Hello TES Families,
Greetings from the music room! It’s hard to believe that Thanksgiving break is right around the corner. We have been hard at work in the music room, continuing to build our music skills through movement, singing, instruments, and more–the kids have especially enjoyed our fall and Thanksgiving-themed activities.
Early Grades (K-2): As always, we take a very play-based, exploratory approach to music education here at Thacher. This is especially noticed in our early grades. Students have continued to build their movement vocabulary by learning new types of movement (our grade 1 & 2 students are even distinguishing between flowy motion, bound motion, and steady beat motions) through various songs and dances. We are also continuing to build our singing skills through a variety of warm-ups and songs. As students progress through each grade, songs get more advanced and students learn to recognize more and more melodic characteristics by ear. Finally, students have worked diligently on their mallet technique through our barred instruments (xylophones, metallophones, and glockenspiels). In the earliest grades, we learn important skills like how to hold and play the mallets at the right time–even learning to wait to play is a huge feat… and we are crushing it!
Upper Grades (3-4): Upper grades have thoroughly impressed me with their critical listening abilities. Since our last music Panda Press entry, students have learned to recognize different textures in musical examples, describing a musical texture as being thick (more instruments) or thin (with less instruments). And we’ve also begun diving into dynamics (the fancy musical word for volume) and basic terms like piano (quiet) and forte (strong). It is indeed impressive to hear a nine-year-old share out and say “I really like the part where they added more instruments at the end. The texture got way thicker, so the song obviously got a little more forte.” Beyond talking about music, students have applied a lot of these skills as well, as we have been increasing our ability to play in parts. There have been moments this past month where we have as many as 5 different musical parts going all at once, with some students playing a specific xylophone part, others playing a specific metallophone part, others playing the glockenspiel part, and still others singing or playing their recorders. During singing time, students are also learning to sing more complex music (sometimes in parts as well) and are learning to apply many of the concepts we are learning about. When do we get forte and why? When should we sing a song with a soft, piano dynamic? If you’re curious to see some of this in action, please come to our Grade 4 chorus sing-along concert on Wednesday, December 18 at 6:30 PM. Grade 4 families, you all should have received an email and a Rooms message from me about this, please reach out with any questions!
Multi-Grade Classrooms: Students in our insights classrooms have also been hard at work making music. Typically, we start class off with our hello song and then some table work where we use songs to work on classroom skills like identifying letters or tracking words, matching colors, ordering numbers, etc. After this, we begin movement time, where we learn several dances that incorporate gross and fine motor skills and can be great opportunities to let students be creative and make their own motions or imitate an adult in the room. From there, we move on to singing time. Some students will use a classroom microphone to sing familiar songs, while other students might use their fingers or a manipulative to trace the direction of notes–sometimes even just listening is a perfect way to participate. Finally, we always end with some instrument time. Lately, students have been working on egg shakers, a drum, and even some ukulele and piano when I can work with students individually.
As always, I am so grateful to you all for allowing me the opportunity to help your children thrive musically. We have a very strong set of skills and thinkers here at TES and I am so proud of them all! Please feel free to reach out with any questions. I will get back to you as soon as possible.
All my best,
Mr. Chippo, M.M.Ed
Music Specialist
Thacher Elementary School
jchippo@attleboroschools.com
