Memorial Day Programs

It's that time of year!  When students return from April Vacation, all grades will begin working on music for their Memorial Day Programs.

Families are invited to attend these programs at our schools.  We'd love to see you there!

Primary School Programs: Tuesday, May 23rd
Kindergarten: 10:00-10:30
1st Grade: 9:00-9:30
2nd Grade: 11:00-11:30

Memorial School Programs: Thursday, May 25th
3rd Grade: 8:45-9:30
4th Grade: 10:00-10:45
5th Grade: 1:15-2:00

April Band Music

Time signatures, pick ups, and dynamics, oh my!  Our White Band students have been hard at work learning many new concepts this month.  Hear some of the songs they've been working on this month in the recordings below.






As we come into our last month of band this school year, help us keep the momentum going.  Encourage your students to practice every night for at least 10 minutes.  Students should practice a total of 1 hour per week outside of band rehearsals to improve on the songs we're working on.

If your child earned a "BANDO" over April vacation for a special Band Karate Belt, please make sure Miss Dagenais gets their signed "BANDO" form no later than Thursday, April 27th.

John the Rabbit

1st Graders have been so successful with working with echo songs!  These song fragments help students to listen to a model singing voice (teacher, recording, other student) and copy the same words and tune in the same style.

Because of their success with echo songs, it is time to move on to more complex song fragments - call and response songs.  A call and response song is similar to an echo song in that students listen to a model singer and respond in the same style, but where in an echo song students sing the same thing right back, in a call and response song, they must sing something different.  This challenges students to listen carefully and use their singing voices, but maintain their own independence in singing.

The first call and response song we have worked on is called John the Rabbit.  Students learned that no matter what Miss Dagenais sang, they needed to respond "Oh yes!"  It was difficult to remember to always use our singing voices, but after some practice, we could all do it easily!  Once we were comfortable singing the response as a class, students even sang it all by themselves!

Sing it with your children using the lyrics below.  Maybe they can sing the call and you can sing the response!

Oh John the Rabbit (Oh yes!)
Oh John the Rabbit (Oh yes!)
Had a mighty fine habit (Oh yes!)
Of jumping in my garden (Oh yes!)
And eating up my spinach. (Oh yes!)
He ate potatoes (Oh yes!)
And sweet tomatoes (Oh yes!)
And if I live (Oh yes!)
To see next fall (Oh yes!)
I won't plant (Oh yes!)
A garden at all. (Oh yes!)

Hear Miss Carroll's class perform this song with Miss Dagenais in the video below.

Are You Sleeping?/Frère Jacques

2nd Graders are continuing their study of ostinatos with the song Are You Sleeping?/Frère Jacques.

We started out by learning the song Are You Sleeping? in English:

Are you sleeping?  Are you sleeping?
Brother John, Brother John.
Morning bells are ringing, Morning bells are ringing,
Ding, ding, dong, Ding, ding, dong.

Hear Mrs. Whittemore's class sing this song in the video below.



When we were comfortable with the tune, students were introduced to the French version of this song, Frère Jacques.  Students were delighted to be singing in another language.

Frère Jacques, Frère Jacques,
Dormez-vous? Dormez-vous?
Sonnez les matines, sonnez les matines
Ding ding dong, ding ding dong.

Mrs. Whittemore's class also performed this one for you to hear.



Next, we added a rhythmic ostinato (repeating pattern) to this song.  Students patted on their laps, alternating hands - right, left, right... right, left, right.

Given four beats, students were able to figure out the rhythm of this ostinato, shown below.



What belonged on that last beat though? We would need to learn a new rhythm to figure this out. A beat without a sound is called a "rest." We will call it "sh" for now to make speaking our rhythms easier. We added the "sh" to our ostinato like this:



We know that a rest does not really look like that, but just as we use a shorthand for our "ta", we want to make drawing a rest easy for now too.

