2nd Grade Curriculum

In second grade, I use a curriculum based on John Feierabend’s First Steps in Music and Conversational Solfege and Edwin Gordon's Jump Right In! Students begin by working on the concepts that have been the focus of their first two years:

• Tuneful - to have tunes in their heads and learn to coordinate their voices to sing those tunes. By being tuneful they will be able to sing lullabies to their children, sing "Happy Birthday" to their children and friends, join others in singing ceremonial songs like "The Star Spangled Banner," and to sing for the joy of singing. They will have an inherent sense of the structure of music and understand where music wants to go.
• Beatful - to feel the pulse of music and how that pulse is grouped in either twos or threes. By being beatful they will be able to rock on the beat while singing a lullaby, dance at weddings or parties, and to play or sing along to their favorite tune.
• Artful - to be moved by music in the many ways music can bring out an emotional response. By being artful they will be moved by music and seek out venues to share artful experiences with others in concert halls, in community bands and choirs or by listening to National Public Radio. They will enjoy being moved by music.

Before students begin to decipher music notation and study music in a systematic way, they will demonstrate that they have achieved these three. Before that point, musical notation and theory will only confuse the music with the notation and force students to learn notation by memorization rather than understanding of melody and musical direction. Once second graders are ready, we use the Conversational Solfege system to internalize, hear, say, read, and write rhythmic and melodic patterns.

Second grade students also focus on internalizing the basics of musicianship: listening, steady beat, rhythmic composition and understanding, using a healthy singing voice, expressing music through movement, and audiating (hearing music in your head).

If you have any questions about what second graders are working on or how our musical curriculum works, please feel free to contact me!