March, 2020 in Music Lessons 

Though we did not make it through much of March before the COVID-19 shut down, some highlights of our music program included our 4th grade Celtic studies unit, in which 4th graders learned about Celtic musical instruments and forms. Bassoonist and piper Rosalind Budd visited our music lessons and played for 2nd and 4th graders and Celtic musician Connell Sanderson from the local Celtic music group, Bardic Alchemy, wowed our 4th graders in our culminating celebration where students sang, danced, and played the Celtic game of shinty, akin to lacrosse.  3rd graders were just on the verge of receiving their own recorder flutes when our school closed for on-site learning and the difficult decision was made to postpone their recorder unit until beginning of 4th grade.  

January & February, 2020 in Music Lessons 

January and February bring a new year, the MLK Holiday and related music and a chance to learn about the great African American composer, Scott Joplin. 

Kindergarten and 1st Grades

    Dancing as we enjoy great works by Scott Joplin, such as The Entertainer and Maple Leaf Rag, help us learn about the great American music form, Ragtime and allows us to share our moves as we create group choreography. Singing fun songs like Alexander's Ragtime Band, I've Been Working on the Railroad, and Oh, Suzannah! give us more context for early American music, while The Maestro puppet visits to share the biography of Scott Joplin, including the story of his first piano lessons gifted by the wealthy woman for whom Joplin's mother worked as a house keeper. Classroom instruments such as our Orff xylophone sets bring musical accompaniment and form to old nursery rhymes like Hickory Dickory and Humpty Dumpty, as we explore musical ideas such as melodic direction and go deeper with our understanding of rhythm, beat, and rhyme as vehicles for instrumentation. Kindergartners work hard at The Names Song on the xylophones while 1st graders tackle playing scales together to learn about the concept of musical key by assigning different "home notes." As MLK Day approaches, we celebrate by playing The Martin Luther King Chant on drums and discuss this American hero. Chinese New Year brings musical learning opportunities from Asian culture as we discover the Lion and Dragon Dances and Parades and associated songs and drumming.

2nd Grade

     As well as learning about Scott Joplin, the King of Ragtime, second graders spend time learning about the banjo and its important history as part of American music making. Camptown Races, Alexander's Ragtime Band, and other sing-alongs are accompanied by the banjo and we make our own instrumental accompaniment on the Orff instruments for Birds in the Tree, an old rhyme that we bring to life with music and dance as we learn about and create our own musical forms and learn about ostinatos - repeating rhythmic and melodic patterns which often build out of the rhythm of words in the Orff music teaching approach. Second graders also honor the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. with song and drum chants and learn about Chinese New Year in preparation for our celebration in which our local Mountain Dragon Kung Fu dojo brings the Chinese Lion Dancers for hallway parades and performance assembly.

 3rd Grade

     Getting ready for recorder flutes is the focus of much of our time in third grade through January and February. Before Claxton students purchase and take home their own instruments in March each year, 3rd graders review and elevate their understanding of notes on the musical staff through the Musical ABCs Song and musical games such as Spot the Note! By late February we are splitting into small groups and learning our first pitches on the classroom sets of recorder flutes as we also get a chance to explore the classroom digital keyboards. Of course we celebrate the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. through singing and drumming and discuss music as a catalyst for change in the Civil Rights Movement and the song Freedom Land helps give us historical context for this.  We also have our Hidden History/New Monuments unit in February in which 3rd graders honor Asheville heroes through a song writing and recording project. 

4th and 5th Grades

     4th and 5th grades start the new year 2020 with digital music making in the Chrome Music Lab. We also continue with a focus on Orff pieces for xylophones and other instruments as we move into February. 4th graders go more in depth with a multi-part version of the Spanish language song, El Burrito Enfermo and 5th graders continue the challenges of the multi-part version of the All the Nations song. We also spend much time with Chinese New Year drum rhythms and select 4th and 5th graders get to accompany and join in the Chinese New Year Lion dancers when they come to our school for our hallway parades and assemblies. Freedom Land and We Celebrate the Birthday of Martin Luther King help us honor the MLK Holiday as we sing and play drums and we go deeper into the biography of Scott Joplin, his music and other Ragtime composers through the Classics for Kids website.     

