Jazz!!

Jazz is full blown in Kindergarten and First Grade. We have recently listened to the book The Jazz Fly by Matthew Golub. The fly is asking farm animals how to get to town where the jazz club is located! He gets some help and saves the day by using both scat syllables and the sounds of the farm animals. We got to watch a live video of Ella Fitzgerald perform some scat and watch a string bass player! Coming up we'll learn about Nancy the Gnat and her saxophone. We will read a story about Charlie Parker and watch some videos of his playing. We'll also hear from Hoot the owl on Sesame Street! We are so excited to learn about jazz, the American musical art form!

Peter and the Wolf Resource

I'm preparing to teach about instruments, instrument families, and the piece Peter and the Wolf. Here's a link for a video of David Bowie introducing the instruments and the story!

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xmbg64_david-bowie-narrates-disneys-peter-and-the-wolf_music

Wrapping Up the Year

Here's a look at what we'll be doing in Kindergarten through 5th Grade this week!

Kindergarten - Learning about jazz, book of interest - The Jazz Fly by Matthew Golub

1st Grade - Continuing a conversation about jazz from last year - The Jazz Fly by Matthew Golub

2nd Grade - Learning about Sergei Prokofiev, and the instruments used in Peter and the Wolf

3rd Grade - Recorder Karate Pretest and introduction to recorders

4th Grade - Mr. Miller (band director) will be talking to students about the band program and give more information about the different instruments in band.

5th Grade - Wrapping up world music with North America! Starting today with the music of the Native Americans. Students will learn which tribes were indigenous to which parts of the nation. We will continue to learn about Pow Wows and the uses of music in these groupings.

More excitement to come!