Remembrance Song Practice Video

On November 9th, all Grade Three students will be presenting a special song at our Remembrance Day Assembly to honor our Armed Forces and to celebrate peace.  Click on the link below to practice the song and the actions.  We will want to do our very best for this special occasion!

Click HERE to practice our Grade Three Song!

Musical Learning in October

Click HERE to dance along

In October, Kindergarten students continued to explore non-pitched percussion instruments through their farm unit, and then celebrated with a barnyard dance to Aaron Copland’s Hoe Down.  There were ducks and horses and cows and sheep moving everywhere! Then we used these instruments to sing and play a song about the changing colors of autumn.  By the end of our song, the wind had blown through the room, and we were covered with green and yellow and purple leaves! 

The Singing Puppy

Grade One students began the month with popcorn.  Students performed the rhythm of our song by “playing the way the words sound”.  They also began to learn about the form of music, which is the idea that music has sections that are the repeated through a song, as well as sections that only happen once.  Three different teams with different instruments represented the form by taking turns to play their own special section.  Students have also begun to learn the beginnings of melodic notation by representing high and low sounds through movement, puppetry, singing, notation and playing the xylophone.  It has been exciting to watch each student become a composer, writing and performing their own unique music!

Grade Two students have finished telling the story of Liza Briggs, a sleepy girl who forgets to feed her pigs one morning.  In addition to using notation to learn the song, students used the West African djembe drum to play a repeating pattern to accompany our voices.  Performing two pieces of music at the same time requires intense listening, and it was wonderful to hear how the singers and drummers worked cooperatively to fit their music together like snug puzzle pieces! Students have also been deepening their understanding of rhythms by reading notation as a group, writing and performing their own pieces, and finally using a short rhythmic phrase to improvise a melody on the xylophone. 

Grade three students learned a version of the old campfire classic Don’t Throw Your Junk in My Backyard.  This piece gave them the opportunity not only to sing two complimentary songs at the same time, but to also learn their first xylophone accompaniment with a changing harmonic pattern.  Classes learned this piece so very well that I was able to sit down at the piano and play along, changing the dynamic from teacher and learner into competent musicians just sitting around making music together!  The students have also spent some time considering several famous pieces of music, Also Sprack Zarathustra, Fur Elise and the Ballet of the Unhatched Chicks.  (Click on the titles to listen to the music!)

They listened as musicians, determining the emotion or mood inspired by the music, and what the composer did to make them feel that way.  Then they went a step further and visualized an image prompted by this music.  Students were very keen to share their work with each other and they immediately noticed a wide variety of responses.  How lucky we are to be a part of such a rich and diverse learning community!

Icy Music for These Cold Snowy Days

Click HERE to learn about ice instruments

Winter has arrived with a blast here in Calgary!  So why not celebrate this snowy wonderland with instruments made from ice?  


As the artist in the video explains, there is an inherent connection between these instruments (which are are made of "solid" water) and the people who enjoy them (who are made primarily of liquid water).  Throw that mix into a cave carved out of the ice and you have a magical, wintery, musical extravaganza!



By the way . . .

Fun Musical Videos

While we have made lots of our own music this week, sometimes it's also fun just to sit back and enjoy music made by someone else.

Check out the two links below to listen to the song Popcorn (originally by Hot Butter), as well as a rendition of Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody performed by a group of talented trombone players!

Click HERE to listen to the "Chef's" version of "Popcorn".

Click HERE to listen to these amazing Trombonists.

Musical Learning in September

The new school year is off to an exciting start with a whole new cohort of kindergarten students!  We began our work together by visiting an imaginary farm.  Of course, we’re always singing as we travel, moving our bodies to show the meaning of the words, as well as keeping a steady beat.  So far, we have met some hens and ducks who each have their own special songs – and instruments.  Students have been working on playing rhythm sticks and drums like a team to represent the rhythm of language.   

Grade One students have been exploring the question of “What is beat?”  After moving, singing songs, speaking poems and playing instruments, students have discovered that there are many ways to keep the beat.  But wherever it is, the beat is always that steady pulse that makes you want to tap your toe.  Sometimes it is a slow beat, sometimes it is a fast beat, but it is always steady, just like the healthy heart beat in our bodies.  Students have also been singing, moving, and playing instruments to create high and low sounds to prepare for their first taste of melodic notation.

Click HERE to keep the beat to J.P. Sousa's Semper Fidelis.

Grade Two students began our year with the classic poem Hello, My Name is Joe, in which we pushed buttons with our hands, feet, and even our tongue - all while keeping the beat!  Partners then used that sense of steady beat to create a movement pattern for the march Semper Fidelis by J.P Sousa.  Grade Twos also reviewed So and Mi, and used those melodic notes to learn a song about Liza Briggs and her naughty, naughty pets.  Then we added a repeating pattern (called an ostinato) to accompany our song, as well as some movement and percussion instruments before and after to finish telling the whole story.

Grade Three students also strengthened their sense of steady beat by transforming the old skipping rhyme Down, Down, Buddy into a movement piece, passing the beat from shoulder to shoulder and emphasizing important words with dramatic actions.  The drama continued as students created movements to illustrate the spooky song Sharks’ Teeth, which they then used to learn their newest rhythmic note “tika tika”.  Finally, we took a break from all that moving with our Garbage Song, which will eventually offer students a chance to sing three different parts at the same time!  

On a different note,  here's this week's joke: