William Ford students are getting in the holiday spirit adding body percussion, movement, instruments, and listening activities to some favorite holiday music.

  
Kindergarten, first, and second grade classrooms have been learning about the story and music from the Nutcracker Ballet. They have learned dances to accompany some of the music, including Chinese Dance and Russian dance. Kindergarten and first grade students added instrumental parts to the March from the Nutcracker. First graders also listened to the piece and colored a listening glyph based on features they heard in the music such as loud/soft, short sounds/long sounds, or steady beat/no steady beat.

    

Second graders color contour maps and match them to the melodic themes in “Waltz of the Flowers.”

Third graders learned an instrumental accompaniment to “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” and performed it in class. Click below to watch Mrs. Cercone’s class perform.

Fourth and fifth grade students learned a body percussion routine that follows the form of the piece “Sleigh Ride” by Leroy Anderson. See Ms. Mroczka’s class perform by clicking the link below.

On Tuesday, December 1st, 2015 our upper elementary students will be treated to a concert by the Aeolus String Quartet from New York City. This group will perform for our students at an assembly during the school day. Students are also encouraged to visit the Aeolus website both before and after the performance to learn more about being in a string quartet and also try out some cool apps. Students will need to log into the website by entering their school, grade, and teacher. They will also need to create a username (a “handle”) that should be the same each time they log in. More information can be found in the link below.

William Ford Note to Parents

You can visit the Aeolus student website directly by clicking here:

Aeolus Quartet Student Website

 

More information and music from the quartet can be found here:

Aeolus Quartet Public Website

First Graders have been practicing tracing melodies and singing songs that use high and low pitches. We practiced singing higher and lower pitches by playing a game called “High Hill.” This is a guessing game where one student hides their eyes and sings a short solo and another student echoes the part. The guesser has to decide who their echo was by listening to the voice of the echo. The first grade enjoys playing this fun guessing game!

Students play a guessing game!

1st grade students playing a guessing game

Click below to watch Ms. Alawy’s Class sing and trace a melody.

 

Second grade students have been learning about 2/4 time signatures and working on using their singing voices this month. Students learned a new song called “Joy” and were excited to have their performance recorded during class for the blog. We have also been working on singing the pitches called so, mi, and la using hand signs. Hand signs and pitch syllables help singers figure out how a song will sound without having to hear it first.

Ask your child about the three hand signs for so, la, and mi. See if they remember!

 

 

Click below to hear the 2nd graders perform in music class: