Music Show and Tell!

*Due to the half day Friday, Mrs. Henault's class will do Show and Tell on Tuesday, December 10th.

November Music 2019!

This November I find myself thankful for a job that is never dull and students that make me laugh daily. Wishing all JFK and Parmenter families a Happy Thanksgiving!

November Celebrity Singers in Chorus!

 JFK 3rd Grade

JFK 4th Grade

 JFK 5th Grade

 Parmenter 3rd Grade

November Musician, Culture, and Conductor of the Month!

1st Grade Musician: John Philip Sousa 

2nd Grade Culture: Australia

3rd Grade Conductors: Marin Alsop and Andris Nelsons

Other snapshots of Music in November!

Below are pictures and videos of different activities and concepts we explored in music. I plan to feature every class that I teach at JFK and Parmenter by the end of the year. Stay tuned!

Also follow me on twitter @MrsMacMusic1

Concert dates can be found on the right side of this blog.

Kindergarten

Students in kindergarten are further explore singing voice vs. chanting voice etc. Students are always asked to sing with their best singing voice and we show contrasting voices to make that clear. You will also notice students below moving to big and small beats.

Little Turkey - Mrs. Trockman's Class

Blueberry (Alligator) Pie - Mrs. Trockman's Class

1st Grade

Here in Mrs. Kolodny's Class, students are learning to sing a melody with their best singing voice along with friends while playing one of their favorite games, "5 Fat Turkeys."

2nd Grade

Mrs. Henault's class enjoying a new song "The Turkey Song" students sing with friends and eventually go on to audiate and move in duple meter.

Students in Mrs. Grinley's class are singing and playing for the first time on barred instruments the popular Australian song, "Kookaburra." Students love singing this song and will go on to sing it in a round experiencing harmony for the first time! 

Students in Mrs. Carnaroli's class and all second grade classes love animals! Students took turns picking an animal, discovering it's rhythm and then playing and audiating the rhythm on instruments. In some classes we began to take their ostinato and layer it with kookaburra to create rhythmic texture.

3rd Grade

This month students are creating the melody to accompany their planet. Here students are working together to learn the melody they created. I love the sound of students helping each other to make music!

4th Grade

Students are still working diligently at growing as recorder players. I spent a lot of time in term 1 not only building good recorder playing habits but also good recorder practice habits. Students are being taught how to learn a piece without my help by first clapping and saying the rhythm, then clapping and saying the notes, then adding fingerings and finally playing the song. Here is Mrs. Merten's class performing "Starburst." Most of which they learned on their own in groups.

3rd Grade Chorus 

Here the third grade chorus adapted a warm up called "Donkeys Always Love Their Carrots". Once mastered this warm up can be turned into a round to create harmony. Please enjoy, "People Always Love their Turkeys.":)

4th Grade Chorus JFK

The 4th grade chorus chose a song to give their parents a teaser for their upcoming concert in January. Check out this Hebrew in "Zum Gali Gali."

FHS chorus, band and orchestra concerts!

Want to hear quality music at a great price? Concert is about an hour with a $5 suggested donation.

October Music!

October Celebrity Singers in Chorus!

JFK 3rd Grade

JFK 4th Grade

 JFK 5th Grade

 Parmenter 3rd Grade

October Musician, Culture, and Composer of the Month!

1st Grade Musician: Yo-Yo Ma 

2nd Grade Culture: Africa

3rd Grade Composer: Camille Saint-Saens

Other snapshots of Music in October!

Below are pictures and videos of different activities and concepts we explored in music. I plan to feature every class that I teach at JFK and Parmenter by the end of the year. Stay tuned!

Also follow me on twitter @MrsMacMusic1

Kindergarten

Kindergarten has been having a blast exploring their voices and instruments! Students have also been discovering that the beat is everywhere! Ask your children where they have heard the beat in music.

Here is Mrs. Forde's Class dancing to the beat. We talked about how people must listen and move to the beat and music to be great dancers. To see if they were really listening to the music, we moved to the song "Freeze!" Check out these moves!

1st Grade

Here is Mrs. Emord's class demonstrating the song "Little Ghosty." This song reinforces the resting tone (Do in Major and La in La based minor) and students were also asked to audiate or sing certain parts of the music in their head. 

2nd Grade

Below are students from Mrs. Carnaroli's class. We explored music from Africa this month while also working on reading duple rhythms and singing solfege syllables in major and minor tonality. Students learned an African call and response rhythm on the drums from Ghana and here they were playing along to "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" which was taken from a tribe in South Africa.

