Hi everyone! This week we continued to work on our American folk songs that we know, and added a few more. This week's songs included:
Also this week we have been learning about counting to the beat in groups of 4 (i.e., "1, 2, 3, 4") with the emphasis on the "1." This is the underlying pulse for most of the music we hear every day, and it's good for students to develop an intuitive sense of the "1" -- what we call the downbeat. In kindergarten and first grade, we are not as concerned about the specific vocabulary around these musical concepts, but instead our focus is on developing an intuitive sense of what that pulse feels like. We do this by movement patterns such as "clap on 1, and pat your legs on counts 2, 3, and 4". Another skill you may be surprised to hear we are learning is circle movement. Since the beginning of the year, children have continued to learn how to make a circle as a group without relying on the helpful shape of a circular rug or markings on the floor. Now that they can mostly do that without too, too much chaos (you'd be surprised at how much chaos can ensue when I say, "Ok, let's make a circle!"), we are working on walking around that circle as a group. Not as simple a task as you would think... but we want to develop that skill from kindergarten, because the folk games and dances we'll work on with the kids as they move into higher grades depends on that very basic—but not so intuitive—skill. So this week's games relied on movement in circles: "I Let Her Go-Go" and "Sally Go Round the Moon." Have a great weekend!
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Hi!Mrs. Lindsay teaches music to all of the kindergarten and 4 out of 5 first grade classes at NMES. Archives |