Half of my job will be working with teachers in their first years in the profession. Tomorrow is the first day of school for the 2016-2017 school year, and it’s going to be the very first day ever for some of our teachers. I hope all of our teachers take the time tomorrow to reflect on and enjoy the amazing privilege they have, working with the young people who will be the leaders of the next generation. Here is the email I just sent to the Resident Educators in our district.

Hello, Resident Educators!

There is nothing like the first day of school. Kids are excited to meet their new teachers, wearing their new school clothes, catching up with old friends, and making new friends. Staff members are full of positive energy and do everything they can to make every student feel welcome and find their way to their classrooms, the cafeteria, and buses.

It doesn’t matter if you teach preschool, AP Calculus, or anything in between: you get to make the world more awesome for kids Every. Single. Day. I’ll just let everybody’s favorite president, Kid President tell you more about that.

Be awesome and have a great #HCSD1! :-)

Thanks!

Kelly

Konstantin Ivanov’s original sketch for the set of The Nutcracker (1892).

First graders in the Hilliard City Schools study the life and works of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. Additionally, the students love the music of The Nutcracker so much, we look forward to studying it each year with all grades around the winter holidays. You can listen to some podcasts about Tchaikovsky and his Nutcracker ballet here. We listened to some of these podcast episodes in class. Be sure to click on the “Read About the Show” links to take the quizzes and test your knowledge. Here is the Amazon link to the picture book version of The Nutcracker that we read in some music classes.

The first two videos below are some great clips of professional dancers rehearsing portions of The Nutcracker ballet. You can get a really close look at the physical demands of ballet dancing as well as the ballerinas’ use of their special pointe shoes. The four videos after those are some short selections from various ballet company performances of The Nutcracker.

BalletMet’s production of The Nutcracker is excellent every year and is performed at the historic Ohio Theatre in downtown Columbus. If your family is interested, tickets can be purchased online here.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Second graders in the Hilliard City Schools study the life and works of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Below are some links we used in music class.

• Classics for Kids podcasts about Mozart’s life and work.
• Amazon link to the picture book about Mozart we read in music class.

Below are some scenes from two of Mozart’s Operas, The Magic Flute and The Marriage of Figaro.

Here is Mozart’s very famous Symphony No. 40 in G minor performed by the Boston Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Leonard Bernstein. The video below that is an interesting visual representation of the first movement of the same Symphony.

Sergei Prokofiev

Third graders in the Hilliard City Schools study the life and works of Sergei Prokofiev. Below are some links we used in music class.

• Classics For Kids podcasts about Prokofiev’s life and work.
• Amazon link to the picture book version of Peter and the Wolf we read.
• iTunes link to a great audio recording of Peter and the Wolf narrated by David Bowie. (This recording also includes two other great pieces of music for kids, Benjamin Britten’s The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra, and Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker Suite.)

Check out this cool, up close and personal video of an orchestra rehearsing Peter and the Wolf.

We also compared two famous film versions of Peter and the Wolf, the 1946 Disney short and the 2006 Oscar winning short written and directed by Suzie Templeton. Because the Templeton film is a little dark and unrated, I sent information home to parents about it, allowing them to opt their child out if they felt it would be too scary. It was a lot of fun for the kids to see such contrasting interpretations of Prokofiev’s music, and for me to pick their brains about why they preferred one version over the other. (In case you were wondering, the Templeton version was the runaway favorite.)

Click here for the pie rhythm maker to practice your note names and durations.

Treble Clef Practice

How quickly can you name the notes of the treble staff? You can go to Mr. Riley’s site and log in to track your score. Teachers, if you are interested in having class accounts created to track your students’ scores, please contact Mr. Riley at justin@ohiofi.com.

Recorder Challenge

Here are the first few songs from the Recorder Challenge book for you to practice at home if you like. Some fifth grade recorder experts have created tutorial videos for these songs to help you practice. I have also included the picture of where to put your fingers on the recorder’s tone holes. Remember, BLOW SOFTLY and LEFT HAND ON TOP!!! Teachers, if you are interested in purchasing my Recorder Challenge book for your students, please contact me.

Washington Elementary 2013-2014 first graders showing off their first rhythm compositions!

]]> 1732 http://www.klsriley.com/2014/07/09/second-grade-mozart-study/ http://www.klsriley.com/2014/07/09/second-grade-mozart-study/#comments Wed, 09 Jul 2014 21:25:17 +0000 http://www.klsriley.com/?p=1679 In the Hilliard City Schools music course of study, students in grades 1-6 study a different master composer each year. Second grade’s composer is Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. We spent many music classes learning about Mozart’s life and times, as well as watching performance videos, listening to, and moving to selected works.

