Monday, December 20, 2010

Happy Holidays! Musical gifts for you...

What a whirlwind week before the holiday break! A snow day before the holidays is quite a rare thing in our mild state. Last Wednesday is the only time I've ever seen so many students, parents, and teachers hoping that the snow would miss us. Fortunately, we were able to have a couple of hours on Friday to finish up holiday fun, despite the half day and one hour delay.

Many students and parents have asked for a copy of our holiday songbook. Here it is, in PDF format! The book is lyrics only, but chords and even free sheet music can be found for most of these songs with a quick web search.

Forest and Mountain classes learned "Jingle Bells" and "S'vivon" on their recorders this month, and many students are eager to show off their skills at home. If your child missed the handout, here is the sheet music, with bonus song "Silent Night."

As you know, I am always looking for new ways to integrate technology into my music classroom. Here is a novel idea... I imagine this would be an extremely popular Middle School elective! Happy Holidays!

Monday, December 13, 2010

Don't forget...

We're having holiday sing-alongs every morning this week in the Lower School Multi! We start at 8:20 and sing until 8:45, or until the classroom teachers come kick us out, whichever comes later. :-) This morning we had a fantastic guest trumpeter (a LS dad), and we expect violins and recorders, as well as more trumpet, later this week. Sky class kids had fun decorating the new songbooks this morning, which I frantically printed out after having a HUGE turnout for Monday morning! Happy Holidays!

Thursday, December 9, 2010

A Quick Update

I've been so busy with both units that I haven't had any time to update recently! Here are a few highlights of the last 6 weeks:

--Trimester 2 has begun, and the Middle School musical, Michael Sirotta's "Alice in Wonderland," is underway. Our cast of 39 (see robots) is phenomenal, and Henry and I are so fortunate to have CFS alums Leah and Kiernan working with us on direction and choreography. Come see us perform February 11 and 12!

--While it was sad to say goodbye (for now) to my enthusiastic first trimester First-Year Music Rotation class, I am now enjoying my second group, all but two of whom I taught in the Lower School. One of my favorite parts of being a cross-unit teacher is that I get to be a part of the transformation from child to tween to teen. My first-years (they object when I call them my "ickle firsties") are exploring new territory in music class, from inventing instruments out of found objects to debating how music does and doesn't cross cultural boundaries.

--In the Lower School, recorders are going stronger than ever! Mountain and Forest students have learned "Jingle Bells" and are working on "S'vivon" for the holidays. Even the third-years are already further along than we've gotten in the previous two years. I can't wait to jump into reading notes on the staff and creating some ensemble music with recorders, ukuleles, and xylophones in January.

--River and Sky class have been singing, singing, singing in addition to playing drums, xylophones, and ukuleles. Both halves of River class were able to sing a bell song in four parts, then figure out how to play the parts on the xylophones! We're all ready for our annual holiday sing week, which begins Monday with daily sing-alongs in the Multi.

Happy Holidays, everyone!