Music

Mrs. Creech

There are many different facets to cover with regards to a Music Syllabus, such as valuing music, singing and performance; creating and improvising; playing instruments (individually or collectively); reading and writing music; listening, hearing and evaluating; and the history or music, which in itself has various facets. Within a given lesson, some of these areas are combined, so that students are in fact learning from more than one Target Skill. Young students particularly, do not always realize just how much they are learning through fun activities. In order to play music, students do not necessarily need to have a good sense of beat or rhythm, but this can be achieved with learned exercises.

Schedule

Music class is located in the downstairs music room at Corinth..

Corinth Mondays

11:45 K-5
12:45 1st
11:45 2nd

Corinth Wednesdays

10:30 3rd
19:30 4th

Souls Harbor

Wednesdays

12:45 5th
11:50 6th-7th

K-5 Lesson Plans

The students in K-5 are learning the importance of a strong beat, through a ball game. We form a circle and verbally count a steady 4 beats together. I then throw the ball to each child and they in turn throw it back to me, while we continue the steady 4 beat count. This idea continues around the circle until completed. I often repeat the same idea in other forms. Even though a simple game, it proves to be very effective when it comes to transferring the idea to Flash Cards. Students then see their 4 beats changed into note form and they begin to read music. They then progress from one note to another kind of note and its relationship is explained. I then proceed to add the relative note rest. These given rhythms on Flash Cards are both verbalized and clapped by the students, perhaps for a couple of lessons and then rhythm sticks are used, since they have a clean cut sound. Errors are easily detectable! Following the use of rhythm sticks, we progress to un-pitched instruments of choice. Students love this part of any lesson!! I then place two or three Flash Cards together for them to play, with both notes and rests. I never under-estimate how much a 5 year old can learn. If they are keen....I push!

1st Grade Lesson Plans

1st Grade students are in the process of learning note names on the Treble Clef. They have learned a couple of rhymes to help them remember both line and space notes. Since they have learned note value, they are now in the process of combinng "reading and writing" with "creative and improvisation". Given a Time Signature, they have to create a 6 - bar melody using the notes B, A, and G only, but with a combination of all "kinds" of notes learned. They then play their "composition" on xylophones, both as a class and individually, if they wish. Creating their own class compositions gives them a sense of accomplishment. To aid this type of lesson, we have also played Musical Mathematics, which is a fun game, where students are required to balance note values with numbers using the addition and subtraction signs.

Note From Mrs. Su: I know some of you have been asked to create your own musical instrument. I don't suggest a huge project such as this, but someone shared it with me today and I thought it was really cool. Hope you enjoy these videos from http://www.sentex.net/~mwandel/organ/organ.html

1671 Old Whitley Rd. London, KY 40744

(606) 862-0509