Pizza, Pizza Daddy-O!

Three videos to share this week! The first is the Pre-K 3-year-old class singing "Hello, Everybody." Since they learned it without lyrics, you can, too!

The puppets help them ease their way into singing with others.

Our second video is from combined Grades K, 1 and 2, singing the playground song, "Pizza, Pizza Daddy-O", including two talented soloists!

And finally, the Middle School has been learning about the history of the song, "The Lion Sleeps Tonight". Their listening journal this week was about copyright issues surrounding that song. We did a quick experiment with Garage Band to see if we could quickly and easily record a song (quite different than in the "old" days). In about 10 minutes, we recorded each background track separately (3 tracks), looped them to 45 seconds and then recorded over the background tracks with the melody. All the voices you hear are the middle school singers, either recorded or live.

We hope to enhance the quality by using headphones to avoid feedback and practicing the song more to improve the singing element.

Grades 3/4 started recorder this week, preparing for performances on the Winter Concert in December. The following video will give students new to the instrument an introduction:

Recorder Basics (Grades 3/4 Playlist)

Students who own a recorder at home will have on assigned to them at school, as well. They do not need to bring their home recorder to school. Students who do not own a recorder can take their school recorder home, but need to remember to bring it back on Tuesdays and Fridays for music. Recorders are available for purchase at Gramedia in Balikpapan Plaza.

Pre-K 4 is working on a new song that we hope to record next week. They can practice it home here:

A Ram Sam Sam (PreK Playlist)

The young students also enjoy dancing at the end of class.

Grade 2 has started work on bells in hopes of making their composition into a tonal composition with lyrics. First, we have to understand notes and tones (including letters and numbers associated with those).

In library, we celebrated the International Day of Peace by making it a week-long celebration. We read the book "Can You Say Peace", a book published by the United Nations several years ago specific for this celebration. The book teaches us how to say "peace" in different languages.

Can You Say Peace? Read-aloud

The grade 3/4 class also found each country in the book on a globe and estimated the time it would take to get there by plane. It was great because students had lived in several of the countries we mentioned.

Stay tuned for more from our PRIS Students and don't forget to check out the library and music YouTube page (and subscribe)!

PRIS Music & Library YouTube Page

Note: Comments are moderated and for privacy reasons, cannot include students' names. Please direct specific inquiries via email.

Get up and Move!

Let's join the Grade K/1 Class in singing one of their favorite songs from the warm-up set. Since this is an echo song, this is a great song to practice with toddlers up into early elementary school.

In music this week, students were up and moving around. Often, musical concepts are easiest to learn with large body movements, whether that is loud v. soft, lyrics to a new song or keeping a steady beat.

Pre-K Ages 3 & 4 are still using classical music to learn the difference between loud and soft. We used ribbons to indicate loud (waving them up high) and soft (tickling our toes) in the Vivaldi Concerto "Autumn" that we also studied last week.

The 4-year-olds went onto practice loud & soft with claves, Mexican instruments. Using the same piece of music, the students played softly or loudly with the beat, based on what they heard.

The 3-year-olds moved into some movement activities, including a song about popping corn, when they had to wait until the "pop" sound to jump up, and a song about galloping slow-fast-slow, like a pony.

As always, Pre-K spent some time with Baby Beluga, and had the opportunity to pass him around, giving him a hug and/or kiss if they wanted.

The Pre-K 4 class is doing so well and I'm always happy to see them in music. Even when it is raining, they all brave the weather to come and see me!

Grades PreK-2 have been enjoying another classical music lesson based on Handel's Surprise Symphony (1791). Here's the story associated with this song:

My mom made cookies and I couldn't resist, so I snuck down in the middle of the night and ate them all. Before I knew it, there were cookie crumbs all over the floor. I tiptoed to pick them up (with the rhythm of the music: tip-toe-tip-toe-tip-toe-crumb...) but suddenly I heard a loud noise! I was worried my mom might catch me so I hid on the floor and pretended to be asleep and very quiet. When I was sure the coast was clear, I finished my job of picking up the cookie crumbs and headed back to bed.

Here's a short clip of Pre-K 4 doing this activity after hearing the song. The song can be found on the PRIS YouTube Page on the Pre-K and KG/1/2 Playlists.

Grades K-2 joined together for one class this week, something that may become more regular as they prepare for the Winter performance. First, they watched the Peace video that Grades 3/4 made last week and sang along.

