MUSIC IN SECOND GRADE

It was wonderful to meet the 2018-2019 Second Grade: getting to know the new students and meet again the ¨veterans.¨  They are beginning to bond with their new classmates, full of anticipation for the new experiences to come.

We started our musical year with some melodic and rhythmic activities as a point of departure to, as a group, draw conclusions and discuss about this year’s expectations and objectives: the more they are directly involved in making music the better will they learn about music.

The students reviewed the concept of beat by singing some songs and rhymes such as “Apple, Peaches, Pearls and Plums,” while adding body percussions or walking to the beat. In the traditional rhyme “Bounce High, Bounce Low” the children engaged in a game were they had to bounce a ball and pass on it to another classmate to the beat while singing the song. For some of them it was not easy to control the impulse of bouncing the ball their own way. They needed to integrate their listening to their motor response by adjusting to the “steadiness” of the beat while singing the name of the next child they chose. In the context of the fun game, there were many skills involved: self-regulation, listening, singing together, responding to the beat, and thinking skills such as anticipation, decision making and thinking in action. And of course there was a lot of fun and group interaction.

One of the objectives this year is to learn conceptually and label some of their previous musical experiences. This is a fundamental step to music literacy. In this other activity, students learned the concepts of unison and echo singing through the traditional round “Gutten Morgen.”

Students walk while singing in unison.

 Students walk with a partner. One member of the couple sings the first voice and the other one sings an echo response.

I'll see you next week!

Making New Friends in Kinder!

Making New Friends and Getting to Know Each Other

Drama is a subject that requires a bit of confidence and willingness to share your creativity with others. The students and I are just getting to know each other as Drama is a class that is given for the 1st time in Kinder. In EC 3 & 4, creative play is a part of their classroom time but in Kinder, the students attend classes such as Drama, Music and Visual Arts on their own, in the company of their classroom Teacher Assistant (TA).

This week has been a wonderful time of the students and I sharing little things about ourselves and learning each others' names. We have been giving (and getting!) lots of hugs and greeting each other in the hallways or during recess.

In Drama class, we have been playing name games and sharing what some of our favorite things are, whether it be our favorite food, toys, games, people or places. These are exercises that help us to form a bond with each other, find similarities and create an environment of trust. These elements are extremely important as acting requires a great deal of trust and team work, particularly when we begin to share our ideas or prepare a performance for an audience.

The next Unit of Inquiry that the Kinder students will be focusing on is about Friendship and how these kinds of relationships are built. This week, we began to have discussions on what are the kinds of things that friends do with each other, as well as the things that we would not do to a friend.

The students engaged in an exercise called "Think, Pair, Share", where I asked them to think in silence about the kinds of things they might do with a friend. Then, they were asked to turn to the person next to them and share their thoughts with them. 

Finally, the class was asked to share their ideas with me and I wrote their ideas on the board......

To finish up the class, we played some circle games while learning the song "Make New Friends". The lyrics are simple and the melody is lovely. We will continue to discuss and share the ways that we can make new friends in our classrooms and become better friends to the ones we have already established.

WELCOME TO OUR MUSIC BLOG!

I am Juana Ramos, Elementary Music Teacher. I wish my Kinder to Second Grade students and their families a rewarding school year.

Everything is ready for sharing new experiences of joy and learning through music making.

Back to School....and Drama Class!!

Hello Everyone!

My name is Ms. Odette and I am the PYP Drama Teacher for Kinder, 1st and 2nd Grades.
The students have already shown a great deal of excitement to begin working on new stories, activities, games and exercises. I am also very excited and can't wait to start sharing the ideas I have for this new school year with your children!

You can also follow our progress on the MET Instagram account dedicated to the arts here at our school!

https://www.instagram.com/metschoolartists/

Have a great weekend!