3rd Grade

As 3rd Graders are learning about composers, Gustav Holst and Camille Saint-Saens, they also learned about becoming composers themselves! Students created their own planets as a class and composing their own music to accompany their planets. This month we added a melody using notes and solfege that we are learning on our barred instruments. Still more to do but we look forward to performing this for you!

We were having so much fun this month I completely forgot to get any pictures or a video! So sorry! Instead here is a new video I found that I've shown to 2nd and 3rd grade that teaches the solfege syllables and hand signs. The kids loved it!

4th Grade

Students have officially started learning the recorder! I thought the kids (and parents) would get a kick out of hearing the students the first time they play the recorder. In the second video you will be amazed to see how much control they learn in just one week! As them if they know the two ways to avoid squeaks on the recorder!

Mrs. Bessette's Class  - Note B

Here is Mrs. Merten's class working in groups on the song, "All Alone." I spend a lot of time in class showing students how to practice so that they can have strategies when they learn songs at home. Check out this awesome group work!

Recorders come home in January!:)

How fun is this?! 

5th Grade

Students are still expected to be playing the recorder at home so we can maintain our skills and add the ukulele. In November, students will be taking a few weeks to learn a Japanese round on the recorder, "Hotaru Koi." We are preparing for quite the concert! So far on the ukulele we have been learning the strings and parts of the ukulele. In November we will be learning Am and C chords with the down strum.

Apple Tree Practice on the Ukulele

Mrs. Vicente's Class JFK

Here is some additional motivation!

Chorus

3rd Grade Parmenter Chorus

Mi Gallo - sneak preview!
(Check out our Spanish!)

5th Grade JFK Chorus

Hava Nagila - sneak preview!
(Check out our Hebrew!)

Hope everyone had a happy and safe Halloween! Here are the MacMurray kids celebrating!

September Music!

September Music!

Every month I'm going to be posting pictures of celebrity singers in chorus. I will also be posting the musician, culture and composer of the month for first through third grade. (Thank you for all of your suggestions! Second grade families, don't forget you can tell me about an important culture in your family here 2nd Grade Musical Culture Survey) Finally, I'm trying to include pictures and videos of what goes on in the music room! September was a bit of a blur but there will be more next month. I teach 33 classes a week (25 JFK and 10 Parmenter) so while I can not capture every class, every month, (I would need a personal videographer!) but I'll do my best to capture each class before the end of the year. Hopefully, by seeing another class in your child's grade you'll still be able to have a great conversation with your child about what they're learning in music! 

Thanks for reading! Mrs. Mac(Murray)

Kindergarten:

This first term students are focusing on two things. 1. Learning that the beat is a steady pulse and more importantly what that feels like. (We've been exploring our surroundings and finding the beat everywhere! Our hearts, tools, clocks, music, instruments, our bodies, buses, windshield wipes, swings and so on can all move with a steady pulse!) 2. We can use our voice to shout, speak, whisper, sing, chant, and audiate! (Ask them to show you all the voices we use in music!) 

Mrs. Bradley's Class 

Students explored a new rhythm to the chant "Stretch and Bounce." Students are also at a young age seeing the phrasing in the music.

Mrs. Forde's Class 

Students explored different ways they could use their voices and are also exploring new and exciting instruments!

1st Grade:

In first grade we took a few weeks to review our concepts from kindergarten. We are now focusing on two learning objectives. 1. We can echo patterns in duple meter using syllables. (We are using syllables such as Du (pronounced Doo) and Du de (pronounced Doo day). This is the second step in learning how to become fluent in rhythm. 2. We can accurately find and sing the resting tone. (The resting tone is one of the most important notes in a song sometimes referred to as "Do" pronounced "Doh" when in major tonality.) Later this can translate to instruments like guitar and hearing the I chord. Students could not get enough of our musician of the month, Ray Charles. We talked about how there must have been times when things were hard due to being blind but he never gave up! 

2nd Grade:

In second grade we spent a few weeks reviewing end of the year first grade objectives. This term we are going to take our rhythm skills to the next level by adding some new rhythms and more exploration into reading and writing these rhythms. We are also learning to sing patterns in major tonality using solfege (singing syllables) starting with the resting tone! (Think Sound of Music Do-Re-Mi) We decided to start our cultures right here in the United States! How lucky are we that we are the home to the King of Blues, Rock, Pop and many more?

