“Music Notes” From Ms. Adsit                             

On any weekday morning, walking through the halls at Chatfield, you are bound to hear some wonderful sounds coming from the music classes. Here’s a little preview of what is going to be happening in February.

Kindergarten.. We are learning to use our voices expressively to speak, chant and sing and to recognize the differences between our various voices. We are working especially hard to sing in tune. Learning to feel the steady beat and to move with it is another important part of our music class. Overall, we are learning that music is a part of our daily life.

Grade one.. While we are working on singing in tune and expressively, we are also getting better and better at feeling the beat of the music and learning how some beats are strong and some are not so strong. Playing classroom rhythm instruments, as well as, moving with music helps us to feel the beat. Our latest dance is called “The Penguin Polka!”

Grade two...Singing in tune and playing instruments with the beat of the music is something we enjoy doing in second grade, too. In addition, we have learned several dances, discovered that music has form and we’ve listened to instruments from China and Japan. This month we are going to be working very hard preparing for our program, “Fabulous February” which will be presented Wednesday, February 28th.

Grade three...Along with striving to become better singers, we have also been working on the steady beat and rhythms by playing classroom instruments and dancing to music. We’ve learned that when beats are grouped in twos or threes, this is called the Meter. The month of February will find us reading the rhythms of quarter, eight and half notes, playing the rhythms on instruments and playing games to practice reading them. We will also be beginning to learn some of the songs for our program “A Winter Fantasy”, which will be presented on Friday, March 23rd.

Grade Four...The main focus of music classes since before the holidays has been learning to play the recorder. We are very excited about the fantastic progress we are making. We hope to be able to astound our audience with our talents when we present our program, “The Wonders of the Earth” on Friday, April 27th.

Grade Five...Musical forms such as ABA, Rondo, Theme and Variations, will be the topic of discussion for February. We will also be working on songs for our class day. Our theme is “Education Rocks”. That also happens to be the name of one of the songs we are learning. Other songs are “Think,” “Information Age,” and “Never Stop Learning”.

Grade Six...February will find us learning about great American music and composers. We will be reading about, listening to and singing jazz pieces composed by George Gershwin, Irving Berlin, Scott Joplin, Duke Ellington and even band music by John Phillip Sousa.

Well, that about covers it for February. March will be a very special month because it is National Music in Our Schools month. This year’s theme is “Music. Pass It On.”. I can hardly wait to see what next month will bring!

Famous Book Artist and Illustrators  

By Ms. S. Kazo  

Ms. Kazo has set up a display in the library of biographies on famous book artists and illustrators for all grade levels. These books were purchased by Ms. Kazo with a grant from the Chatfield PTA. Working closely with Mrs. Thornton, our librarian, the books were selected from Caldecott winners and Art Education to meet the interest of our children.

Students can learn how these artists grew up, when they began to draw and paint, and how they eventually got published. All the student selections are appropriate for book reports and there is a teacher’s project guide book as well.

Read, enjoy and draw!