Welcome back! We have been busy as usual over the first two weeks of 2020. Our end of the year sing along was a blast! It was amazing to make music with our community as a way to celebrate our accomplishments in 2019. This year will be even better!

Our Kindergarten and first grade musicians are beginning to learn and understand form within the structure of a musical composition. We learned about verse and chorus in songs with words, and using the labels “A section” and “B section” in music without words. Soon we will be creating our own compositions with contrasting sections.

Third and fifth grade musicians have been creating their own songs using guitar, piano and drums. This has been very exciting and our musicians are thriving as they create. Next week Third grade will begin studying the instrument families and learning how vibration and sound waves work. Fifth grade will begin to focus on learning to play the guitar.

Fourth grade took a break from learning the recorder before break so we could spend some time getting ready for our sing along. Now we are back to recorders with a focus on learning to read and understand musical notation.

Second grade spent some time this week learning about how music became a driving influence in the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s. We learned about Dr. Martin Luther King and how the song “We Shall Overcome” became an anthem for change in the United States. We listened to multiple versions of the song and analyzed how each version was used the folk song in a way to express hope.

We have so much planned for the rest of the year, this is only the beginning. We look forward to sharing all we learn and create with you in 2020!