We also explored the significance of folk music and folk instruments. Students loved the old folk song, "Old Dan Tucker." Below students learned a folk dance to accompany the music and played the musical washboard and the musical spoons.

2nd Grade Arnold

Mrs. Grinley's Class

Friend from Mrs. Maiato's Class who made a cool connection and brought in his book to show me the Elvis Presley Shield Bug!

3rd Grade:

In third grade we spent a few weeks reviewing end of the year second grade objectives. This year we are focusing on composers. This term we are singing solfege syllables in major tonality and we have been reading and creating rhythms in duple meter. We learned about the composer Gustav Holst who used the planets as inspiration for his composition "The Planets Suite". We plan to use our skills to create our own planet. Stay tuned!

We listened to Mars in class. Here students can see what it looks like in concert.

4th Grade:

Students in fourth grade spent the first month learning the names of the notes on the treble clef staff and reviewing rhythms in duple meter and their names. Ask your students to teach you the tricks for the line and space notes! Recorders are beginning within the next couple of weeks! They will come home in January:)

5th Grade:

We have been so busy catching up on recorder from last year! We are reviewing notes, rhythms and fingerings from last year and adding some new practices to our bag of tricks! I also am taking time to review how students can practice at home and work productively in groups. Remember, recorders should always be in backpacks and every student should be practicing the recorder 5x a week for 10 minutes each time. This year to allow more time for ukuleles and students who need to do make-ups practicing will be expected every other week. We'll see how it goes! Can't wait for ukuleles will begin this month! 
Feel free to check out my previous post: Thinking of buying a ukulele?

3rd, 4th, and 5th Grade Chorus
All choirs have been learning or reviewing their chorus objectives. So far we have done...
1. We can sing with the 5 points of posture.
2. We can sing with great breath support!

Reminder that concert dates are on their right side of this blog page. These kids are going to sound amazing!

New date! 

5th graders at JFK and Parmenter will be invited to sing the National Anthem with the Providence Bruins! The date is January 17th (evening). More information to follow! 

September Celebrity Singers

Q: What's a celebrity singer?
A: A celebrity singer is a student in chorus that demonstrates great effort, leadership, and focus. They also show great singing technique such as good posture, vowel shapes, pitch, breathing, etc. Sometimes I also pick a student whom I feel has shown great improvement. With the help of the educational support personal and celebrity singers from the previous week, I try to chose two students each week. Some weeks I can't help myself and pick more!

Q: Where did this idea come from?
A: I wanted to show students that anyone can join and love chorus and become a singer. It's not just for a certain type of person, everyone was born to sing! I began thinking about celebrities such as Anne Hathaway, Beyonce, Matt Damon, Theodore Roosevelt, etc. that were all in chorus when they were younger. Sometimes the best singers are the people you would least expect!

Q: What can I do to help?
A: Never tell your child they can't sing! Also be careful about how you joke about your own singing. We're all born with the right equipment to sing. Some of us unfortunately just never learned how to use it!
Science and Art

JFK 4th Grade

JFK 5th Grade

Parmenter 3rd Grade

JFK 3rd Grade

Advice from 5th graders!

I love this tradition I started a few years back. I ask my fifth graders to write down advice for future music students. Here is the quote I always share...

Below are just some of their words of wisdom!:)

Advice from 5th Graders (2018-2019):

Always practice your recorder!

Practice, practice makes perfect but there is no such thing as perfect which is why you should practice no matter what anybody tells you.:)

Break down hard things into easy things.

Don’t be scared to try out for a solo because you might get it and if you don’t try out you will be mad that you didn’t.

It’s when you’re most nervous you’re most powerful.

Trying out for a solo is like picking up a new book. It may be hard or stressful but it is still worth it. Don’t be afraid of a solo. 

Always try new things.

Have fun while you’re in music! It makes it better than it already is!

Don’t worry what others think.

Do whatever music YOU want to do and believe in your dreams!:)

You might not be comfortable but Mrs. Mac helps you.

Don’t forget your music folder/recorder.

When you’re playing the recorder blow softly.

Focus and don’t goof around because you will regret it.

Use diction.

Work hard and you will always succeed. 

Keep trying even when things are hard for you.

Nothing is impossible. Try your best and you will eventually get it.

You won’t succeed unless you try.

Try your best and do not give up.

Be confident in your work. Try hard.

Just have fun and do your best. Do your job and you will succeed.

When people think it’s impossible, make it possible.

Nothing is impossible when you put your mind to it.

It’s okay for things to be hard, but Never give up! Recorder players - you can do this.