Holiday Performance 2011

Please come out Thursday night and see our FANTASTIC Holiday Show!  It features our awesome Recorder Ensemble and our Bel Canto Beacons Chorus!  
I am SO unbelievably proud of this group here.  They have worked SO hard and they sound awesome!  Way to go guys!


I am in the process of trying to figure out how to attach an audio file to my blog because I recorded these guys in rehearsal this morning and I'd love to share it with you.  So, hopefully I will figure that out soon.

MEET FREDDIE!

Meet Freddie!  


Freddie has come all the way from Treble Clef Island to meet our awesome Beacons!  He will teach us so much about music as we go on different adventures with him!  I am so excited to have him. 

On my way back from the Music Educators Conference in Winston Salem, I stopped by Treble Clef Island because I had to meet Freddie.  I was telling him how awesome Boger was and he decided he wanted to come live here for the school year.

  
Freddie really enjoyed the fluffy bedding in the hotel room as we were making our way back home...he is a sleepy head in the morning and very difficult to wake!

The picture above shows Freddie with my name tag from the conference.  He was very happy that I came to meet him.




This picture to the left shows Freddie trying to drive us home, but I told him he could not do that....



 
so he rode in my purse!




Stay tuned for more adventures from Freddie as he meets the Boger Beacons starting today!!!

NCMEA conference

I am happy to say that I am spending four days in Winston-Salem, NC for the annual NCMEA conference.  This is a conference for music educators across the state.  There are so many amazing clinics to go to, performances to hear, and things to see.  I arrived yesterday and spent the afternoon and evening listening to the Middle and High School Honors Chorus rehearsals.  Today Elementary, Middle, and High School Honors Choruses had their performances so I went to all of those.  I also went to a clinic that focused on Elementary Choral Literature and I actual got to sing and read though it.  Awesome!  Then I went shopping at all of the vendors and of course I had to get some stuff for my Beacons!

Tomorrow is a full day of clinics.  I am also going to try to look in on some of the great performances during the day as well.  I'm missing my Beacons, but I know they will be in great hands with Mr. Richards.

Square One Art!

Our fabulous art teacher and our awesome PTO organize this amazing fundraiser every year called Square One Art.  Each student makes a piece of art and then they can order a variety of things with their artwork on it (shirts, keychains, etc.)  This year, I tried making one of my own! (top picture)  Mrs. Richardson had to help me with my xylophone, but I think it turned out pretty good!  I will definitely be buying something with the design on it.

This picture below is our Bel Canto Beacons Chorus Square One Art project!  I LOVE it so much...it has the name of every chorus member on it and can also be purchased on a t shirt or anything else that you want!  I'll definitely be getting one of these as well!

Rhythm Circle

 

First grade has been working hard on keeping a steady beat as we play our instruments, so we created this rhythm circle where they have to play along to the music and then all pass their instrument to the next person in the direction of the arrows.  It makes practice this skill interesting because they get to switch instruments as we go along and it also makes them work as a team!  Great job guys!

Vivaldi's Four Seasons

First graders have just finished up a unit on Vivaldi's Four Seasons, which is a series of songs that were written to sound like the seasons of the year.  We think the Baroque composer did a great job illustrating the seasons through music so to end the unit we listened to each movement and drew pictures of things that reminded us of that season as we were listening to it.

#1 - Spring
#2 - Summer
#3 - Autumn
#4 - Winter

 

Second Grade Musical

Second graders are learning about insects in science, so I thought it would be really cool for us to learn the musical, "Bugz!"  I am hoping to do this as a grade level performance sometime later in the year, but the date has not been set yet.  It is a super cute musical with fun songs and speaking parts.  The kids are doing a great job learning the songs so far and I think they really like it too!

Treble Clef Note Names!

  While my sweet fourth graders are anxiously awaiting the arrival of their recorders (woohoo!), we are practicing and reviewing note names for the lines and spaces of the treble clef.  We have a variety of ways we do this, from individual  practice on white boards to super fun interactive websites and games, but one of their favorites is the bean bag toss game.  The class is split into teams and each person throws a bean bag onto the staff and then they need to name the line or space that it lands on.  We usually play boys verses girls and the first team to say their answer gets the point for that round.

Thoughtful notes

Here are some very sweet notes from some fifth graders of mine....

 
  

Sometimes we just need a little "pick me up."  What we do as educators DOES matter in the lives of the children we teach!






  

Many "thank yous" to Ms. Pegarella's class for knowing how to make this music teacher smile!  I received a letter from every student in the class...I wish I could post them all.  All of them were incredible thoughtful and touched my heart so much!

So Much Fun in Kindergarten Music!

  Kindergarten classes are diving right into learning about all of the different types of instruments in the music room!  They are learning to play on their own specific sections of music by listening for certain cues while singing a song called "John the Rabbit."




  Here we have a student demonstrating the proper hand position for sticks.  Even this early in the year we stress proper technique for playing our instruments so that we aren't trying to reteach it later!


