1st Grade Music
Welcome to 1st Grade Music! In 1st grade we meet once a week for 40 minutes and continue what we started in Kindergarten. Like in Kindergarten, music class is designed to prepare children to become musical in three ways:
1) Tuneful - to have tunes in their heads and learn to coordinate their voices to sing those tunes.
2) Beatful - to feel the pulse of music and how that pulse is grouped in either twos or threes.
3) Artful - to be moved by music in the many ways music can elicit an emotional response.
In addition to the activities that are listed below, in 1st grade we use a program called Mallet Madness where we play xylophones, metalophones, glockenspiels, and various drums. We also start learning about and playing the keyboard and do some beginning folk dances.
Toward the end of the year we start a program called Conversational Solfege. This is a way to learn to read music notation similar to how children learn language as a baby. In first grade we start a unit to learn to read rhythm patterns that use quarter and eighth notes. We also start singing tonal patterns (do, re, mi, fa, so, la, ti), but won't actually learn how to read them until 2nd grade.
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Here is an example of what we do in a typical music class:
Pitch Exploration / Vocal Warm Up - Here is where we prepare our voices for music class. We do things such as make vocal pathways using pipe cleaners or sigh like a sad bird.
Fragment Singing (Echo Songs / Call and Response Songs) - These are simple songs that I sing and have the class echo. We also take turns giving each student an opportunity to echo by themselves.
Simple Songs - These are short, simple songs that the students will eventually be able to sing by themselves.
Arioso (Child Created Tunes) - Here is where the students get to be creative and make up their own short songs. We start the year by reviewing our speaking, whispering, shouting and singing voice. After a few weeks I might then sing a short pattern on neutral syllables (bum, bum, bum...) and the students have to sing a pattern back to me that is different using their singing voices. We may also do something like passing out 2 ghost puppets and having 2 students have a "ghost conversation," ooooooo..... We then do activities where students need to come up with something to sing by themselves, such as singing about 3 things that they are wearing or 3 foods that they like to eat.
Movement Warm Up - Here is where we do various activities to prepare for the following movement songs and chants. For example, we might practice fast and slow movements, or pretend that we are elevators and practice being at high, middle and low levels.
Finger Plays and Action Songs - These are songs or chants that have hand motions to them. They include songs like the Do Your Ears Hang Low and Five Little Pumpkins.
Movement for Form and Expression - This is where we listen to a piece of classical music and copy motions that I am leading in front of the class. Once each month we do a song where students create their own movements.
Beat Motion Activities - Students keep a steady beat individually while playing an instrument, such as a tambourine, wood block, or guiro.
Movement with the Beat - We listen to another piece of classical music and tap the beat in groups of twos and threes. For example, we might tap twice on our lap and then twice on our head and continue to do that for a portion of the song. We might then switch and tap the beat on alternating knees.
Song Tales - We end the class listening to a story that I sing to the students. It's a good "cool down" activity before the class heads out with their teacher. We have some silly stories including one about a man who bought his wife a crab and forgot to cook it. The crab bit the wife's nose and the man's ear! Ouch!
And we do this all in a 40 minute period!