2011 Catch-up - January to March

JANUARY WEEK 1
5th grade:
Chinese New Year on Orff instruments from Mallet Madness
Recorder Review/Recorder Karate - we introduced our Recorder Karate program

4th grade:
Talk about resolutions
"New Year" from Mk8
Talk about Chinese New Year/China
Wang U Ger - we did this lesson focusing on mirroring and partners balanced chopsticks between them to keep them from falling (with their hands)

3rd grade:
Talk about resolutions
MK8 New Year’s Eve
Show PPT on Chinese New Year - talking about culture and traditions
Ring in the New Year from MK8 with instruments. Focused on ostinato patterns.

2nd grade:
Meet in circle and perform Christmas Now Is Over from GamePlan
Taxi Taxi from GamePlan
I Like Winter from GamePlan (this was a hit!)
MK8 song if extra time

1st grade:
Christmas Now is Over in circle
Word Chain on the SmartBoard. I actually made up their rhythms for them to echo during the Lucky Me song.
Lucky Me - from GamePlan
Go A Tin and Chinese New Year with ribbon streamers

JANUARY WEEK 2
5th grade:
Warm up with BAGE patterns – play 2 songs from Recorder Resource
Go to instruments – teach 3 parts to everyone for the accompaniment to French Song. I will play song while they play instruments. Look at song on board, see if they can play song on barred instruments.
Go back to carpet – get recorders and pass out Recorder Karate pages

4th grade:
Follow the Drinking Gourd – GamePlan lesson
Whoops!
-review rhythm ostinato….pat
-add speech by phrase while ostinato still is going
-add melody by phrase
-everyone goes to instruments
-practice ostinato pattern on instruments
-pick 2 people to be “special” parts for “horse” and “flea” (double up if we can)
-perform ABetc (B section is question answer time)
1st time I clap question and they answer with same rhythm
2nd time woods ask question (any rhythm 8 beats) and metals answer
3rd time metals ask question and woods answer so we create a rondo
Hand out recorder karate pages and talk about testing

3rd grade:
Warm up recorders
AB blues - from Gagne Recorder Resource
GA blues
Jazz Pizzicato movement lesson from GamePlan
Canon practice with drums (introduce with canon body percussion game)
Thumb 2 3 4 slide-slide- rim rim rim rim rim rim play play play (same rhythm as movement canon) work on “canon” term and split in two groups.
If extra time is needed, show baseball note name PPT

2nd grade:
Warm up with solfege singing SML -Add low D -Play warm-up game with SSSD like in book
Teach Martin Luther King song (add solfege notation for A section and rhythm for B and C)
Teach Noble Duke of York from Amidons

1st grade:
Review Lucky Lucky White Horse with visual of horse on S and M lines
Let kids come up and put 4 horses on the lines for others to sing the pattern
Practice moving like a horse (galloping) with the temple block and then sing and move with STM song "Trot Old Joe"
Snowflakes lesson - GamePlan
What Shall We Do…. If we need extra time in class

JANUARY WEEK 3 and with snow days it went into FEBRUARY WEEK 1
5th grade
Recorder composing and individual assessment from GamePlan
Recorder Karate testing for anyone who would like
Drumming.....I have set up various activities from Jim Solomon and others.

All other classes did some recorder (3rd and 4th) and drumming. All the drumming activities focused on rhythm listening and reading, ostinato, and improvising.

FEBRUARY WEEK 2
5th grade:
Karate testing
Warm up BAGED – add C’D’
Students get Hot Tunes and turn to #7 "Elephant..."
All You Need is Love rhythm stick
5th grade Rhythm cards

4th grade:
Karate testing:
Warm up BAGE add D
Continue warm up with Bubble Gum visual (pg 76)
Get out Cool Tunes turn to #7 (pg 69)
Follow process
Roses are Red (pg 77)

3rd grade:
Recorder bingo chips - students created their own BAG melody and also notated aural dictation
Teach Doudlebska Polka (kids loved this!)

