Kindergarten students began the month of April with the old
nursery rhyme, Hickory Dickory Dock,
using both our singing and speaking voices, as well as instruments and creative
movement to tell the story of a mouse’s journey to the top of a grandfather
clock. Through this rich retelling,
students developed a deeper understanding of the text by choosing percussion
instruments to represent each phrase, and which they played to practice the
pre-rhythmic skill of “playing the way the words sound” (syllabification). We then jumped to a more modern mode with the
jazzy piece, Ten Little Monkeys Pretty
and Neat, in which students explored the concept of ensemble (playing as a
team) and keeping a steady beat.
 |
| The Rest, a silent beat |
Grade One students spent some time with Joe, an old race
horse who trots around proudly displaying his championship medal. While working through this project, small
groups trotted between several “corals” in which they took turns accompanying
the class song on the xylophone with a steady beat, showing the melodic contour
of the melody, and clapping the rhythm of lyrics. Students also learned a new rhythm, the
“rest” (a silent beat), and began incorporating this note into their rhythmic
compositions. It has been exciting to
watch students discover the power of silence and begin to use it more and more
deliberately in their own compositions.
Grade Two students have continued to compose and perform
their own melodic and rhythmic phrases, deepening their understanding of their
most recent notes “do” (a low melodic pitch) and “too” (a rhythmic note that
sustains through two beats). But we’ve
also spent time heading Off to the Zoo. Students have already learned to perform
music in two teams, listening to ensure they are the same as others playing
their own part and listening to
ensure that the two different parts fit together like puzzle pieces. But in this latest project, each student is
challenged to perform two different parts at the same time, playing a xylophone
accompaniment while singing the song!
Throughout April, Grade Three students have been developing
their skills on the djembe, a large drum originating from the jungles of West
African nations. This special instrument
needs special care to sing it’s best, opening its “mouth” by tilting it
slightly away from our body and bouncing our hands to allow the “head” to
vibrate. After learning several rhythmic
patterns, we celebrated our skills by retelling the story Jungle Drums, in which a small warthog tries to wish his troubles
away with magical drums, unwittingly causing chaos in the animal
community.
