Music

First Grade has enjoyed a great start to the school year; our welcome song incorporates improvised melodies of greetings in different languages with a call-and-response format. We are studying solfege (Do-Re-Mi) and learning Kodaly hand signs that accompany each note. Our Hispanic Heritage Month celebration included a variety of salsa, cumbia and reggaeton, and we learned to sing Richie Valens’ “La Bamba” and Celia Cruz’ “La Vida Es Un Carnaval” We have been playing the claves and learning proper technique as well as specific son and tresillo rhythms, and are using drumsticks and pads to practice our rhythmic subdivisions, from whole notes to 16th notes.