5th Grade Guitars: A Recap

As the school year winds down, I want to share some photos of your 5th grade students in action with their beloved guitars! They've come a long way in such a short amount of time. We've learned to play several basic chords over the past couple of months, and right now we are presenting our final performances of a 3-chord song.

Students are choosing their own 3-chord song to play and will be assessed based on keeping a steady tempo, correct chord fingerings, and timely chord transitions.

My hope is that by mastering a few basic chords, students will be able to go out and find songs they love and want to play and will have the knowledge to get started on their own! I'm so happy that it's already happening- students are bringing in their favorite songs to play during recess or to play for the class. I am so proud of them!

5th Grade is Rockin' and Rollin'!

5th grade said goodbye to our beloved drums at the beginning of February, and since, we have been learning a bit about the history of rock and roll. We've learned about The Beatles, Elvis Presley, and other pioneers of rock and roll.

Here we are doing a little bit of research:

As we've been learning about some of these rock and roll legends, we've been reviewing how to build chords, how to read chord symbols, and learning how to read guitar chord diagrams in preparation for our guitar unit (which we'll be starting right after spring break).

Here we are playing chords for "Hound Dog"on Boomwhackers:

And here we are working in groups to interpret guitar chord diagrams:

5th Grade Drumming Finale!

The 5th graders have finished up their world drumming unit. In this unit, we were working on:

• Using correct hand technique (alternating hands).
• Playing steady and consistent rhythms.
• Maintaining independence from other musical parts.
• Interacting with a group (watching and being aware of others).
• Maintaining focus and concentration within the ensemble.
• Playing with good posture.
• Listening to others while playing our own parts.

We've learned some strategies for creating patterns within a drum circle, for improvising, and for being spontaneously musically creative within the structure of an ensemble. We wrapped up our big group experience by splitting up into small ensembles, composing rhythmic patterns, and performing them for the class. See us at work below!

Chorus Sings with the Chicago Steel!

On Saturday, December 8th, members of the D41 chorus performed the National Anthem at the Chicago Steel hockey game at The Edge Ice Arena. It was a great night out for many chorus families (and their music teachers)! Thanks to those who were able to make it! Hope you had fun!

They're heeeere!

The drums are here! 5th graders have been anxiously awaiting the start of our world drumming unit, and now we're ready to get started! The drums were dropped off during the week of Halloween, so last week, we were introduced to the types of hand drums we'll be playing (tubanos, congas, djembes, and bongos), learned how to play high and low tones, and talked about rhythm complements (ask your 5th grader what that means!). We played our first rhythm complement as an ensemble!

Here is Mrs. Salach's class playing a rhythm complement about 10 minutes into our first drumming class!

Thriller Dance

It's Halloween! For the past couple of weeks, 4th and 5th graders have been learning choreography to the Michael Jackson hit "Thriller" in a combined music/PE effort (we can't take credit for the choreography- I found it on another music teacher's blog and thought it was so great that we HAD to do it). This morning, we all met in the gym to perform for one another and then to finally perform as one big group.

Believe it or not, we're doing more than just having fun dancing together. We're actually accomplishing some music, PE, and dance state and national learning standards! In music class, we worked to identify the form of the music. We identified an introduction, A, B, C, and D sections, a bridge, and a coda. We identified "like" sections in the music and learned choreography for each section of music, and using our music map, we were able to put the whole song together quite easily! We rehearsed in a combined music/PE effort, and that was all there was to it!

Here are some of the standards we achieved during our "Thriller" experience: (There are many more than what's listed, but here are some things we focused on)

PE:     State Goal 19: Engage in Health Related Physical Activity.
           Standard Description: Flexibility Component (The ability to use body in full range of motion).
           Example Rigor: Creative Movement and Dance
                          - Executes combinations of steps
                          - Combines steps to create a short routine.

