Hello everyone!! I hope you are healthy and safe. These are the directions for logging on to the iLearn sites for each grade. If something does not work for you please let me know through email (ochoaj@dearbornschools.com).

1. go to the Dearborn Schools website https://dearbornschools.org
2. Click on the Student Portal link.
3. Click on the iLearn Classrooms link
4. Log in with your id and password
5. type in your grade level enrollment code

You will only need to enter the code once to register for the course. Here are the codes for each grade level class.

Kindergarten: ra7gq4

1st: dq2ewe

2nd: cfs453

3rd: mafjrk

4th: 7u8ray

5th: unygz5

Keep Learning!

Mr. Ochoa

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!

Here are the introductions for each class for our 3rd grade concert.

Concert introduction (Zahr)

Hello ladies and gentlemen, welcome to our concert!  Today we will be singing three songs.  We learned how to sing with high and low voices.  We also learned how to sing without looking at the words.   We hope you like our performance!

It’s Gonna Be Okay (Dillon)

We hope you like this song because we worked very hard on it.  We learned how to sing in a low voice.  The theme of the song is standing up to bullies and for yourself, even though you are going through hard times It’s Gonna be Okay.  We want you to be impressed by our song. 

Astral Plane (Wang)

Hello ladies and gentlemen! We worked really hard on our next song , it is called Astral Plane.  The song is low and high       We made many mistakes though we worked on them and got better.  We hope you enjoy the song

Roar (Clemente)

The name of our next song is Roar by Katy Perry.  The beginning is quiet and the end is loud.  It is bumpy and high.  Listen carefully because near the end we sing Roar twice down and three times up and it is the hardest part of the song. ROAR!!!!

Concert ending (Hankard)

We hope you enjoyed our concert, we have been working hard for months.  We wish you had a great time.  Thank you for coming to watch our performance.  Good-bye and have a nice day!

The New school year is well under way and we are making some interesting sounds in the music room! Thank you to all the families that stopped by the music room to say hello last month at our Open House, it is always great to connect with families. As we begin learning and creating this year our kindergarten, first and second graders are learning about rhythm. The most important element of music, we have learned about steady beat, how to divide the beat to create rhythmic patterns, and how to write rhythms in musical notation.

Our fourth graders also started the year learning about rhythm, though they are about to begin playing the recorder this week! We may start off a little squeaky, but we will end making wonderful music. Do not forget to check out the iLearn site to help with practice at home.

Our fifth graders are beginning to learn how to play the guitar! We are just getting under way with Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, though we hope quickly to move to some more recent music.

Finally our third graders have been working very hard for our upcoming concert on Friday December, 6. So far we have three selections, and we may add a fourth. We are working on our vocal technique, our performance persona, and how to sing with a southern accent! Hope to see you at the concert!

Musicians in Ms. Nasrallah’s class designed and created their own instruments for STEAM week

Musicians in Ms. Kanaan’s class designed and created their own instruments during STEAM week.

Musicians in Ms. Stanford’s class designed and created instruments during STEAM week.

Musicians in Ms. Mokdad’s class designed and created their own instruments for STEAM week

Musicians in Ms. Alawy’s class designed and created their own instruments for STEAM week