November & December, 2019 in Music Lessons 

November and December bring Holidays and new excitement in music lessons!

Kindergarten and 1st Grades

    Moving through November in the early grades means meeting the instruments of the symphony orchestra! With storybooks, videos, discussion, games, and music from great composers, such as Ludvig van Beethoven and Edvard Grieg, students are introduced to the instrument families of Western art music. Songs such as the Spanish language Feria de San Juan (St. John's Fair), reinforce our learning as we visit a marketplace in song to buy instruments. The approaching winter season begs songs such as The Mitten Song (in Kindergarten) to help us celebrate and some old favorites, such as Jingle Bells and Over the River and Through the Wood give us chances to honor the Thanksgiving and approaching winter Holidays. We take our first serious look at a song score and begin discussing the role of music symbols, like notes and the musical staff, for reading and writing music. 1st graders go more in-depth with learning about the purpose of the different types of notes and rests, and understanding meter and bar lines. We get our first lessons of the year on the Orff xylophone sets as December starts and begin trying our hands at improvisations and simple tunes, such as The Names Song. The basics of musical pitch and melody are introduced/reviewed with the xylophones and the C pentatonic (5 note) scale. The Star Tree is a Holiday story for adding incidental music and sound effects that helps us become active musician/storytellers as we wrap up 2019.

2nd Grade

     We have had our first visit from "The Maestro," our puppet friend who comes to music lessons to help us learn about great composers and the symphony orchestra. The great Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf also helps acquaint us with the orchestral instrument families. Second grade is the first year in Claxton music lessons that student music books are employed. Students love exploring the many songs and activities in our Share the Music textbooks and through November and December we have enjoyed learning how to follow the musical scores to songs we were introduced to earlier, such as the west African, Kye Kye Kule and its American counterpart, Head and Shoulders, Baby. Musical math gets involved as we take careful notice of time signatures and beats per measure, and we are introduced to odd meter with Take Me Out to the Ballgame, an old favorite. Though we've sung Jingle Bells and Over the River and Through the Wood in years before, seeing these songs scored out helps us understand some of the fundamentals of reading music and give us chances to honor the Thanksgiving and approaching winter Holidays.

 3rd Grade

     Ukuleles! These wonderful stringed instruments have been part of the Claxton music program since 2008, when a grant from the Asheville City School's Foundation got our collection started. Over the years, we've added enough for every student in a class to get one in their hands to practice and learn on in music lessons, even a few left-handed instruments. For many years they were reserved for 4th and 5th graders, but thanks to an assertive group of third graders a few years ago, we now begin with ukuleles in November of the third grade year. We start simple; the one chord (C) version of Row Your Boat gets us underway and Paw Paw Patch then introduces us to the F and C7 chord. We challenge ourselves with G7 as we strum along with Over the River and Through the Wood to celebrate Thanksgiving. As December comes along, we enjoy Holiday and winter themed songs in our Share the Music books. Yuki, a Japanese snow song, and Hanukkah, a Yiddish folk tune, get us singing in foreign tongues. Traditional Christmas songs sing us into our winter Holiday break as well.

4th and 5th Grades

     4th and 5th grades have had their ukulele units through November and as December starts we begin adding the Orff xylophone sets to songs we have learned to strum. Clementine gets us going with a review of the F and C7 chords and gives a chance to integrate some American history into our lessons as we learn some about the California Gold Rush and the "miner 49ers." 4th grade tackles a Spanish language song, El Burrito Enfermo, which integrates some foreign language learning into our ukulele playing and 5th graders integrate some geography learning with the Banana Song (All the Nations). Spending several lessons on these songs, which will continue a bit into January, allows us to build full Orff instrument pieces around them with multi-instrumental accompaniment.

     We have a lot to look forward too! Stay tuned to keep up to date and learn more of what our musical year has in store!

October, 2019 in Music Lessons 

As well as some fun Halloween songs and activities towards the month's end, we have a lot of fun learning and music making taking place in Claxton music lessons!

