I Know An Old Lady: The Re-Mix!

The 1st graders celebrated Reading Month by reading 4 different variations of the book, "I Know An Old Lady." We read "I Know An Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly", "I Know a Shy Fellow Who Swallowed a Cello", "I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Pie", and "I Know An Old Lady Who Swallowed a Trout". Then, they each got to make up their own Old Lady stories. Let me tell you, we got pretty creative! We had old ladies eating dinosaurs, Star Wars creatures, ocean animals, and even other classmates! When we had all finished, I sang each story for the class. This was a great way to combine Reading Month and music improvisation.

I sang by myself today!

The 2nd and 4th graders have been working on chain singing songs. This can be very difficult for several reasons. 1-You need to be able to find the correct pitch based on the ending pitch of the person next to you and 2- You have to sing all by yourself! Singing by yourself in front of your peers can be a very scary thing. I wanted to share these certificates I give out to my students after doing a solo singing activity such as chain singing. Their confidence really goes up once they've tried it.

Music In Our Schools Month

March is Music In Our Schools Month. The theme this year is "Music Lasts a Lifetime." To show the students how music lasts a lifetime, each of the staff members took a music survey asking questions about their music background and interests. Each week, I post 5 of the surveys on a bulletin board outside of my classroom. The students and staff members then try to guess who is being described. It has been a lot of fun trying to figure out who is who.

Another way we are celebrating is by having a Talent Day! I often hold mini talent days during music class and they are a huge hit. Students are always asking me when the next talent day will be. During our talent day next week, students will be able to audition for an all-school talent show to be held at the end of the month. 1 or 2 students from each class will be selected to perform for the school. But that's not all! Music lasts a lifetime, so at the end of the year, the STAFF will be putting on a musical talent show for the students! I can't wait!

Finally, I've also created a bulletin board in the hallway that is full of pictures of things we do in music class. Parent-teacher conferences are later this month and it will be great for the parents to see just what we do in music class (if only they all followed this blog!). Here are a few pictures of things we've done just in the past month.

The 1st and 2nd graders started off MIOSM with our winter musical, "Flakes!" Here they are practicing for the program.

Whack-Attack! The 3rd graders learned a song on the Boomwackers.

4th grade just finished up our 6 week unit of "Recorder Karate." Hi-ya!

The 5th graders have been studying 6/8 time. We conducted a few songs that were in 6/8, and as an extra bonus, I let them use my Harry Potter wand!!

As you can see, there is a lot going on in our classroom! Much more than just singing songs out of a book. I would love to hear how other teachers are celebrating MIOSM!

Sound Piece Compositions

The 5th graders recently composed their own sound pieces. A sound piece is a piece of music that is made up of organized sounds. The sounds can be made from everyday objects you would find in your house or the classroom such as balloons, pencils, or garbage cans. They had to pick 5 objects and decide how long each object was going to make sound. When sounds are organized, they become music. Unorganized sounds are just noise. We split into groups and each person was in charge of a sound. Here are some of the sound piece compositions they came up with!