May and June Newsletter

Is it really June already?? May was full of testing, hot and cold weather, and many classes beginning their last units of instruction for the year. This will be my last newsletter for the year. Thank you all for your support this year as our students continue to grow musically and work through the many challenging moments learning music can bring. I truly do love my job, and I am grateful for the opportunity to teach music to our students everyday! First off: 3 important performances coming up:
1. Recorder/Band/Orchestra Concert on June 12th at 6:30pm - 4th graders will be performing the same evening as the 5th and 6th graders in band and orchestra. 4th grade will perform first, and then the rest of the night they get to watch students play the instruments they can choose to play next year!
2. 6th Grade Graduation on June 25th at 6:30pm - The choir and 6th graders will perform “High Hopes” on ukuleles, canons, and xylophones. The choir will also perform “Count on Me” as their musical gift to the 6th graders as they leave our school.
3. End of Year Assembly on June 26th at 9:15am - The choir and 6th graders will do a repeat performance.
We hope everyone will be able to come see their students perform. They’re working very hard, and are sounding better every day. Here is what happened in the music room in May, and what we’ll finish the school year doing:
Kindergarten - We finished our hand percussion unit inspired by farm animals. Students loved playing all of the instruments and are looking forward to our last unit of the year: games with “ta” (quarter notes) and rest.
1st grade - We have been learning songs and games from Central America. Some songs are in Spanish, and our Spanish speaking students have been patiently helping us non-Spanish speakers work on our pronunciation :) We will finish the year by continuing to learn songs and games from Central America.
2nd grade - We learned our last bit of 2nd grade content for the year: our singing notes “Do” and “Re”. We’ll continue to use these new singing notes in our songs for the rest of the year.
3rd grade - We have continued traveling musically and learned a song in French. We will learn one more song this year in Spanish and continue using Boomwhackers as we sing. The last week of school we will update our passports so students can take them home to share with you.
4th grade - After all the work we put into our Yellow Belt song, we flew through the Orange Belt song and are currently prepping for the Green Belt song! We will perform these songs at our Recorder Concert on June 12th and then students will get to choose their own songs for the rest of the year.
5th grade - We successfully performed a 3-part xylophone song in ABA form with solos and it was SO COOL! Every year our 5th graders learn more challenging repertoire and I am so proud of them for persevering and having fun by the end of it :)
6th grade - We continue to work on our graduation song “High Hopes”. We are starting to get better at singing while playing, so the last piece is adding the Cajons. Please come see them perform this song on June 25th and June 26th.

April Newsletter

Happy May, everyone! April was a fun month, and we finished off with the dance dude this week! Did you know the dance dude is hosting a dance tomorrow night at 6:00pm?? Our theme is "The Jungle", so wear exciting colors, clothing with animals on it, or animal print and get ready to dance! This is not a drop off event, so all students need a chaperone. The event ends at 7:30pm, and there will not be food available. So, please make sure to eat before you come :)
Here is what happened in the music room before the dance dude came:
Kindergarten - We're continuing to work on our hand-percussion unit with a farm theme. We are currently up to 5 animals and instruments! We've also been working on matching pitch, and demonstrating a canon with body percussion.
1st grade - We are composing are own songs to play on tone bells. We are also working on matching pitch with each other in a singing echo game at the beginning of each class.
2nd grade - We are reviewing Mi, Sol, La with a composition on tone bells, then we'll add Do and Re! We are also working on matching pitch with each other in a singing echo game at the beginning of each class.
3rd grade - We finished updating our passports, and learning about Ekaki Uta (Japanese drawing songs). We learned how to draw a fish, a duck, a pig, and a dog as we sang.
4th grade - We are working hard on our belt songs, and have now mastered the Yellow Belt song, Gently Sleep. It's challenging because it's a lullaby, so you don't want to play too fast or too loud. Next is Orange Belt: Merrily We Roll Along!
5th grade - We can play all 3 parts of our xylophone song! Now, we'll jam out as we learn how to improvise on a pentatonic scale :)
6th grade - We learned the ukulele part for our end of year song, High Hopes. We'll do a quick review next week, and then learn the xylophone part for the rest of May.