Ms. Odette

KINDERGARTEN: PLAYING PERCUSSION INSTRUMENTS


These past few weeks, Kindergarten students have been filling the music classroom with the sounds of very diverse percussion instruments. These pitched and un-pitched musical instruments expanded the expressive possibilities of our musical experiences, and, of course, are the children's favourite medium for music making. We used them to learn about pitch, timber, colour, using them to create a sound landscape for a story. We used them also as another way of experiencing fundamental music elements such as beat and rhythm. At the same time, they allow us to reinforce the cooperative and management skills necessary for making music together: listening to others, respecting turns, taking care of your instrument, responding to visual and musical cues to be able to begin and finish together, or to intervene on time.

Unpitched instruments: Students learned the names and proper usage of the instruments: hand drum, guiro, claves, blocks, tambourin, triangle, cabassa, or rainstick. They inquired how different materials create a particular type of timber: metal, wood, and membranes. They also explored the different ways of creating sound: striking, rubbing, or shaking.

Students sit in a circle. They switch instruments by moving to the next mat clockwise. This allows them to play all of the instruments.

Practicing basic skills to play in an ensemble: responding to the cues and finishing together!

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Students created their own versions of a story.

Students accompany their singing.

Pitched instruments: Xylophones, metallophones, glockenspiels, the so called Orff instruments. Students learned barred-instrument technique: how to release the sound, to hold mallets as if riding a bicycle, with no fingers on top, elbows out slightly, mallets pointed inward, and sitting posture.

The children's ability to play musical instruments is related to their physical development. In music class, we use the creative context of a story, a rhyme, or a song to explore sound. Kinder students work on their muscular coordination and the most refined eye coordination necessary to play barred instruments, first with two hands simultaneously, and then with alternating hands guided by a creative purpose.

Celebrating who we are and what we can do!

Celebrations can take many forms; Birthday parties, cultural holidays such as Christmas and Hanukkah, family gatherings, national days of independence, dances, the list goes on. In Drama, we are going to celebrate our creative energy, who we are growing up to be and all of the things we can do now.

 By popular demand, we take part in the movement-game favorite of "The Night Guard at the Museum". Each student in the class is one of the statues in the museum and 1 or 2 are chosen to be the night guards whose job it is be sure that all is well while the museum is closed. When the guards have their backs turned, the statues can come to life and move as they wish but as soon as the guards turn back around, all of the statues must freeze in place. 

Any "broken" statues that the night guards see moving must be taken to the "repair room", meaning that the statue has been taken out of the game.

 

             

"Dance & Freeze" gives us more reasons to celebrate as we dance and move our bodies the ways the music motivates us to. Here we listen to holiday songs to get us into the mood of going on our holiday break! Once the music stops, we freeze immediately and hold our position.

 

Scarves are added for tactile and visual stimulation.

The poem, "I Like Myself", celebrates all of the wonderful elements that make us who we are. Our feet, our hands, the way we move as well as the way we think. Kinder classes are currently learning this poem through movement as well as recitation, developing their memorization abilities and expressing these ideas through physical movement. 

KINDER

INTERDISCIPLINARY LEARNING: PINK SHELL

In Music class, Kindergarten students learned a repertoire of songs, combining music, poetry, dance and visual arts in an interdisciplinary manner. All these forms of art affect deeply our emotions. Experiencing our songs through different art forms made a great impact on the children's learning and the music class became an exciting place of expression and discovery.

Pink Shell is a soft, poetic song: Pink Shell, hollow shell, what is your song? Sing to the ocean breeze, sing all day long. I hear the ocean roar. Winds soft and strong.

The text opened our imagination to create a story about a knight who, while riding his horse along a solitary beach, found a pink shell.  The students used this story to improvise and role play while singing the song.

Storytelling

We also had real shells in class. The students had the opportunity to touch and feel the different shapes, textures, and sizes.  They listened into the shells very intently.  Some of them hear the sounds of the ocean, others of the wind, others even heard mermaids and whales. The senses were open and the imagination sparked.

 After all the previous experiences, the children continue immerse in their imaginary world and capture it on their drawings.

Singing and drawing

Drawing about Io Sono un Bambino

Children keep really busy.

Representing a hand clapping song.

PInk Shell, what is your song?

The pink shell and the mermaid and the ocean roaring