Today in MusIQ Club!

Beginner Level 1A

Today Vanessa completed lessons 5, where we continued repeating short rhythmic patterns based on words, and learned to replace the birds and whales in our notation with circle notes, and just a line for Middle C notes – no more sky and ocean.  You did a great job in the games room with the Coconut Game, and we had fun on the floor doign rhythms and learning the Musical Alphabet forwards and backwards with the bigger kids. Today Mr. Beethoven taught us that some music is written to paint pictures for our ears and imaginations, and he played us his Moonlight Sonata, which sounds like moonlight dancing on the lake.

This Week @ Home

• In CMJ volume 1 (if you have it) review lesson 5 and have fun in the practice room. In the Games Room there are 3 games for you to play.
• Make up your own rhythmic patterns and clap or tap them. Try funny ones (My nose is a rose!), personal ones (My sister’s name is _____), yummy ones (I love to eat ________) and silly ones (Snakes are jig-gly, wig-gggly).
• Have fun with this worksheet which is a word search for words about Mr. Beethoven!

Beginner Level 1B

Today Aydean and Hayden did lesson 19 with Miss Mendelssohn, who taught them about notes with stems. Some very nice playing today by both boys, who worked hard on playing with the correct hand (notes below Middle C are played with the LH, notes above Middle C with the RH) and keeping all 5 fingers resting on the keys, ready to play! This is tricky but it is an important part of building up finger strength and independence, so that one day soon you will be able to play loud and soft and fast and slow, whatever you want! On the floor we reviewed line and space notes, and practiced drawing stems on our notes correctly whether up or down. We also started another song called “Love Somebody” (pink handout) and played a fun matching game on the floor to practice naming the white notes. God work today boys!

This Week @ Home

• Continue practicing your finger numbers.
• Practice Love Somebody. Put your RH fingers 1 2 3 4 5 on C D E F G and give it a try! Remember to put your fingers in this position and play with the finger sitting already on top of the white key, so that each finger gets stronger!
• Have some fun at your piano making up your own music!
• If you have CMJ at home, you can review lesson 19 with Miss Mendelssohn and then head to Games room.

Beginner Level 2A

Today in Class

Today we did Lesson 30, where you played Old MacDonald and Mr. Dvorak’s composition, the tune from the folk song “Going Home.” You worked on reading line and space notes, and whole, half, and quarter notes, and played two fun new games in the games room to practice note values and also naming the white notes. Remember that quarter notes (the ones that are coloured in circles) get one beat, and the notes that are not coloured in are half notes, and they get held for two beats. We will learn more about these next week. The stick on the quarter notes and half notes is called a stem, and if the stem is going up it goes on the right side of the note, and down stems go on the left side. On the floor we used the rhythm cards to make rhythms with whole, half, and quarter notes for our group to clap, and you finished off with the a bit of drumming rhythms on the floor. We even started a new song with Letter names called Love Somebody (for Valentine’s Day) and played a fun game at the keyboards with your partners called the Keyboard Race. This was a fun way to work on naming the white notes!

This Week @ Home

• If you have CMJ volume 2 at home, you should review lesson 30 with Miss Melody, and head to the games room.
• Each day, practice finding all the Cs (Group of 2, down to C) and Fs (Group of 3, down to F) on your keyboards. You can go from highest to lowest or lowest to highest, as fast as you can or hold them as quarter notes, half notes, or whole notes. Then find all the Ds, all the Es, all the Gs, As, and Bs, counting up or down from the white notes you know (C and F). It is important that you become quite comfortable naming the white keys over the next couple of weeks as we will soon be reading on the Grand Staff!
• Complete the worksheet I handed out in class about naming the white keys, and also this worksheet on line and space notes.

Beinnger Level 2B

Today Nicholas  and Lauren M completed Lesson 42 with Mr. Tchaikovsky, where they reviewed playing songs that use CDEF and CBA on the Grand Staff. Mr. Tchaikovsky taught us about two new symbols in our music, p and f. p stands for piano, which is the Italian word for soft. f stands for forte, which is the Italian word for loud! We played a game on the floor to practice moving around on the Grand Staff by lines and spaces and naming the notes as we landed on them. Nice work, we will try this game again soon.

This Week @ Home

• Here is a worksheet for practice with 4/4 time signature and bar lines. Please draw in the bar lines every 4 counts. I’ve assigned this one again because I still haven’t seen it completed!
• Practice Alouette, which I handed out in class last week. Email me if it gets lost! Remember to play Bass Clef notes with your left hand, like we were working on in class today.
• Continue making up your own songs at home and experimenting on your piano!

Thanks, have a great week!

Filed under: Mapleview Heights Elementary