Celebrations Across the Nations

On Thursday, December 13th, the grade K-5 students will be performing in our annual holiday concert. This year our theme is "Celebrations across the Nations" and each grade or class will be presenting and performing music from different celebrations in different countries around the world! Performances will be at 1:30 and 7:00. Please come to the afternoon show if you are able to so we have ample room at our 7:00 show. We have had many community members answer my call for help with music and dances and I thank them very much for their help. We will once again have our cereal tree in the front hallway collecting cereal and mittens/toques/scarves for Westgrove School.

Remembrance Day Assembly

On Thursday November 8th we will be having a Remembrance Day Assembly in our school gym at 11:00. All are welcome to attend. Our Grade 3-5 Choir, Flute Choir, and Grade 8 Band will be performing as well as various other students with poems and thoughts about Remembrance Day. Hope to see you there to "Take Time to Remember".

Kindergarten Sound Story

The Kindergarten students have had fun in music this week singing and dancing to all sorts of halloween themed songs. They especially liked using instruments to act out the book "The Little Old Lady Who Wasn't Afraid of Anything". We watched a video song of the story and then chose appropriate instrument sounds to go with the sounds in the story. For example the chose drums for the shoes going "Clomp Clomp". They were so good at it and loved trying out the different instruments in the classroom. They have been asking to see the video again and again so I thought I would post it for you to see at home! Happy Halloween!

Down by the Bay

This week in Grade One we will be singing "Down by the Bay" and creating our own version to be made into a book. The students can sing the song with actions, create their own rhyming verse and make their own page for our classroom book complete with drawings and a written sentence. We have had fun thinking of all the funny rhymes we can make. Here is a video to watch to inspire new verses.

Country and Western Music

The grade 2's have started the year by singing about "Trains". Our first song of the year is called "Riding that New River Train" and we have been talking about Country Music because the song is in this style. The students brainstormed an impressive list of instruments that are found in Country Music such as harmonica, guitar, fiddle, banjo ect. I found a great video to show them that really showcases the different sounds that a banjo, guitar and fiddle make and how they are so unique in Country Music. Even more amazing is that the students in the video are so young and able to play these instruments so well. We talked about how much they would have to practice to be that good at their instrument. Here is the video:

Welcome!!

I would like to officially welcome everyone back to Linden Meadows and let you know that I am very excited for the musical opportunities coming our way this year. If you are in Grade 3-5 please come and try out choir! A note will be going out shortly for that. There is also a choral opportunity to sing with the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra this year. I still need to find out more details about what grade of students they are looking for. This will be after Christmas! As always assemblies, holiday concert and possibly a spring musical for the little ones is something to get excited about! So let's get settled in and let the learning begin!! Here is a fun video to get us back into our Do Re Mi's!!!

Summer!!!

Only a couple of days left until the Canada Day Assembly and then........SUMMER!! Yay! Time to rest, play and get excited for a whole new year at school! There is a lot to do in the summer outside and inside. Make sure if its a rainy day you check out the music blog to try out some of our fun music websites to play games or create music at lmmusicnotes.blogspot.com . Also when you are outside playing with your brothers, sisters, cousins, and friends I have a cool website to check out with clapping games. I thought this was this was an interesting thing to know about clapping games! A researcher in Israel conducted the first study of hand-clapping songs. "We found that children in the first, second and third grades who sing these songs demonstrate skills absent in children who don't take part in similar activities. We also found that children who spontaneously perform hand-clapping songs in the yard during recess have neater handwriting, write better and make fewer spelling errors." Yeahhhh! even more reason so learn and play these clapping games and clapping songs! Go ahead give Miss Mary Mack or any other hand clapping game a try! http://funclapping.com/International.php