Hello Thacher Elementary School families,
I am so happy to provide another great update about our last couple of weeks in the TES music room–our kids are continuing to learn about and play new instruments, improve their singing voices through a variety of songs, hone their movement and dancing skills, and express their own musical creativity via improvisation, composition, and story-telling. Some highlights are included below.
Kindergarten has continued their singing of tonal patterns with our mischievous Copycat and our friendly ghost, John! We’ve also begun diving into more advanced vocal songs, as students learn various holiday tunes and explore “so-mi” songs. For the first time in my three years at Thacher, I have also started mallet instrument instruction (think xylophones/ metallophones/ etc.) with kindergarten students during Term 1. I have been so impressed with their focus and skills. Finally, we have moved our bodies with flowy motion by ourselves, with a partner, and with bean bags and imaginary pom poms.
Grades 1 and 2 students are still honing their singing, saying, playing, and dancing skills. Recently, we’ve learned the chant A Turkey Named Bert–complete with dance steps. We’ve also begun moving to more sophisticated dances, with second grade in particular starting some structured circle dances. Mallet instruction has continued very successfully. We have continued playing echo patterns, accompaniments to known tunes, and using background sounds for storybooks. Grade 2 has also begun to show if they can read rhythm patterns and even if they can tell the difference between triple and duple meter by changing their movements (e.g. gallop vs walking) when the meter of a song changes… They've got some crazy skills!
Grades 3 and 4 students have been trucking along with recorder instruction. We have solidly learned our first note (B) and begun work on our second note (A), slowly integrating more complex rhythm patterns into the repertoire and learning to read the musical staff along the way. The students have impressed me so much with their ability to tell if a song is in major or minor tonality–even when I’m tricky and change the tonality of a song we already know! We’ve used movement and dance to solidify steady beat practice and our singing practice is really starting to show some impressive gains. Grade 4 families, here’s another reminder that we have a date and time for our Winter Singalong. Please join us Thursday, December 19 at 6:30 PM in the Thacher auditorium. I did send a Rooms message with more detailed information. Please check that when you get a chance!
Finally, our Insights classrooms have gotten the opportunity to play Mr. Chippo’s ukulele, egg shakers, tambourines, sand block scrapers and a few lucky students have even gotten to play our log and steel drum. We have sung fun songs and moved to a steady beat while learning about more parts of our bodies. We have even used songs to reinforce concepts like farm animals and waiting our turn.
Truly, I tell you it has been so much fun watching your kids grow and learn these past few weeks… Your children have done some amazing work! Please enjoy some photo evidence below…
Musically yours,
Mr. Chippo
Click here for a video of our Grade 3 Students in Mrs. Weir’s Class completing the circle dance Brian Boru’s March
Click here for a video of our Grade 2 students in Mrs. Ross’ class reading quarter note, quarter rest, and eighth note rhythms using a video-game style YouTube seriesMr. Chippo