Kindergarten 

Jim Along Josie invites Kindergartners to sing and dance and become impromptu lyricists and choreographers as new words and motions are added to this old favorite which also introduces students to the mandolin. Using some Mother Goose nursery rhymes such as Humpty Dumpty and A Wise Old Owl help introduce the concepts of rhythm, beat, and rhyme in music as we add instrumental accompaniment to emphasize these musical elements on hand drums, xylophone bars, and triangles, among others.

1st Grade

Life is work! And music helps us celebrate that fact. Tatus' Polish Haying Song leads us through the days of the week and teaches us vocabulary related to farming, working , and the Polish word for father, tatus! All Around the Kitchen and Davy Dumpling bring us some culinary musical tastes as the month continues and help us learn and practice with the basics of beat and rhythm, as well as leading to discussions on best singing technique and dynamics/articulation.

2nd Grade

In 2nd grade students are excited to learn that we begin using music text books on occasion to support our learning. Song Time and Kye Kye Kule (an Akan language song from west Africa) help us learn to follow lyrics in a song score. Here We Sit accompanies a fun "Hide and Sing" game. During the week of October 14th we will have LEAF resident teaching artist and renown drummer Darrell Rose working with 2nd graders to teach them percussion skills and preparing them for a school assembly performance on October 11 at 1:40 (parents invited!) and a performance at the fall LEAF festival on Saturday, October 19th at 10:45 on the Lakeside Stage (limited to first 25 families who sign up). Information regarding our fall LEAF in Schools and Streets teaching artist residency and performances have been sent home with students.

3rd Grade

Rocky Mountain, Jambo Sana, Bonefish Bluebird, and Rope Rhyme are all helping us follow the steady beat and discover the inherent rhythms in language. We enjoy perusing our 3rd grade music books to help us follow music and learn about notes on the musical staff. By mid October we begin working with the idea of chords because . . . Ukuleles are coming!

4th Grade

See Us Shine! 4th graders are learning this fun song that was a theme to the 2002 Olympic Games in Salt lake City, Utah. Its themes of encouragement, teamwork, and resiliency are discussed with a goal of strengthening our emotional intelligence. Singing in a round, or "in canon" is a strong theme in October as we learn Autumn Rounds, Ghost of John, and play hand drums in canon musical activities.

5th Grade

This Land Is Your Land, Autumn Rounds, All the Nations, and other songs have us singing in October's 5th grade music lessons. We will be playing ukuleles and putting our first full Orff instrument piece together this month as well! (The Orff instruments are the class set of xylophones which include 9 different voices of barred instruments.)

August & September, 2019 in Music Lessons 

Welcome back to an exciting year in the Claxton music program!

 We are off to a singing start in our lessons, using greeting songs and name games to acquaint ourselves with each other and the expectations of the music room. Ask your Kindergarten to sing a phrase of The Good Morning Song or show how we sing and march to The Duke of York, a timeless favorite. 1st graders have started the year singing a Hello Song in several languages and most impressive; the students always have more ways we can sing a greeting to each other, so our song gets longer and more inclusive. A verse called The Little Dwarves and a song, The Wee Dwarves, meet 1st graders where they are and remind us that life is work, but we can find joy and fun in it if we do our best. Our 2nd graders have started the year singing a greeting song from Kenya in east Africa, Jambo Bwana, in Swahili and 3rd graders also have Swahili, Spanish, and Japanese in their greeting song, Jambo Sana! (Hello, Everyone!). Our 3rd grade linguists have begun to add more languages to that as well. 4th graders are also using Jambo Bwana to greet the new school year and the great Woody Guthrie classic, This Land is Your Land will also get our year started with inclusive sentiments. Our amazing 5th graders have kicked off the year with The Glad Song, This Land is Your Land, and will soon be learning Autumn Rounds, an old English folk melody to celebrate the coming season. Using percussion instruments, like rhythm sticks, hand drums, triangles, etc., across the grades helps us start the school year learning and reviewing some basic concepts like steady beat, rhythm, and rhyme.

We have a lot to look forward too! Stay tuned to keep up to date and learn more of what our musical year has in store!