, February 5th

EMBRACE MUSIC WHILE SWIRLING AROUND IN YOUR LIVES WITH KIDS:

Keep singing, keep moving, keep listening to music together. Have conversations about what you hear. What voices are present? Not just human voices but instruments. There is an abundance of music available to us where the lyrical line is not conveyed to us through words and human voice but by a melody line played on a flute or a violin or a cello or a guitar or...endless possibilities here. Listen to music together and have conversations about layers of sounds that you hear in the music. If there is a human voice, what qualities of that voice are interesting or unique to you? Is it a grown up voice, a kid's voice? Is the voice pitched in a low range or does it sound higher compared to other voices that you hear? What other instruments do you hear? What musical patterns do these instruments play? We are fortunate to live in an age where information about music is easily accessible. If you are uncertain about which instruments you hear on a track, look it up!

LEARNING INTENTION LEGEND (Blue = Kindergarten, Green = 1 / 2, Purple = 3 / 4, Red = 5 / 6)

-I can move to beat in music through walking, running,  jumping and skipping.

-I can play steady beat to accompany singing on barred instruments.

Kindergarten students participated in many movement activities this week to experience musical pulse and to strengthen beat awareness. These students increasingly demonstrate excellent appreciation of self and others as they move through the music room space. There were several students this week who were frustrated by 'skipping' movement. We broke down the step-hop cadence on alternating feet to explain skipping but in the end, decided that if galloping felt more comfortable then we'd just do that. Galloping is a natural progression to skipping. The weight transfer required in skipping is not developmentally expected until age 6 so many kids have not had many skipping expriences at this point. We will continue to experience 'skip' cadence music to practice this skill - the kinesthetic skipping movement will help the students to build an intrinsic awareness of compound time signatures at an early age. 

-I can represent like and unlike patterns in music through movement.

-I can play rhythm patterns (subdivisions of beat) on rhythm instruments.

Grade 1 and 2 students continue to experience phrase form through singing and movement while learning new songs. Students differentiated beat from rhythm, playing sound syllables using an alternating mallet technique, one bar for every syllable. 

We also continue to explore sectional form through movement activities. Students love the 'Sleeping Animals' song. During the 'A' section', students are still and 'sleeping'. During the 'B' section, I have an amazing opportunity to see student interpretation of various animal movements. This week, the donkeys were my absolute favourite. 

-I can sing and play rhythm patterns including quarter notes, eighth notes and sixteenth notes.

-I can read and play melodic patterns (xylophones). 

Students read and played melodic patterns on barred instruments to continue awareness of musical form.  First, students listened as they played to pick out the melody by ear, finding sequences of notes to represent the tune. Playing by ear is a valuable skill. We do not always have to read what we play. Sometimes we can use pitch awareness (hearing high and low) to determine the notes that we must play. To support ear training, we can use a musical score to determine which notes we need to play. A balance of both listening/ear training and reading notation from a staff can help us to learn new songs. We continue to read music to solidify awareness of absolute note names and pitches as they appear on the treble clef staff. 

-The lyrics and meaning of a song may be enhanced by the vocal interpretation as well as by its instrumental accompaniment.

-I can differentiate divergent musical styles. 

The students have been clamouring for Weird Al - very 2025 music at TRS. We listened to some Weird Al but to broaden our understanding of musical interpretation beyond parody, we are venturing into the wild and wonderful world of cover music. We spent this week establishing the essence of a good cover song. We decided that a good cover song is familiar. Whether people like the song or not, they know it. Secondly, the song communicates a message that resonates with most people; music affects us when it is meaningful which is why it is both powerful and important. Students ended the week by suggesting a song that they thought might be ripe for a cover by 5/6 classes. We'll look more at these suggestions in upcoming classes. 

Best wishes to everyone for a good weekend!

Mrs. McMillan