  Hand drums are probably the favorite instrument right now!  They can be played in a variety of different ways to create different sounds!

 

A little reminder...

The world of education is tough for many of us educators right now.  We can sit and complain about budget cuts, not having enough time for all the paperwork, the long days, having to jump through the many hoops we have to every day, and the tons of other things that aren't ideal OR we can look for those little things that remind us why we chose this profession in the first place.

I bet it wasn't for the money....

   

Recorder Ensemble Rehearsal

This year in Recorder Ensemble, I am blessed with ten amazing talented students.  They meet me once a week, EARLY in the morning before school.  They do audition and must be able to play Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" on the recorder, which they learned last year in music class if they completed our "Recorder Karate" curriculum.  Only fifth graders are allowed in Recorder Ensemble this early in the year because fourth grade has not learned how to play yet.  

This particular group is incredibly focused and hard working.  I'm not sure I even have enough music planned for them because they are already playing so well after only two rehearsals.  I gave them "homework" for Recorder Ensemble and they cheered! :-) 

OVERFLOWING WITH BLESSINGS!

This picture was taken during Chorus rehearsal on Monday, September 19th.  I wanted to take this picture simply to show how crowded in is in my room during these rehearsals!!  The room is FULL!  I feel so incredibly blessed to be able to work with these kids.  They are enthusiastic and excited to learn about music.  I have the best job in the world!
 

Third graders playing instruments

Third graders were participating in a lesson that involved an Orff arrangement of a Shel Silverstein poem.  Unfortunately, as I was going through the rotation of classes, I realized that the arrangement that I had written was a little too much for third grade at the beginning of the year, so I ended up letting them come up with suggestions for what they should play and it turned out to be a lot of fun because it was their work and each class had a different interpretation of the poem.  I am now doing the original lesson with fifth grade classes and it is going extremely well and will post pictures and the lesson plan, as well as the arrangement when I have finished!  It was still a very valuable experience for the kids I think because they really enjoy playing the instruments and also enjoyed creating and composing a little on their own! :-)

Curriculum Night 9/15/11

Our school had a good turn out for curriculum night this year!  Each of the Encore staff was paired with a grade level and I went with 4th grade.  I was happy to meet the parents of some of our fourth grade students, as well as give them some information about our Encore Program at Boger and also some information about the Music Program specifically.  4th graders start recorder in music this year!  Woo hoo!

Chorus Rehearsal 9/15/11

We had an awesome second rehearsal....we are reaching nearly 70 members...wow!  The music room is CROWDED!  But, in spite of that, we got some great work done on the opening piece of the musical.  Everyone is learning Part 2 for right now because I think it is really important to be able to hear and read music that might not always be the melody.  They did really well.  We will eventually assign parts but for now, the whole ensemble is learning both.  We did a detailed work through of the song "Jingle Bell Jukebox," learning the pitches, rhythms, and just practicing the words because they are HARD!  We started some work on the beginning of our 4th piece, "Jingle Bells Rock," which is a fun mash up of "Jingle Bells" and "Jingle Bell Rock."  

Great behavior and work from all participants!  Hooray!

First Chorus Rehearsal!

We had our first Chorus rehearsal today and it was a tremendous success!  There were over 60 students in attendance and we spent the time working on some overall vocal technique as well as a quick read through of the musical that we will be working on this season.  I am very excited about our musical, Jingle Bell Jukebox, because it is a great combination of fun, familiar songs in good arrangements, as well as some challenging but interested original songs.  

Our chorus is made up of 4th and 5th grade students who volunteer their time twice a week after school.  They go through a simple audition and application process.  It is an awesome group of kids and I am so blessed to be able to work with them.  Stay tuned for more updates as we go through our rehearsal season!

First Full Week of School

We had a great first week of school at Boger!  I have seen all of the classes at least once and Chorus and Recorder Ensemble Auditions are in full swing.  I feel really great about this year. 

 

This board is in my room this year and each class has their own "Grammy" in honor of this year's theme.  When they come to music class, they are trying to earn stickers to put on their grammy.  The more stickers, the more choices of special activities they can have or other special treats.  But, I don't tell them how many they need for certain things, they just have to keep earning them and then I surprise them with fun stuff!  The kids (and the teachers) are excited about it and responding well!
 
I hope everyone has a great long weekend!  See you Tuesday!

Open House!

  This bulletin board was made for open house at Boger.  Our theme this year is "All the World's a Stage" and this display features our mascot, Blaze, rocking out on electric guitar.  The PE teacher, art teacher, and myself put this together.....what a great team to be a part of!  I am super excited for the theme this year and to see ALL of the different ways our Boger Beacons shine! :-)

Welcome to Art and Music!

  This is another awesome bulletin board made by the art teacher and myself.  It started with the idea that we needed to get something up really quickly, and then turned into another great project!  This is what you see outside of our classroom before you come to music or art class.  I love it!  I think we are ready for the kids tomorrow!