Summer Days ...

August is half-way done ... can you believe it?!

Pretty soon we will all be coming back to school and meeting new people, starting new adventures and diving into many new activities. Though we may be sad to see our summer days winding down, it is also exciting to think about our new fall opportunities.

I look forward to seeing all of you from last year at GLW and NF, as well as new faces that join us for the upcoming school year.

Enjoy your last few special summer events! :)

Ms. Baus & the two Kindergarten classrooms celebrating the Chinese New Year. This year is the year of the Tiger!

The New Year kicked off on February 14th, 2010.
Gung hay, fat choy!!!!!

Top: North Freedom Elementary Kindergarten - Mrs. K's 2009/10 Classroom
Bottom: Gordon L. Willson Elementary Kindergarten - Mrs. K's 2009/10 Classroom

Baraboo High School Presents ...

Who: Baraboo High School Students and Staff
Where: Al. Ringling Theatre, Baraboo, WI
When: March 12th & 13th (Friday & Saturday) @ 7:30 PM & March 14th (Sunday) @ 2:00 PM

Come to the Al. and support your local HS's production of "Joseph..."!!!

Our brand new soprano recorders from Peripole.
These are available for order - all orders due by March 26, 2010!

Recorder Unit starts in May, 2010 for 3rd, 4th, & 5th

These are called Boomwhackers. We are using them in 2nd, 3rd, and 4th Grade up until Spring Break. They reinforce our rhythmic skills and make awesome sounds!! Ask your student what color they play and if it is a low or higher pitch.

Spring Has SPRUNG!

Happy Spring, Readers!

It has been awhile since I have updated you all on the happenings at NF & GLW Elementary, so I would love to give you a summary of what we have all been working on ...

Kindergarten

In the past months we have...

• Completed our first music program ever(!!!) in December. It turned out beautifully.
  
• Learned about the Chinese New Year. GLW Kindergarteners were featured in the Baraboo News Republic, and NF K Students are on Ms. Baus's website. (Check it out!) This year we celebrated the Year of the Tiger on Friday, February 12, 2010. The actual New Year was on February 14th, 2010, but this was also Valentine's Day.
• Sung songs about appreciating each other in the class. We used Valentine's Day as a day to celebrate friendship and our classmates.
• Played games that consistently reinforce our steady beat and pulse. We continue to pat, move, jump, shake, wiggle, and dance to the beat to feel what the music is all about! We use different instruments (like drums, sandpaper blocks, tambourines), and musical recordings to help us feel many different grooves and beats!
  
• Started to create our own instrument & beat patterns ...
  

Students in Kindergarten have made large progress on their singing voices, beat and rhythm abilities, as well as their musical vocabulary. There are so many things we can now talk about, and so many new things we are constantly discovering. It is a great time!!!

1st Grade
We have been ...

• Discovering animals and the way that "their music" sounds.
  
• Connecting pictures to different musical themes and musical sounds.
  
• Asking the question: How does this instrument or music match the picture I see?
  
• Creating our own "landscape" pictures that show either a Zoo, City, School, Jungle, Farm, or Circus.
  
• Listening to instrument demonstrations from around the classroom and deciding whether the instrument "fits" into our picture (what does it represent in our picture?) or if it does not.
• Creating a "Wish List" of instruments to make a composition that ties to our picture...

The composition process is still in the development process as of right now. We've listened to instruments and have discussed, in small groups, which instruments we'd like to use. This week, I am conferencing with each small group and helping them get a concrete list of instruments they will use in the composition.

Up until Spring Break, we will keep up this composition process. Every day is a new adventure and we discover new things all the time - it's a very interesting journey! I cannot wait to see what we all come up with!

2nd Grade
We have been ...

• Improving our pitch reading on the music staff.
• Learning new pitches like Do!
  
• Perfecting our rhythmic skills by counting beats, comparing faster and slower notes, and clapping ... lots and lots of clapping!
  
• Organizing music. We now know how to use a "time signature" to divide our music into smaller sections called measures. We use our new knowledge of beats to help us with this as well!
• Using all these new rhythmic/organizational skills to play in our Boomwhacker ensembles...

Boomwhackers are colored tubes that produce sound when hit against a hard surface. We play them on the floor, and the different colors & sizes produce different pitches. When we master our rhythm, we hear a very cool tune made by our Boomwhackers! Since our piece of music is pretty long, we are still at the "starting phase" of this project.

3rd Grade

• Improving our pitch reading on the music staff.
• Learning new pitches like Do!
  
• Perfecting our rhythmic skills by counting beats, comparing faster and slower notes, and clapping ... lots and lots of clapping!
  
• Organizing music. We now know how to use a "time signature" to divide our music into smaller sections called measures. We use our new knowledge of beats to help us with this as well!
• Using all these new rhythmic/organizational skills to play in our Boomwhacker ensembles...

Boomwhackers are colored tubes that produce sound when hit against a hard surface. We play them on the floor, and the different colors & sizes produce different pitches. When we master our rhythm, we hear a very cool tune made by our Boomwhackers! Since our piece of music is pretty long, we are still at the "starting phase" of this project.

4th Grade

• Improving our pitch reading on the music staff.
• Learning new pitches like Do!
  
• Perfecting our rhythmic skills by counting beats, comparing faster and slower notes, and clapping ... lots and lots of clapping!
  
• Organizing music. We now know how to use a "time signature" to divide our music into smaller sections called measures. We use our new knowledge of beats to help us with this as well!
• Using all these new rhythmic/organizational skills to play in our Boomwhacker ensembles...

Boomwhackers are colored tubes that produce sound when hit against a hard surface. We play them on the floor, and the different colors & sizes produce different pitches. When we master our rhythm, we hear a very cool tune made by our Boomwhackers! Since our piece of music is pretty long, we are still at the "starting phase" of this project.


5th Grade

• Studying music from the past...
• Civil War lifestyles and the music that was produced during that time in history.
• The birth of American Patriotic Music as our country was first developing and gaining its independence.
• African American Spirituals that developed out of the new culture in the America at the time of the Civil War.
  
• Lyrical Analysis. Throughout all the Spirituals & Patriotic Songs we've studied and sang, what do you notice about the lyrics? What do they actually mean? If there are words we are unsure of, how do we find their meaning?
  

Recently we have taken a break from our historical music unit and started to brush up on our music reading skills. Review material includes pitches on that music staff using the treble clef. This review is mainly for our upcoming recorder unit. When we feel confident in our note reading ability, we will be 100% ready to make music with the instruments!

Stay tuned for instrument posts this spring!

BRAVO & BRAVA!!!

To the whole cast and crew of the Music Man for a job WELL DONE :)