2nd grade:
Mi Re Do game (kids loved this)
Viva Valentine song/game
Program music

1st grade:
Program songs
Cumberland Square
Lucy Locket game

FEBRUARY WEEK 3 (which also fed into MARCH WEEK 1)
5th grade:
Testing
1. High D’s Hot
2. Grandfather Twilight (Kids really liked this lesson and it was such a great 'mood' piece!)

4th grade:
1. Possum Come A-Knockin’
2. Recorders – Tom Dooley

3rd grade:
1. 3rd grade program music
2. Recorder warm-up using note values (add 16th notes)
3. Pentatonic cards (play on instruments if time allows)

2nd grade:
1. Program music without vocals
2. Bubble Gum Machine p 75 - kids loved this lesson and it's a great cross-curriculur connection!
3. Movement pg 76 - kids did really well recognizing the form!

1st grade:
1. Program music without vocals
2. Do as I’m doing (p 69) with instruments….instead of in rows with all on an instrument
3. Vocal exploration and warm up with S-M and L on staff

MARCH WEEK 2
STUDENT SHOW AND TELL WEEK!!!!
We did some fun lessons and videos with remaining time. This is also going into spring break so I'll return with lessons in MARCH WEEK 4.

YIKES!!! Catch up!

OK, so I have been REALLLLLY bad about keeping this up-to-date! Here is my overview of each grade during the monts of:

November - Week 3
5th grade
My student teacher has been taking over classes and she has created a lot of the lesson plans for each grade. We started this class with an Apache melody stick game. The kids follow a melodic direction map and work on a passing game to the steady beat. We also used our recorders and completed the paper/pencil recorder assessment from Hot Tunes.

4th grade
We did the same Apache game but followed the GamePlan lesson for question/answer with instruments. How we did it was break the kids into groups (woods, skins, shakers) and they created their own rhythm pattern for the question and improvised their answer.

3rd grade
We did the GamePlan "Great Big House" with the cute movement and math connection! We also talked about meter in 3 and learned "America"

2nd grade
Yankee Doodle stick game from Susan Ramsay. Students create contrasting sounds for their rhythm sticks during the refrain. GamePlan lesson for "Jelly in the Bowl" with ostinato.

1st grade
Same Yankee Doodle lesson and then the GamePlan lesson for "Hop Ol' Squirrel" They had fun creating their own motions!!!

NOVEMBER WEEK 4
5th grade
Sea Lion Woman lesson - the kids LOVED this! We found the recording on the Library of Congress page so students could hear the original! We also learned the Hora and made the connections to the Jewish culture.

4th grade
Game Plan "Rain" lesson

3rd grade
MK8 recorder song "Talking Turkey" and a form lesson using the song "Jamaica Rhumba". We also reviewed "Great Big House"

2nd grade
SML cards and activities! We also did the Artie Almeida "Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible...." lesson.

1st grade
Gobble, Gobble game from GamePlan and we also used popsicle sticks to create and notate simple rhythms.

DECEMBER WEEK 1
5th grade:
Kriske/DeLellas lesson from Holiday book - "Santa's Little Helpers" We also did a PPT history lesson on Tchaikovsky and then a movement activity to the Sugar Plum Fairy song.

4th grade:
Kriske - "Tis the Season" lesson. We also did a movement lesson to "Chatter With the Angels" and sang along during a recording from the Spotlight curriculum. I have "Rhythmic Rondos" in the plans but I think we only got to do the activity with a few classes.

3rd grade:
Kriske - "Burn Little Candles" Students also used pictures like "Santa Claus" to create 8 beat rhythm compositions. Then they added body percussion to their group composition. If we had extra time we played Boomwhackers to "Whacky St. Nicholas."

2nd grade:
We did the GamePlan "Christmas Dance" and the kids loved it! Students also did the "Mix a Pancake" lesson with a partner.

1st grade:
Mix a Pancake lesson and a Dreidel song with movements from textbooks.

DECEMBER WEEK 2
5th grade:
Review of Tchaikovsky with movement to different Nutcracker songs: Sugar Plum, Russian Dance. We also watched Victor Borge playing Tchaikovsky

4th grade:
Same as 5th only we did the history PPT.

3rd grade:
Same

2nd grade:
Instruments of the Orchestra activities from Artie's pack

1st grade:
Same