Grade 2: Students enjoyed the wonderful story "Apple Picking Time" and learned the companion song "Apple Picking Song" during October. We pretended to be trees as we moved to the delightful song "I'm a Tree", taking us through the seasons.  As we begin our work learning many musical symbols, we are now following notation in our Big Book as we learn our new songs.  The southern folk song, "She'll Be Comin' Round The Mountain" is the first song we studied from our Big Book.  We listened to a wonderful arrangement of it recorded by the children's singing group "The Treblemakers" and galloped around the room as we listened!  As Thanksgiving approached, we learned an old traditional Thanksgiving song "Over the River and Through the Woods".  We now are already preparing for winter and Christmas by learning many songs that we will share with the Brentwood Seniors who've invited us to entertain them at their December luncheon!  (More news on that event will come home in the Wednesday folder on November 28th.)

Grade 3: The first song from our third grade book that the children explored was "Rocky Mountain".  After learning the song, they learned an orchestration for it on various barred instruments; xylophones, metalophones, and glockenspiels. They chose the instrument part they wanted to learn and they all had turns on the instruments, teaching each other, and singing along with the beautiful sound of all these barred instruments playing together!  For Halloween, we learned "Halloween Night" and then dramatized the story told through the song...oh how they love to act!!! We are now in the middle of our animal unit, learning the song "Animal Song" and preparing to compose our own verse!  We will continue with animal songs and stories through December...with a little time out for a holiday sing along!

Grade 4: Following our experience and discussion on harmony in September, we learned the traditional round "Scotland's Burning" from our music books.  The children took turns accompanying the song on xylophones and added actions which proved to be quite entertaining to watch as they sang in the form of a round.  They have now successfully sung descants, rounds, and partner songs, demonstrating their ever developing ear for singing in harmony.  We will continue to explore other forms of singing in harmony throughout the year.  As Halloween approached, we studied the "Danse Macabre" by the French composer Camille Saint Sean. They learned about tone poems and themes in music. As a culminating activity to studying a classical, orchestrated piece of music, they love to simply listen to the whole work, uninterrupted, lying on the floor with the lights out!!! To end our fall unit, we learned the Hungarian folk song, "Hike Along", as we did a rhythm review and added a new rhythm to our repertoire!

Grade 5: The students spent most of October working in groups composing new verses to the French song from New Orleans, "Baked Potato".  This activity provided them with a great review of rhythms as well as the addition of a new rhythm to work with.  They shared their verses with each other at the end of the unit which proved to be quite comical in some cases!  We took a break at Halloween to revisit some old favorites from previous years; "Spooky Walk", "Danse Macabre", and "The Banshee".  We are now finishing up a unit on theme and variations having learned the song "Simple Gifts" and then listening to a segment of "Appalachian Spring" which includes the Simple Gifts theme with variations by American composer Aaron Copland. We will return to singing in December with partner songs that combine "Jingle Bells" with the song "Winter Fantasy".  I'm sure that will take us to a holiday sing along of other old favorites!

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Last updated: January 02, 2008
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Swasey Central School
355 Middle Road
Brentwood, NH 03833
Phone (603) 642-3487
FAX (603) 642-6825