Saturday 24 February 2018

"A World of Song" (Continued ...)

After an exciting week last week (100 Day!, Pancake Tuesday, Valentines Day, PD Day!) and a (hopefully) fun and relaxing long weekend, we were back our "travelling" around the world learning new songs.  This week we "traveled" to Europe and learned songs from two countries.

An Austrian Went Yodelling (Austria)
and Rock-a-Bye, Baby Bear (Latvia)

We also sang some of our favourites of the songs we learned on our "travels" (Ram-Sam-Sam is particularly popular) and some of our old favourites (Peanut Butter still tops the list!)

The students were also super excited to find the newest Rhythm Shakers added to our Rhythm Instrument Box.


Sunday 18 February 2018

a World of Song ...

Wow!  The last few weeks have flown by ... I guess that's what happens when you're busy making music.  And that's what we have been doing in music class making lots and lots of beautiful music. Fast Music.  Slow Music.  Quiet Music. LOUD Music.

Both the JKs and the SKs have been "travelling the world" through songs.

We started in Canada.  We sang My Paddle Keen and Bright while keeping the beat and rowing our canoes together.  We sang all about Sandwiches ("Sandwiches are beautiful. Sandwiches are find.  I like sandwiches; I eat them all the time") by iconic Canadian children's musician, Fred Penner.  And we learned Skinnamarink" by equally iconic Canadian children's musicians, Sharon, Lois & Bram (though we still aren't quite sure what a skinnamarink is).

Then we "flew" across the ocean to Morocco at the top of Africa and learned the song A Ram-Sam-Sam.  We then learned A Kapsule, a song about friendship from Angola, and a call-and-response tag game from Ghana called Che Che Koolay.

Next we headed back across the ocean to Mexico and and rode El Treyn and then finished the week off in Chile where we sang, Canta, Canta, Pajarito ("Sing, Sing, Little Bird") in hopes that Spring will be here soon.

We also had a lot of fun accompanying our new songs with a brand new set of rhythm instruments that I purchased for us (who knew maracas would be such a big hit!).

Here we have a video of some of our smallest 100 year olds on 100 Day singing the song A Kapasule that we just learned.  They take turns sharing our new rhythm instruments, clapping their hands (because we all are our own instruments), and holding the world.  The words to the song mean, "My friend" and "How are you?".

Our grade 1 friends have started learning about the musical instrument families and how they make sound.  They will continue to explore all sorts of instruments and then they will get to be musical inventors and design/invent their own musical instrument.  I can't wait to see what they come up with!