Term 1 Learning Gr. 3/4/5

Our Grade 3/4/5 classes were busy this term creating, reading, writing, and playing rhythms.  Here's a little glimpse into some of our work.

Songwriting Collaboration

Mrs. Lowe and Mrs. Atcheson were working on developing a wacky idea to write a song about Winnipeg with Room 9 in their study of Winnipeg.  Mrs. Lowe and her students developed lists of ideas and facts and grouped them.

 Mrs. Lowe asked if we could somehow take these ideas and make them into a song. As we were thinking about the music and ideas, Mrs. Lowe remembered a song she liked by the band, The Weakerthans, called I Hate Winnipeg.  She played it for me and right away I thought, "Let's write verses for how we LOVE Winnipeg."  Almost immediately I started to pull phrases from the student ideas and wrote several verses.  I figured out the chords and developed a rough track on Garageband.  The next week I brought the song to the kids and they got excited and we started to develop their own verse.  After several attempts to make words fit, we felt it was good and then started to rehearse it to learn all the words.  We also want to add some body percussion and rhythm to the song and we are working on that as well.  Mrs. Lowe and her class also plan to make a video.

Just the other day I pulled a few kids to record a rough copy of the song with their voices.  There were a lot of giggles as they learned about the process of recording.  We have to wear the headphones to hear the music and we can also hear our voices when we speak into the microphone.  We also had to practice not singing too loud or it can distort the sound and make it fuzzy.  Some other things we have to work on are matching our voices, hitting the right notes, and singing in the beat.   We look forward to singing our song live during music listening in May.

We hope you enjoy our song about Winnipeg!

My Own Way to Rock

The Grade 4/5 classes have been talking about Canadian and Winnipeg musician, Burton Cummings and the rockin' roll band, The Guess Who.  Check out this link to Burton's biography.

We have been learning about the 12-bar blues.  This pattern is found in many styles of music, including jazz, gospel, pop, boogie woogie, and of course, rock. Check out the structure and have your child explain what it means.  Burton's song "My Own Way to Rock" is set in the major key of C.

Here is the boomwhacker version that I made up for us to play along to :)

Old Mother Hubbard Songs

The Grade 2/3 classes have been making couplet poems that we are turning into songs.  Wow!  I am amazed at how well they are turning out and we're excited to sing you some.  Right now we're in the process of writing lyric drafts.

PART A

 PART B (students wrote these)

Music Games for Learning

One of the best ways of learning is by doing. Carl Orff says "Tell me, I forget, show me, I remember, involve me, I understand." This week in music we've been playing singing games, writing new verses to songs and creating word rhythms. We have been identifying parts of music including form, phrase, pitch, rhythm and beat. Here are a few of those pieces.

We Got Talent Show

This week the Grade 2/3 classrooms had talent shows.  We heard recorders, piano pieces and drum creations.  We saw ballet dancing, ribbon dancing, hula hoop tricks, cartwheeling and tumbling.  Some kids wrote their own songs, sang in the mic and we even heard a rap.  One student drew a picture in 2 minutes.  Congratulations everyone.  We've got talent!

Tweeting Rhythms

Today our Grade 1 classes figured out the rhythms to these sentences.  We then practiced them on the instruments and repeated them 4 times each.  We noticed how important it is to stay on the beat or it sounds like a messy noise.  Our instruments need to sound like one.

We chose 3 of these patterns and layered them into a musical piece.  Can you hear which 3 patterns we picked?

Room 16's Birdy Rhythms

Incredibox

Today some of our music classes had a few minutes of fun time and we learned about the website called "INCREDIBOX."    Here is a link to the website:  www.incredibox.com

You need a desktop computer to create free songs with a mix of fun rhythms, beatboxers and sound effects.  You can also record your mix and share it.

Musical Discoveries

Grade 1, 2 and 3 classes have been learning 10 symphony songs in the past 2 weeks.  We are heading to the Centennial Concert Hall on Monday, January 19 for this exciting performance.  Reminder to parents that day care students need to bring a bag lunch as they will be staying at the school up on our return around 12:00.  As well, students are encouraged to dress up in their best as we are attending a professional concert.

Carnival of the Animals

The Kinders have been learning about French composer, Camille St. Saens and his brillant works from the Carnival of the Animals.  Today we listened to several of the recordings of the animals and acted out the parts.  We listened for the jokes that Camille hid in the pieces and identified instruments.  We watched the 1985 zoo visit video, hosted by Gary Burghoff with Ogen Nash's poetry.

Here is a Youtube clip of the 1976 classic hosted by Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck.

TiBert le Voyageur

TiBert le Voyageur came last week and presented to us his story telling and music making Voyageur tales.

Showing us how to wrap la ceinture fléchée, a type of colorful sash, a traditional piece of French-Canadian clothing

Playing the Jew's harp, also known as the jaw harp, mouth harp, Ozark harp, trump, or juice harp

Playing the cajón (ka-hon), "crate", "drawer", or "box with a hole in it"

He brought his loop recorder and involved students in recording short clips for the loop.  Here is what it sounded and looked like.  Super cool!