Peter and the Wolf Video Presentation

Here is the video I put together for "Peter and the Wolf" that showcases all the wonderful work of grades K-4. The art teacher and I were lucky enough to receive a grant for visiting artist Linda Whelihan to make "Peter and the Wolf" themed puppets with students during the Arts Enrichment time. We had a lot of fun making the puppets and acting out scenes from the story.

Here is a link to the video that I used the background track from.

Dr. Seuss Week: Horton Hears a Who

To celebrate "Read Across America" day our school decided to "Seussify" the school on Friday and have Dr. Seuss related activities. Each classroom also chose a book that they studied the week leading up to Dr. Seuss day. Music and Art's book was "Horton Hears a Who".

We started the week making a whole school mural lead by the wonderful school art teacher Mrs. Divis. The mural used each student's painted pink hands to represent the clovers in the clover field where Vlad Vladikoff drops the Whoville clover. Then Horton must search through millions of clovers until he finds his Whos again. On our mural he has just found them!

A slideshow of the mural-making process.

2nd and 3rd graders learned a dance I created to 'Slavonic Dances Op. 46, No. 8' by Antonin Dvořák. Students pretended to be Whos in Whoville and had to let Horton and the Jungle of Nool animals know that they were there. During the loud parts of the song students walked around the circle shouting "WE ARE HERE!" and playing egg shakers and sleigh bells. (We talked about how we want to use our "inside/fake shouting" voices so we don't hurt our vocal chords.) During the soft parts of the piece we silently took 3 steps in, twisted 3 times, then 3 steps out and twisted 3 times.

3S "We Are Here!" Dance

2S "We Are Here" Dance (after this video is when I decided to talk about not harming our vocal chords by actually shouting... at least Horton would have heard us! :-)  )

Kindergarten and first graders did their own version of a "We are Here" activity to music from the "Horton Hears a Who" movie. Students chanted "WE ARE HERE!" during the sung parts of the song, and pretended to play different instruments during the instrumental part. This was a 'follow the leader' dance/activity.

1R follow the leader "We are Here" activity.

Music we used for the K/1 activity.

Here are some pictures from my classroom for Dr. Seuss day.

My composer spotlight was transformed into an "Instruments of Whoville" display. Look at all those funky instruments they play so Horton and the other animals can hear them!

Our new composer spotlight is Ludwig Van "Who"thoven instead of Beethoven.

The beautiful clover field mural in the music/art hallway.

Ms. Moon as a Who and Mrs. West as The Grinch!

You can view more photos from the whole school here and the photo booth here.

Lion King: Arts Enrichment K-4

Credit- Raymondsanti

Students in grades K-4 began the Lion King unit this Monday during Arts Enrichment time. Arts Enrichment is an extra music/art time a week taught by the Art teacher Mrs. Divis and the music teacher Ms. Moon.

Photo Credit

The Lion King on Broadway Trailer

For the next two Mondays students will be learning a fun dance to "The Circle of Life" and making African necklaces. Students will wear the necklaces while showcasing "The Circle of Life" dance at an upcoming school assembly.

Photo by: Swiss.frog

After those two weeks students will explore The Lion King theme more through various art projects and music activities. Some of the music activity videos are shown below:

Hakuna Matata:

The Lion Sleeps Tonight Music Video

Lion Sleeps Tonight- Just Dance 2 Video

 I made two different arrangements of Lion Sleeps Tonight (and found the ukulele online) for grades 2-4, to align with what instruments they are learning in general music class. Grade 2 will learn the song on boomwhackers, grade 3 on the barred instruments, and grade 4 on the ukulele. I will also give a brief description of some common African instruments and add appropriate percussion parts (likely only one or two per grade of the percussion parts listed below).

Below is a video from a 2nd grade class of students playing the boomwhacker part and some African instruments.

Here is a 3rd grade class practicing the mallet accompaniment to "Lions Sleeps Tonight".

Although the Lion King takes place in Kenya, the theme of the unit opens up the wonderful opportunity to explore musical activities from all parts of Africa. Obwisana is a folk song from Ghana. Students will play a rock passing game while singing the song. 

The words of the song mean "The rock has crushed my hand, grandma." I found this description in a book I have: 

"A child singing this song is repeatedly receiving a message of security and comfort, even in the context of a phrase and game which tells of injury. The injured child can take comfort in the fact that he or she can turn to "Nana" for sympathy and assistance- the ever-present circle of relatives supports Ghanaian children and adults during times of misfortune and celebration both."

Che Che Koolay is also a folk song from Ghana. The words have been said by some to be nonsense words. But the movements to the song lean toward this translation: 

Hands on your head

Hands on your shoulders

Hands on your waist

Hands on your knees

Hands on your ankles

Hands on your ankles

Hands on your ankles, hey! 

Notation found here

Students will learn a dance similar to the popular American song, "Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes" to Che Che Koolay.

5 Little Snowmen iPad Videos

The 3rd and 4th graders made "5 Little Snowmen" videos using the iPad app iMovie. Students were broken into groups of five and each given a role. Some students recorded the poem and took pictures for the video, while others were assigned specific snowmen/scenes to draw. The videos were made in their Arts Enrichment block, led by the art, library, and music teachers.

Here is the "5 Little Snowmen" poem (found here):

"5 Little Snowmen sitting on the ground.
The first one said, "Oh my! Aren't we round."
The second one said, "There are snowflakes in the air."
The third one said, "But we don't care."
The fourth one said, "Let's run and run and run."
The fifth one said, "I'm ready for some winter fun!"
"Wooooooo" went the wind and out came the sun.
And the five little snowmen knew their fun was done."

4th GRADE VIDEOS:

3rd GRADE VIDEOS