First Grade: We listened to "Jupiter, Bringer of Jollity," from The Planets, and identified the instruments in the orchestra. I particularly like this video, as it has some great orchestra footage. We played instruments and created body percussion rain noises to accompany some of our rain songs- "Rain on the Green Grass" (aka the umbrella game- you may have heard about my SpongeBob umbrella...), "Rain, Rain, Go Away" and "A Little Drop of Rain." We also did a movement activity with Debussy's "Jardins Sous La Pluie" ("Gardens in the Rain"), and played "Here Comes a Bluebird." Our Earth Day piece was "Turn the World Around," and we arranged the verses in a few different ways. Click here for a slightly different version, sung by Harry Belafonte and some muppets. Then ask your first grader to sing our version!
Second Grade: We listened to the second movement of the St. Paul's Suite, "Ostinato," which fit perfectly into our work with ostinati (repeated melodic or rhythmic patterns that accompany a melody). Another piece we listened to that had an ostinato consisting of "mi, do re mi..." was Georges Bizet's "Carrillon" from L'Arlesienne Suite. Coincidentally, we sang two songs in French- "Frere Jacques" and "Fais Do Do," both with contain do-re-mi patterns. We have been singing "Frere Jacques" as a 2 part round with body percussion, and will be adding instruments to it next week. We practiced Do-Re-Mi by playing all of our "do-re-mi" songs on Orff instruments, and playing other ostinati to accompany the pieces. Two of the games we played this month were "Frosty Weather/Sunny Weather," and "Matarile."
Third Grade: We listened to "Mars," from The Planets, and talked about the mood of the piece and dynamics used to create dramatic effect. Our Earth Day song was "This Pretty Planet." We played a melodic ostinato to accompany the song, sang it as a 3 part round, and created movement to show the 3 different phrases in the song. We also started learning about time signatures and presented a composition project we started in March. One game we learned was the concentration game "Mabel, Mabel," which is tricky because you have to keep the pattern of 3 instead of the usual 2 or 4.
Fourth Grade: As we continue to prepare for our June performance, we listened to and watch Voces8 sing "Nunc Dimittis" (Holst), and discussed their posture, vowels, harmony, and other performance techniques. We also have been choreographing class movement pieces, and being specific about where we will stand and how the dance will work, in addition to deciding which instrument parts everyone will play for the performance. Our chorus pieces are memorized at this point, and practice packets were handed out this past week. Practice tracks can be found on the 4th grade chorus section of this site, or just click here.