November
We will learn a song called Festival Of Lights by Tom Anderson. It is a part-choir song where they will learn to sing in a simple harmony. As you will hear in the following recording, the parts overlap so the children end up singing the melody together in three parts!
We will also learn an Orff piece to perform at the next assembly in December. It will have many xylophone and percussion instruments playing at the same time as well. In this way, we are learning about texture in our music and learning to listen to different things happening at the same time, and how those parts interweave.
October
We are singing and playing the song Turkey Trot this month for Thanksgiving!
Here are the lyrics to the song!
Gobble, gobble, gobble,
Gobble, gobble, gobble with a wobble
Turkey trot, trot, trot around the lot, lot, lot
Feeling fine, fine, fine until Thanksgiving time.
Trouble, trouble, trouble,
Here comes trouble, trouble, trouble on the double
Turkey trot, trot, trot around the lot, lot, lot
Feeling fine, fine, fine until Thanksgiving time.
We are playing two different patterns along with this song to reinforce steady beat.
C G on the Bass xylophones alternately to the steady beat
and C G together on beat one and then a rest on beat two
The triangles will also play with this piece to fill in the rests.
Just wait for us to post the videos of the grade two and three classes playing this song together for Thanksgiving!
Here is a game you can play at home to reinforce your rhythmic reading!
And here is a song we are learning! We will learn the instrument parts to it as well and perform it for the CBC Music Class Challenge!
September
Welcome (back) to Armstrong Music class!
We are beginning this year with beat and rhythm activities with the Grade 2s and 3s.
We started with the Telephone Game taught to me by Joe Berarducci. It is a passing stick game. The children pass the stick on the beat around the circle. On anacrusis we pick up our sticks. On the downbeat we put our stick in front of the person to our right. On beat 2 we pick up the stick that was just put in front of us, and on beat three we put down the stick, again in front of the person to our right. If all of the children are successful and feel the steady beat, the sticks will be passed around the circle at the same time and the game goes like clockwork. If there are children who do not keep the beat, the game does not work. The class needs to work as the team to have the passing game succeed.
Then we will learn Turkey Trot Blues to put our beat keeping on the xylophones. Here is how the song goes:
And some of us may take on the Music Class Challenge and play You Can Be Anything by Jeremy and Jazzy on the xylophones!