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1st Grade- We now know 2 circle games- "Cut the Cake" and "Going to Kentucky;" and one voice recognition game- "Doggie, Doggie." We have been working on identifying our speaking, whispering, shouting, and singing voices. We also discovered how many sounds are in our first names, and played them on the tubano drum.
2nd Grade- We also learned a voice recognition game- "Down Came Johnny;" and practiced doing elbow turns with partners in "Old Bald Eagle;" and learned some complicated ball bouncing patterns to go with "Plansies, Clapsies." Additionally, we learned how to sing "hello, my friends" in Swahili (Jambo, sana), English, Spanish (Hola, mis amigos), and French (bon jour, mes amis) while playing a level bordun on the bass xylophone.
3rd Grade- We have been discovering different musical forms: our welcome song is in ABA form. We sing and walk during the A section, and do a clapping pattern with a partner during the B section. We have also performed the 2 line set play party "Amasee," completed a movement activity to the Ladysmith Black Mambazo song "Amafutha Esibane," and improvised our own call for the class to respond to further our knowledge of Call and Response.
4th Grade- We have been re-discovering some of the non-pitched percussion instruments in our classroom through a Sound Story. We read "The Pearl Treasure," which is a Chinese folk-tale, and determined which characters, places, and important objects could use a sound effect. Ms. Hunter demonstrated the best way to play about 25 of the of percussion instruments, and students determined which instruments could best represent each character. We also continued to work on a complex clapping pattern that accompanies the song "Four White Horses."