Musical Learning in February!

Drums, Chickens and Pizza

Kindergarten and Grade One students started the month working with The One World Drum Company, learning about the oral traditions, geography and music of Africa.  Students practiced several drumming phrases, and learned about the “secret code” that tells us when to start and stop our music.  After all this work, we ended the week by inviting our families in to drum beside the students, and it was wonderful to see our young “experts” share their new-found skills!  On behalf of our staff and students, I would like to express my sincere appreciation to School Council & our Parent Fundraisers for providing this wonderful opportunity!   

Mortimer and his crazy song!

In the weeks that followed our drumming residency, Kindergarten students explored different ways to use instruments and our voices to retell our favorite stories.  First we used our voice and instruments to retell the story of Mortimer, the little boy who kept singing a crazy song instead of going to bed.  Then we retold the old poem, Hickory, Dickory Dock.  As we created sounds for these two stories, students explored how different instruments and different tones of voice can express feelings and ideas.

Grade One students filled the room with chickens!  Using the folk song, Chicken on the Fence Post, the chickens (students) kept the beat on their wings (arms), and then used movement, voices, djembes and xylophones to represent the  rhythm of their chicken voices.  After reinforcing their sense of beat (the steady pulse in every song), students composed their first rhythmic phrases using icons of chickens and eggs.  By speaking, clapping and playing the syllables of text, students are learning to distinguish between one and two sounds on a beat which will soon evolve into rhythmic notation.

Grade Two and Three students worked in groups to build a rondo, which is a piece of music that has one repeating section (A) that is performed between contrasting sections (B, C, D, etc.)  Grade Two students visited Rico’s Pizza Restaurant, where groups worked together to create and perform their very own musical pizza.  Then the waiter went from table to table as we sang, stopping at each table to take each group’s “musical pizza” order.  Grade Three students also worked in groups to create and perform contrasting sections for the songs “Grandma Grunts” and “Backwards Town”.