What are we learning?

Kindergarten students are busy exploring their voices, new instruments, and expression through movement! Some of the standards we are currently focusing on are:

  • learning to keep a steady beat
  • echoing rhythm patterns accurately
  • listening for and performing musical patterns
  • fast/slow, loud/quiet, and high/low
  • how to keep a steady beat
  • being a good audience member

First Grade students are beginning to navigate reading pitches on the 3 line staff, identifying and playing more classroom instruments, and reading rhythms! Some of the standards we are currently focusing on are:

  • Read, Write and Perform quarter notes and paired eighth notes
  • Listen for and perform songs in AB form
  • Creating a musical phrase
  • Singing with a light, clear tone
  • Read, write, and perform melodies with sol and mi on the staff

Second Grade students have been hard at work learning about new rhythms, folk dancing, and more complex music reading. Third trimester we will be working on:

  • Identifying barlines, measures, and double barlines
  • Identifying and explaining fermatas
  • Performing and identifying a coda
  • Staccato and legato
  • Singing in two part rounds
  • Identifying and explaining time signatures

Third Graders are cruising along with recorders! We love to use these instruments to dig into reading the treble clef staff and understanding parts of music notation. In addition to recorders we are learning about:

  • Composing four measures of music on the treble clef staff
  • Reading, writing, and performing 16th note rhythms & dotted half note rhythms
  • First and Second endings
  • Listening for and demonstrating largo and allegro
  • Songs in rhondo form
  • I-V chord accompaniments
  • Reading, writing, and performing extended pentatonic melodies

Fourth Graders are taking their recorder playing to the next level while also digging into the next level of music making. The end of the school year will focus on:

  • Composing four and eight measure melodies on the treble clef staff
  • Interludes, D.C. al fine and D.S. al coda
  • Listen for and perform songs that are in theme and variation form
  • Using dotted quarter-eighth note rhythms
  • Mezzo piano and mezzo forte
  • Performing I-IV-V chord accompaniments
  • Identifying specific instruments of the band and orchestra

5th Grade just completed a huge project - their 5th Grade Musical! We are off to the races now with the end of their time in elementary quickly approaching. Things are are ending the year with:

  • ID and describe sharps, flats, and naturals
  • Describing and performing I-IV-V chord accompaniments in various keys
  • Reading, writing and performing varied eighth and sixteenth note patterns
  • Composing and notating eight measure melodies on the treble staff
  • Listening for, describing, and performing half steps and whole steps
  • Demonstrating diminuendo and slur