My September goal, for all grades, is to explore and create rhythms with movement and dance.  We are creating beats with buckets and non-musical items such as plastic jugs, spoons, and cardboard boxes.

Kindergarten and 1st grade students recently made shakers out of plastic eggs and filled them with peas, rice and barley to discover the different sounds they made. We then played “freeze dance” where they were allowed to dance and shake their eggs until the music stopped, and then they had to freeze. Afterwards, we did a call and response song called “Walking In the Jungle” which helped teach them how to walk and speak rhythm in step.

The 2nd and 4th  grade students made kazoos out of tongue depressors and rubber bands. They learned a dance routine called “Tideo” that involved clapping as well as dancing with partners. They are also starting to play melodic patterns on tubular bells as well as plastic tubes called boom whackers.

The older students are learning how to notate the beats they learned on their buckets. The 5th and 6th grade students watched “Stomp Out Loud” and are learning how to compose beats in a simple rondo form with a repeated pattern called “ostinato” on various household items. They will have to notate, on the “stomp” worksheet, the rhythms they invent in their compositions.

October is all about melody and harmony.

Barb Heath
Music Teacher & Band Director