Music: National Content Standard 6: Listening to, analyzing, and describing music.
            Achievement Standards:
                       - Students identify simple music forms when presented aurally
                       - Students demonstrate perceptual skills by moving, by answering questions about, and
                         by describing aural examples of music of various styles representing diverse cultures.

Dance: National Content Standard 2: Understanding choreographic principles, processes, and
            structures.
            Achievement Standards:
                     - Students create a sequence with a beginning, middle, and end, both with and without a
                       rhythmic accompaniment; identify each of these parts of the sequence
                     - Students improvise, create, and perform dances based on their own ideas and concepts
                       from other sources
                     - Students use improvisation to discover and invent movement and to solve movement
                        problems .

To see the video of our students in action, click here! (Clearly we were very excited, and this was BEFORE candy!)

"Swim, swim..."

Awesome zombie moves.

More awesome zombie moves.

The Thriller claw.

Amazing Michael Jackson pose.

Spider and the Fly- The Performance!

You may have a read a few weeks back that 5th grade students were working on adding instrumentation to the Tony DiTerlizzi book "The Spider and the Fly" (see post here). Well, we're finishing up! Here are videos of classes who have "performed" during music class. You'll see students narrating, playing the xylophones, metallophones, glockenspiels, Boomwhackers, wind chimes, and even the violin, cello, and piano! Enjoy!

     The Spider and the Fly- 5 Salach
    
     The Spider and the Fly- 5 Smith

     The Spider and the Fly- 5M

     The Spider and the Fly- 5T

5th Grade September-in-Review

September 11, 2012: Star-Spangled Banner

5th grade students are beginning their unit on "The Star-Spangled Banner." We will discuss the story of how the song was written, and we'll watch/listen to some different performances of our national anthem. Here are some to check out....

     Whitney Houston at the 1991 Super Bowl

     Kelly Clarkson at the 2012 Super Bowl

     Josh Groban at "Concert for America" (days after the September 11th attacks)

     Academy Choirs (combined US Naval Academy, Air Force Academy, Military Academy at West Point, Coast Guard Academy, accompanied by US Army Herald Trumpets).

     Kate Wild (Ben Franklin alum!!!!) at a 2011 Chicago Bulls game

Next we'll be splitting into small groups to rotate through several activities related to our national anthem, including poetry, phrasing, vocabulary and definitions, and the history of the song. Stay tuned for pictures of 5th graders in action!

For more information on our national anthem, click here.

September 6, 2012

5th grade started out the year with a rhythm composition activity called "Just Give Me the Beat." We are now playing recorders, reviewing notes B, A, and G, and improvising our own melodies and rhythms using those notes.

The Spider and the Fly

5th grade classes have been working on a musical adaptation of the book "The Spider and the Fly" by Tony DiTerlizzi.

The musical accompaniment of this book will reinforce the concepts of major versus minor keys, moods in music, and quarter note-eighth note rhythm patterns. Our goal is to complete an in-class performance of this book, including narration, instrumental accompaniment, and sound effects, by Halloween (which will be posted to the blog). Here we are in action...

Mrs. Smith's class

Mrs. Smith's class

Mrs. Salach's class

Mrs. Salach's class: The Narrators

5th Grade: Recorder Theme and Variations

We're making music! We are putting together a theme and variation performance of "Down the Staff." In our study of this song, we are reviewing the notes B, A, and G, discussing what theme and variation means, and working on creating instrumental accompaniment using Orff instruments.

After reviewing the recorder part for the theme of "Down the Staff," we have added accompaniment using contrabass xylophone bars and bass xylophones and metallophones, and an additional glockenspiel accent. The boys and the girls playing the recorders divided the phrases of the song between them, and here is what we came up with! Remember, this is still step one in this project! We will be adding more instruments, variations on the melody, and arranging the sections into a final in-class performance!

Students, click here for a link to the music if you would like to practice at home!

     Down the Staff Theme- 5 Malay

     Down the Staff Theme- 5 Salach

     Down the Staff Theme- 5 Smith

     Down the Staff Theme- 5 Thomas