The second grade students have been working on their mallet technique. At the end, everyone sings "Oh, Johnny aren't you tired?" and our pitch drops lower! During this game, the students sing with their whole vocal range! They also learned "Bluebird, Bluebird," and we played a circle game to go along with it. We explored pitch by playing the Splat Game. The first graders practiced singing with high and low voices. It was another short week! We hope you had a great long weekend. Each of the students played the ostinato parts either on a xylophone or a glockenspiel.
The ostinato parts were, "Cook- Cook" and "Five-Fat-Tur-keys." An ostinato is a repeated rhythm or a phrase on the same pithes. The second grade students sang "Five Fat Turkeys," then learned a percussion ostinato part to go along with the song. Ask your child to perform this song for you! The second Thanksgiving song we learned was called "Smells Like Thanksgiving." It shares a tune with another familiar tune (ask your child if they remember what it is!), and each person in class was able to contribute by thinking of something you might smell on Thanksgiving Day.
After learning the first verse of the song, the students learned how to sing the song in sign language. Our first graders learned a Thanksgiving song called, "Over the River and Through the Woods." It is also a children's classic which we read in class. We can't believe Thanksgiving is just around the corner! In music, we celebrated this American holiday by learning songs about Thanksgiving.