This week in fifth grade music…

A new year, and a new group of students!  The kids have named their group “The Polka Spots” and all eleven members are hard at work learning new pieces.

We spent the first six weeks drumming in preparation for a concert at the Heritage Festival’s International Porch Party at the Longacre House. We’ve recently switched gears into African Marimba music.  We just learned our first ensemble piece and will begin composing our own in the coming week.

What’s your favorite thing about music class 5th graders?

DRUMS!

I bet by now you have you heard the great news!  Last year, Target awarded us a $3000 grant for our drumming program!

We are so grateful to Target for helping Miss Bailey realize this dream for her students!

We’re already busy at work “breaking them in!”  Check in with us as we learn how to play and take care of our beautiful tubano drums!

Additionally, we’re adding a few more drums to our collection.  Thank you to our Fine Arts director, Stefanie LaPenta, for helping us to purchase a set of Tabla drums for our room.  Tablas originate from India and I know many of our students will enjoy playing these authentic drums!

This week in third grade music…

Hi third graders!

What’s your favorite thing about music class?

The Longacre Elementary Choir!

The Longacre Choir is already busy rehearsing for our December concert!  We are 110 strong and working on an amazing program for concert!

Ms. Bailey will be holding auditions for xylophone, recorder, drumming and vocal solos in the coming weeks.  We’re also looking for students who love technology to create a slideshow for our finale piece.

What do you think 4th and 5th graders?  What’s your favorite song for this concert?

This week in fourth grade music…

Hi fourth graders!  You did an amazing job with your rhythmic ostinato compositions for “Four White Horses.”  I am so proud for you!

Our next unit of study is drumming…

This week in second grade music…

Hi second graders!    You are amazing composers!  I am so proud of all the work you did on “Wee Willie Winkie!”  We had three classes using the same poem but each class came up with one unique composition!

We’re premiering our pieces this week for our teachers, principal, and 5th grade buddies!  

What was your favorite part of the composition process 2nd graders?

This week in first grade music…

Hi first graders!  

We’re learning how to demonstrate expression in music.  One way we do that is through dynamics.  Dynamics are the volume in music – how loud or softly something is performed.  We’ve learned that there are Italian words used in music to describe dynamics.  We’ve learned that piano means soft and that forte means loud.  We’ve also learned that using the word mezzo before either of those terms make the word medium soft or medium loud.

We’ve taken our knowledge and applied it in variety of ways.  We’ve read the story Listen to the Rain and discussed the different types of rain in the story.  Some rain is gentle (piano) and some rain is loud (forte).  We then used our mallets to create a rain storm at different dynamics. 

We’ve also learned a song that uses dynamics.  ”Grizzly Bear” is a fun singing game in which if you sing too loudly, you may wake the bear up!  We’re learning how to gradually get louder (crescendo) and gradually get softer (decrescendo).  

We continue to reinforce our singing voices through beautiful singing.  We’ve learned the melody “Rain, Rain, Go Away.”  We learned to sing the melody, read the melodic rhythm, and play the melody on the tone bells!

Welcome to the Longacre Music Room Blog!

Welcome to our music room blog!

Here you can write about things we are learning in music and share your ideas and opinions about music. Tell us about your favorite song, music activity, instrument or folk dance!  Share your thoughts about our newest room addition – the Promethean board!  

I am looking forward to hearing from all of my wonderful Longacre students!

Sing-cerely,

Miss Bailey