Curriculum

Elementary and Middle School

The music teacher will cooperate with classroom teachers to follow Core Knowledge Sequence in linking music classroom experiences to material taught in the classroom.

In keeping with the Core Knowledge curriculum, Woods is using an Orff Schulwek approach to teaching. The elements of the Orff philosophy include music education for the whole person. It is essentially an active music experiential approach. The Orff approach encourages creativity through the student's natural responses to music.

Kindergarten

  • Become familiar with rhythm, melody, form
  • Recognize instruments by sight and sound
  • Become familiar with the 'In the Hall of the Mountain King' by Grieg and Saint-Saens' Carnival of the Animals
  • Music and Movement from Kindergarten Songs list

1st Grade

  • Review rhythm melody, harmony, form
  • Become familiar with simple music notation
  • Intro to composers, orchestra and opera.
  • Listening: Mozart's Eine kleine Nachtmusik
  • Songs and movement from 1st Grade Song list

2nd Grade

  • Review basic elements of music and notation
  • Review families of instruments
  • Recognize differences between piano and organ
  • Explore composition
  • Listening: Vivaldi's The Four Seasons, Bach's Minuet in G and Toccata and Fugue in D minor and Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony
  • Music and movement from 2nd Grade song list

3rd Grade

  • Review basic elements of music and notation
  • Review symphony orchestra
  • Composers and their music: John Phillip Sousa, Aaron Copland, Rimsky-Korsakov and Tchaikovsky
  • Intro to Jazz
  • Music and Movement - 3rd Grade Song List

4th Grade

  • Review basic elements and notation
  • Introduction to singing in harmony
  • Recognize vocal ranges of singers
  • Listening - Britten's 'The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra', Handel's Messiah (The Hallelujah Chorus), Haydn's Surprise Symphony, Mozart's The Magic Flute
  • Music and movement from 4th Grade Song list, especially Gregorian chant and Sea Songs

5th Grade

  • Continue with basic music terms and notation
  • Composers: Beethoven (Symphony No 5), Mussorgsky (Pictures at an Exhibition),
  • Mendelssohn (Wedding March from A Midsummer Night's Dream) and music of the Renaissance
  • American Musical Traditions - Spirituals
  • Songs and Movement from the 5th Grade List

6th Grade

  • Review as necessary the orchestra, keyboard instruments and vocal ranges
  • Italian musical terms
  • Review musical notation
  • Music technology
  • Classical Music from Baroque to Romantic
  • Composers: Bach, Handel, Mozart, Haydn,
  • Beethoven, Schubert, Chopin, Schumann