September Lessons

We are going to have a wonderful time getting to know each other in the next few weeks in Kindergarten Music Class! We are learning one another’s names, exploring the music room, and having a wonderful time singing and moving together.

• Sing Hello– sang and played instruments (wood blocks and jingle bells) with our hello song, explored non-locomotor movements on the two resting beats of each phrase
• It’s So Great to See You– singing and moving our bodies in all sorts of ways for 8 beat phrases
• Pop Goes the Weasel– singing and moving with a scarf to show the music, tossing and catching on POP!
• Rhythm Sticks Exploration– explore sounds and shapes with rhythm sticks
• Now They’re in Their Home– learning to put instruments away where they belong “in their home”
• 5 Little Ducks– singing along with a book, making predictions, counting backwards
• I’m Gonna Follow– singing and movement game imitating different animals (frog, horse, octopus, snake, etc.)
• Syanora– goodbye transition song, singing goodbye to each other, learning names
• Ready for the Hall– learning to line-up appropriately for the hallway to leave music (transition)

October Lessons

• Hello World– hello song for the month; discovering 12 different languages to sing hello and listening to folk music from around the world while we keep the steady beat (about 2 new languages each week)
• I Have an Echo– exploring head voice, sirens, letter sounds, and matching sounds with symbols for melodic contour
• On My Toe– singing a scale, moving with the melodic contour up and down the body with our “flea”
• Row Row Row Your Boat– listening to recordings of familiar melody and finding the steady beat with Mr. Stretchy at various tempi (Adagio, Moderato, Allegro); introduce our Ocean Drum!!
• Down the River– singing and dancing with a partner, learning to sashay with a partner down and up the aisle on the chorus phrases
• All In One– recording by Eric Chapelle that demonstrates steady beat vs. no beat, move to the different alternating sections with scarves demonstrating what they hear
• Hickory Dickory Dock– speaking rhyme with expression and adding movements to each phrase, exploring the steady beat with egg shakers while we chant, balancing our egg on different body parts as we walk slowly around the room saying poem
• Syncopated Clock– listening piece by Leroy Anderson, discover Rondo form (ABACA) and notate with symbols: clock (A section with wood blocks), squiggly line (B section with scarf movement), and jingle bells (C section with bells); listened to pieces while playing or moving at the appropriate section
• 5 Little Speckled Frogs– sang along with book, counting backwards from 5
• 5 Little Pumpkins Sitting on a Gate-chant with counting, movements, dramatic play, and INSTRUMENT sound effects!! We played the wind chimes, stir xylophone, thunder tube, and slapstick.
• Pumpkin Pumpkin Round and Fat– discovered differences between our 4 pumpkins
• Pumpkin Movement Poem-discover how a pumpkin would move if it could walk, roll, dance, etc. and imitate that movement with our bodies
• Syanora– good-bye transition song
• Ready for the Hall– line-up song to transition into leaving the music room and going back to class

November Lessons

• Hello World– hello song for the month; discovering 12 different languages to sing hello and listening to folk music from around the world while we keep the steady beat (about 2 new languages each week)
• March/Skip/Slow Walk: Eurhythmics Movement Exploration– learning to negotiate space while moving around the room with their classmates in free space, learning to differentiate between 3 kinds of beats: marching (even beat), skipping/galloping (uneven beat), and slow motion walk (half note); practicing the appropriate way to move (no stomping/bumping into friends/falling down/etc.), responding to non-verbal music cues on the piano to start and stop movement
• The World is Crying Leaves Today– singing with a storybook “The Leaf Man” by Lois Ehlert, moving like leaves floating on the breeze on a sound cue (song with wind chimes) and then falling slowly to the ground to make your body into a leaf shape from the book
• The Tree Song– singing multiple verses of a melody, sequencing the seasons, moving like trees from different seasons, and adding sound effects with instruments to each verse including vibraslap, jingle bells, triangle, and wind chimes
• Shoo Turkey, Shoo Shoo– singing in call and response form, exploring the percussion instrument families: woods, metals, shakers/scrapers and practicing choosing and sharing instruments responsibly, putting instruments away where they belong in their baskets after playing them
• Turkey Feathers– solo singing call and response with color recognition, pitch matching
• Syanora– good-bye transition song
• Ready for the Hall– line-up song to transition into leaving the music room and going back to class

December Lessons

• Friends, a Sign language Song- hello song of the month
• Yuki Kon Kon- singing in Japanese, playing finger cymbals on select words (Kon Kon), creating legato movements through space in the interlude, learning to share instruments with a partner and in a circle (passing on the interludes)
• Oh Mister Sun- playing glockenspiels on the rests of the melody, singing with movement
• Five Little Snowmen- sequencing, singing multiple verses, discovering rhyming words, acting out a song with dramatic movement
• The Nutcracker- introduced Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker story, watched the fight scene from Act 1 with the Mouse King, and discovered the difference between music for the radio and music for ballet

January Lessons

• Friends, a Sign Language Song- hello song review
• Friend Oh Friend– hello song of the month, singing with mixer movements in a circle; learning to find a partner on your own
• I Go Up the Apple Tree– singing while playing an alternating bordun on the xylophones; discovering the low and high notes and exploring mallet technique and playing position on orff instruments
• Rhythmic Notation- quarter notes and rests with apple icons for four beats, creating patterns of sound and silence with calves and drums
• Standing Like a Tree- singing, identifying sight words within the lyrics, adding movements on each phrase
• Oh a Hunting We Will Go- singing a book with multiple verses, identifying the rhyming pairs