March
The grade ones are practicing hard for the concert. They are doing a dance to an excerpt from Gustov Holst’s Jupiter.
Here is a video that they can practice along with:
February
In February the grade ones in Divisions 14 and 15 are going to focus on the concept of Dynamics. Dynamics are the differences are the loud and soft sounds in music.
They will learn the terminology that goes with those sounds:
- Forte mean loud
- Mezzoforte means medium loud
- Mezzopiano means medium soft
- Piano means soft
Now that the grade ones understand the different ways to move with their bodies, using Laban’s Eight Efforts, they will help choreograph their dance in the concert. We will listen to an excerpt from Gustov Holtz’s Jupiter and decide which efforts we hear in each part of the piece. Then we will create movements that correspond with the efforts we are hearing.
Here is the excerpt of the song we will be dancing to:
The grade ones in Divisions 11, 12 and 13 will be doing the activities in the grade 2/3 page of this website.
Janaury
This January we are exploring two concepts in music class.
The first is the concept of Tempo. Tempo is the speed of the music. We will be doing songs that explore fast (Allegro), medium (Moderato) and slow (Large) tempi and listening to examples of music at those tempi.
The following applies to Divisions 15 and 16. For activities for Divisions 11, 12 and 13, please refer to the grade 2/3 page.
The second concept is Laban’s Eight Efforts. Rudolf Laban was a dance teacher, dancer and choreographer who revolutionized how we think about dance and movement. He whittled movement down into 8 Efforts, or eight ways of moving.
Using the concepts of Heavy vs. Light, Indirect vs. Direct and Sustained vs. Sudden, he combined these in every possible way to create his 8 efforts.
The following are the 8 Efforts and the order in which we will explore them:
- Float
- Glide
- Punch/Thrust
- Slash
- Dab
- Flick
- Press
- Wring
Once we understand these ways of moving, we will apply them by creating, as a class, a dance for our concert. The children will be performing a dance to the song Jupiter by Gustov Holst.
December
We are just learning the dance Fjaskern this week. Fjaskern is a Swedish dance and the translation is Hurry Scurry. As the dance goes on, the tempo gets faster and faster. We had a lot of fun seeing how fast we could get to before it was too difficult. We will try it again through December and see if we can make it to the fastest tempo.
We are also singing the song Rudolf The Red-Nosed Reindeer. In my arrangement of this song we are exploring many of the percussion instruments of the music room. We are playing instruments that play the beat, a specific rhythm, or a sound-effect. And we are playing such unusual instruments such as the gong, the bell tree, the slide whistle, the stir xylophone, as well as more common instruments like the hand drums, jingle bells and cabanas.
And we are also singing O Hanukkah to practice for our sing-along on December 18th. The French immersion classes are learning the French version of this song as well.
November
We are going to keep working on moving in circles and various formations in the music room. We have learned two dances that have our whole group in a circle. Next, we will try a dance with our class in a double circle formation. We will use the songs Circle ‘Round The Zero and Fjaskern.
Then we will try a dance with our class in two lines, if we get that far!
We will also be playing some classroom non-pitched percussion instruments to learn some good technique on these instruments, and review the 4 percussion instrument families of:
- Skins (or drums)
- Metals
- Woods
- Shakers/Scrapers
We will use the song/activity We Play Percussion by Heather Nail and the game Music Ball to review classroom percussion instruments.
September and October
The grade ones have been playing games in music to build community and get to know the routines of the music room.
We are beginning to work on the concepts of moving in the space of the music room safely – in general space, in circles and in lines.
We are singing songs to get creative with our thoughts and get brave to share them!
We are singing Down By the Bay to brainstorm silly sentences using 2 rhyming words.
We are singing Aiken Drum to brainstorm the food that Aiken Drum could be made with and what body part or clothing could be that food.
We are moving to and singing Shake Those ‘Simmons Down to practice moving in different formations and listening and reacting to cues in the music. We are also brainstorming creative ways to move, and adding verses to practice those movements.
We will learn how to do The Twist as we dance to The One-Eyed, One-Horned, Flying Purple People Eater.
We will be starting some Drama activities this October as well, especially pretending to be and move like various animals in the music room.