Hear Mrs. Curci's class perform this rhythmic ostinato below:



Finally, we turned our rhythmic ostinato into a melodic ostinato - a repeating pattern with a tune that we could sing.  Students were tasked with finding a line of the song that we already knew that had the same rhythm as our rhythmic ostinato.  We decided that "Ding, ding, dong" was the best fit and added it to the song as a melodic ostinato.

Hear Mrs. Curci's class perform this version as well in the video below.



Do you think we have learned enough from this song yet?  We will be coming back to it before the end of the year to use while we explore our Orff instruments (xylophones, metallophones, and glockenspiel).  I can't wait!

Another Black Belt!

Congratulations to 5th Grader Gabi Pietri on earning her Band Karate Black Belt!  Gabi has been working hard to learn new notes and concepts on her flute all by herself so she could reach this level. Congratulations, Gabi!

Evening with the Arts - Middle School Band

Congratulations to our Maroon Band students who performed with the Middle School band at March 28th's Evening with the Arts!  See videos of their performances below.





Check back soon for more photos and videos of our talented Memorial School students at Evening with the Arts!

Black Socks

As third graders continue learning about rounds, we  have learned a new song that can be sung as a round.  We learned this song about dirty socks all together as a class.  

Black socks, they never get dirty,
The longer you wear 'em the stronger they get!
Sometimes I think I should wash 'em,
But something keeps telling me,
Don't wash 'em yet!
Not yet, not yet, not yet.

Hear Mrs. Burks's class sing it in unison below.



Once we knew the tune and the words, we practiced singing the song in two groups.  We are getting much better at singing in two parts!

Folk Dancing

2nd and 3rd Graders are finishing up a folk dancing unit.  Students have been practicing keeping the beat, listening for phrasing, making cultural connections, and working together as we work our way through this unit.  All of our dances have been in longways sets, and students have learned to sashay, elbow swing, dosido, and "peel the banana."

After a few weeks of practicing our moves, 3rd graders studied a historical picture of people doing the Virginia Reel.  We talked about the similarities and differences between this picture and the dances we were doing.  Students made inferences about the time period and the reason for dancing.  Then, we noticed some qualities about the dancing in the picture that we wanted to copy in our dancing, including moving with a calm body and standing with good posture.  Students graded themselves on their dancing based on this discussion.

Check out some photos of our students enjoying these dances below:

        

Grandma Grunts

A new simple song for 1st Grade is called Grandma Grunts.  Students learned this song by listening to it over and over.  After hearing it for a few weeks, they were able to sing it independently.  Once the class could sing it without any help from Miss Dagenais, individual students sang solos for the class.  They are so brave to sing all by themselves!

Grandma Grunts said a curious thing,
Boy can whistle but girls must sing.

That is what I heard her say,
'Twas no longer than yesterday.

Boys can whistle (whistle, whistle, whistle)
Girls can sing "Tra la la la!"

Many students were not happy to hear what Grandma Grunts had to say.  Some girls love to whistle and some boys love to sing.  We all decided that we don't agree with Grandma Grunts.  We can all whistle and sing if we want!

Hear Mrs. Bayer's class perform this song in the following video.

Wise Old Owl

A friend came to the music room to help preschoolers and kindergarteners with an echo song this week.  Miss Dagenais's friend Echo the Owl loves to hear singing voices, but is scared of talking voices and shouting voices.  The only way to get Echo to stay is if we use our very best singing voices.  What a difference using our imaginations in this way made to our singing!

To make Echo feel welcome, we sang him a song about an owl.  Some classes decided we needed to turn out the lights, because everyone knows owls only come out at night!

Try this echo song with your children:

One of these days (one of these days)
Look up and see (look up and see)
A wise old owl (a wise old owl)
Sitting in a tree (sitting in a tree).

He'll look at you (he'll look at you)
And he'll look at me (and he'll look at me)
Those two big eyes (those two big eyes)
They don't scare me (they don't scare me).

One of these nights (one of these nights)
When raindrops fall (when raindrops fall)
He'll give a hoot (he'll give a hoot)
He'll give a call (he'll give a call).

Hear Mrs. Barlow's kindergarten class perform this echo song with Miss Dagenais in the video below.