When all the pieces come together . . .

Students in Grade Two have been studying the old song, Peas Porridge Hot - inside and out!

First, we learned the melody by reading our solfege hand signs, so mi and do.  Then we layered on the words of the song and started to consider just how rotten and stinky porridge would become after sitting in the pot for nine days.  After that, small groups created a body percussion response, performing the rhythmic language of a poem with their own combination of claps, snaps, pats and stomps in alternation with the song.

Then we started to write.  Step by step, students recorded the musical notation of this song in their notebooks.  We used our hand signs to notate the melody, and our partner clapping pattern helped us label the beat.  A time signature and bar lines helped us to organise the beats in groups of four, and we learned to finish off the piece with a double bar line.  Next we clapped the syllables of the words to find out how many sounds were on each beat, and attached rhythmic notation to the melody.  Finally, we labeled the phrases, and analysed the form of the music.  

Whew!  What big work!  But when we were finished, each student had written the entire song in their notebook.  By digging deeply into this little piece, we discovered that the musical elements of beat, melody, rhythm, and form that we have worked so hard to learn can come together to build the music that we sing and play everyday!