The culminating project of our Mozart study was to identify the form of Rondo Alla Turca and use the form to create an original dance. We used the SMART Board to organize our listening into the form sections and to select words that describe each section of the form. To choose both the descriptive words and the dance movements, students brainstormed and shared ideas while I jotted notes on paper. Then I selected 3-5 that I felt best matched the music, and the students then voted for their favorites. This was a time consuming process, but it was well worth the time spent. First, it allowed all of the students to have a voice in the dance creation, either through coming up with a word, a dance idea, or voting on their favorite ideas. Additionally, the students were very thoughtful in their creation and revision of the dances. We had authentic and mature conversations about how artists use criticism to refine a performance.

Below is each class’s organizing chart and a video of their dance. I hope you enjoy their creative masterpieces!

Mrs. Ehlerding’s Class

Mrs. Thurston’s Class

Ms. Whitaker’s Class

Through this project, the students worked on the following Ohio Music Standards (standards marked with an asterisk are specific to the Hilliard City Schools course of study).

• 1CE Identify patterns of same and different phrases in simple poems and songs.
• 3CE Listen to and identify music of various styles, composers, periods, and cultures.
• 4CE Identify elements of music using developmentally appropriate vocabulary (e.g., rhythm, syllables, and solfege).
• *CE Listen to music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
• 2RE Discuss music of various composers, periods, cultures, and contrasting styles.
• 3RE Discuss how music communicates feelings, moods, images, and meaning.
• 4RE Interpret music through dance, drama, and visual art.
• 5RE Respond to patterns of same and different phrases in simple poems and songs.

Mrs. Laemmle’s class gallery

Click here to download Caleb and Charlie’s Keynote presentation.

Click here to download Arlena and Ashmitha’s Keynote presentation.

Mrs. Tackett’s class gallery

Click here to download Adam’s Keynote presentation.

Click here to download Mikey’s Keynote presentation.

Click here to download Archith’s Keynote presentation.

Click here to download Joey and Fide’s Keynote presentation.

Mrs. Watkins’s class gallery

Click here to view Brandon and Jackson’s Google Doc.
 

Eight of the Hilliard elementary music teachers got together today to learn folk dances we can teach our students. Here are links to the resources we discussed today at our professional development.

• Les Saluts (p. 125) and Ducec (p. 208), dances from Phyllis Weikart’s Teaching Movement and Dance and accompanying CDs, Rhythmically Moving. Note: My copy of the book is the fourth edition, so the page numbers may be different in other editions.
• Zip It Up dance (p. 12) with music, “Quadrille Jos Bouchard/Reel Beatrice” from the New England Dancing Masters’ Sashay the Donut book and CD.
• Circassian Circle Mixer dance (p. 17) from the New England Dancing Masters’ Listen to the Mockingbird book. The music we used with it is “Rambler from Clare/Seeking Turf” by Great Bear Trio from their album, Dancing Again.
• Gustav’s Skol dance (p. 44) and music from the New England Dancing Masters’ Sashay the Donut book and CD.

And here is a video of the three dances from the New England Dancing Masters books listed above!

 I love my job! And I am so lucky to work with other music teachers who love it as much as I do. Thanks, friends, for a fun snow day afternoon!

Every year in December, I teach themes from Tchaikovsky’s ballet, The Nutcracker to grades 1-4. This year I used some old ideas and added a couple of new ones as well.

Here is Mrs. Tackett’s third grade class performing their original choreography to “Trepak” at our all-school holiday sing-along on the last day before winter break. For more information about this lesson, click here.

Thanks to a great post by a music teacher I follow on Twitter (@PFPiedPiper), I found a great cup game for “Trepak” that I tried with the fourth grade classes. Two of the three classes really enjoyed it and decided to create their own cup games to the “March” from The Nutcracker. Mrs. Triplett’s class’s cup routine was very intricate. Mrs. John’s class’s was a little simpler, if any music teachers out there are interested in trying it with their classes. Both classes’ videos are below.

The other fourth grade class, Mrs. Stephens’s class, was not keen on the idea of making up a cup game. I’m not sure why not, but in the interest of giving the students’ choice and voice, I gave them 5 minutes to convince me to do something different. One student, Christian had the idea to make up a flashlight dance. I was instantly sold! Luckily, so were the kids. My uber-supportive principal even let me use school funds to buy a class set of matching (working) flashlights. Here is their performance of “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy” from the sing-along.

Here are some additional photos of our Nutcracker experiences in music class this year.