Here's what we've been doing for the fall semester in class:

- 4th/5th grade: we've been singing in 2 or 3 part rounds (that's when different groups sing the same song but starting at different times - like an echo!); we reviewed the rhythms we know so far and then learned a new one - syn-co-pa! That's an eighth, then quarter, then eighth note - a jazzy rhythm found in our folk song L'il Liza Jane which we played on xylophones. We played in an African drum circle, then studied the instruments of the orchestra. We learned a Russian folk dance!

- 2nd/3rd grade: we've been doing a lot of singing and practicing our solfege (that's do-re-mi!). We've done plenty of movement, reviewed rhythms and learned 2 new rhythm notes - half note (2 beats long) and tika tika (4 sounds to a beat - 1/16th note). We've played games with these rhythms! We've listened to orchestra music with listening maps and created our own music with instruments representing a story and characters. We played in an African drum circle. We also discovered that music has patterns - called form - like ABA form - and we showed our understanding of this through movement and listening..

- K/1 - we too are singing and moving a lot! We've practiced keeping a steady beat, and hearing long and short sounds and no sounds in music. We've learned about our basic rhythms: ta/titi and rest (silence) - that's 1/4 note, 1/8th note and 1/4 rest! We've explored our 4 voices (sing/speak/whisper/call) and the sounds (timbres) of instruments that jingle, scrape, tap or shake. We have recognized fast and slow speeds in music! We played in an African drum circle.