"Drums, Drums, Drums"
Tap your fingers, your hands, on the table, on your lap. Just say the word drum and any child within earshot will be ready to play. Children love to drum on just about anything, and drums can be found in every culture. In this unit, we focus on drums, percussion instruments, and music from Africa and South America. We learn about echoes and we sing, clap, and play to a variety of games and songs. Our story, The Drum Circle, features a boy who explores a variety of drums from around the world. We add the word accelerando, which means to gradually speed up, to our musical vocabulary. Singing, moving dancing with scarves, and playing a variety of percussion instruments will delight all the drummers in our class.
"Jazz Kitchen"
Throw in a half a cup of movement with a generous cup of beat and divided beat. Next, stir in some vocal play, gently fold in a parachute and some egg shakers, and you're well on your way to a Jazzy good time. Jazz music, with its famous instruments, cool improvisation, upbeat tunes, and its roots in southern American history, mixes perfectly with our Kitchen theme to provide a diverse and exciting unit. Children will hear, move to, play with, and sing jazz. They are sure to delight in singing the jazzy refrain of Noodles from Scratch. New vocabulary abound with words from the jazz genre as well as from the kitchen.
"All Keyed Up"
There is magic to be found in those 88 keys! In All Keyed Up, we explore staccato and legato through movement, instrument play, and musical notation. Floating Down the River, Staccato and Legato Dance, and a generous serving of classical examples help us to learn about these musical concepts. An exciting arrangement of Eensy Weensy Spider and special story are rilled to overflowing with all different kinds of keyboards. We dip our toes into music notation finding Cs on the music staff and the keyboard. Experimenting with composition rounds out this lighthearted look at the world of keyboard instruments.
"Join The Parade"
Everyone loves a parade march along to the music as we explore the families of instruments as well as the wind instruments from Japan and Central America too! Forte and piano take center stage in movement and ensemble development with favorites like the Piano Forte Dance, I Like to Play the Sticks, American Dance, and Yankee Doodle - we have lots of marching to do!
"Peter and the Wolf"
THERE IS NO better way to introduce children to classical music than with Prokofiev’s musical fairy tale of the little boy (played by all the strings of the orchestra) who, with the help of a bird (played by the flute), outsmarted the big, bad wolf (played by the French horns).
"Carnival of the Animals"
The animals are having a carnival, and the guests are arriving. There's the majestic lion, the braying mules, the dancing elephant, and the bouncy kangaroos. Even the fossils join in with a fast and rattly dance. Everyone is invited!
Nearly 150 years ago, the composer Camille Saint-Saëns was asked by his pupils to write a musical joke for them. He wrote the Carnival of the Animals, a piece people enjoyed so much that it has now become one of Saint-Saëns's most famous works.
