Welcome to Music at Gold Rush Elementary!
My name is Maggie Rickard, and I’m thrilled to spend another year helping these wonderful students discover the joy of music. In music class students learn a wide array of skills to develop their own musical expression, along with an understanding of how music enriches people’s lives throughout history and around the world.
Expression: students make music by singing and by playing instruments (including drums and percussion, xylophones, recorder, ukulele, and more.) They learn to move with music, follow a conductor, and collaborate with others as part of a music ensemble.
Creation: students learn to express their own musical ideas by improvising and composing.
Theory: students learn to read classical music notation, understand musical symbols and terminology, and analyze the music they hear.
Response: students learn to evaluate and appreciate music from many cultures and backgrounds, and understand how music fits into a larger societal context.
In my classroom I blend techniques from the Kodály philosophy (emphasizing singing and music literacy through folk songs from our aural tradition) as well as the Orff Schulwerk philosophy (emphasizing student creativity through instruments, improvisation and composition.) Game-based play and creative play are at the heart of every lesson.