Then, we got right into a new song, called "Pizza, Pizza Daddy-O," which is a playground game from the 1960s. You can find a link of 1960s children playing it here: Pizza Pizza Daddy-O.

Next, the students played a hand-clap song/game called "Four White Horses." A recording of the song can be found here: Four White Horses.

During their second music classes of the week, the Grade 1/2 finished learning their composition, named it, and began practicing it with rhythm sticks.

The Grade K/1 class continued practicing Orff rhythms, but were able to learn to play some world drums along the way. Each student had a turn with each drum.

Finally, the Grade 3/4 class has been working hard on their ensemble piece, "Jambo", a "hello" song in Swahili (from Kenya). The students worked through a few performance groups and settled on these two groups with every student getting a chance to play an instrument and sing. We also added a new West Kenyan instrument, the gongokui. Here are short clips of each group's practice. Please note that they are still in the practicing stages and this was only the second day trying the song with full instrumentation and singing.

"Jambo" Group 1:

"Jambo" Group 2:

This week, in Library, we continued the school-wide focus on giving associated with the exciting carnival. We read "Rainbow Fish" by Marcus Pfitzer, an amazing story about a fish finding happiness by giving something precious to his friends. Here is a link to a great read-aloud of this book read by actor, Ernest Borgnine: Rainbow Fish. After reading "Rainbow Fish," the students had enough time to check-out books and even briefly read their books.

While looking for the "Rainbow Book" read-aloud, I found two wonderful sources for read-aloud books that you can access at home. Storyline Online is a Website and a YouTube Channel managed by the Screen Actor's Guild. They feature famous actors reading children's books. I have added these links to the right hand side of this blog under "Fun Links". I encourage you to explore this resource at home!

Next week, we will ease into learning a few songs for the Winter performance...it's never too early to start practicing. Please let me know if you have any questions or comments. The PRIS students are doing a great job!

Don't forget to check the PRIS Music & Library YouTube site for playlists, recordings and videos!

Note: Comments are moderated and for privacy reasons, cannot include students' names. Please direct specific inquiries via email.

Multilingual Composers

This week's lyric video comes to us from the Grade 3/4 Class who have been working hard to learn all the languages in this song, "We Are Children of Peace." All the classes have worked on this song and thanks to Grade 3/4, we now have a fun, new way to practice!

After the students have mastered these languages, we hope to add more languages that are representative of our community, such as Portuguese, Korean and Chinese!

In music this week, students have been hard at work composing, singing and playing instruments. In addition to making our lyric video, the 3rd & 4th Graders have been adding instruments to their "Jambo" band (Swahili).

The second graders have been working for over a week on writing their own rhythmic composition as a class. Each student wrote one measure of rhythms, using the Orff tools we learned. They then mastered their rhythm well enough to teach it to a friend. Finally, they utilized the composition "Finale Notepad" on the Smartboard to add their rhythm to class-wide composition.

Now, we start the process of learning our composition on the drums. Eventually, we will assign notes to this composition and maybe even words.

In the PreK 4-year-old class, we once again played a now favorite game, "High Stepping Horses." This play song teaches the difference between beat (during the "High stepping horses..." lyrics) and rhythm (during the "Jigady, jigady, jog" lyrics). Take a look at the short video below:

The student who is the "horse" does the same thing with his or her legs that the other students are doing with their hands. When the song ends, the "horse" stops and asks the student in front of them if he or she would like a turn. This gives students a choice, as they are welcome to decline. It also encourages communication (asking/answering).

The PreK 3-year-old class has filled their music times with warm-ups and drums. Warming-up is a great way to get students acquainted with their own voice and the voices of others. But, it can be difficult to sing in public for the first time. We utilize puppets to help bridge-the-gap and make students feel less comfortable. Instead of the child feeling exposed, they pretend the puppet is the one singing.

And here the students are doing their coordination singing warm-up. They are given an action ("march your feet") and a voice ("and call to 8").

Each week, the younger students sing "Baby Beluga", my favorite children's song. Baby Beluga has traveled all over the world with me and students find this song calming and beautiful. After we sing it as a class (while reading the book), sometimes we pass around Baby Beluga.

The Kindergarten & Grade 1 class also started working on "Classical in the Classroom" lessons, which allow us to study classical music in fun, new ways. Here they are pretending to be trees on a blistery, Autumn day in Canada. The song they are moving to is "Autumn" from The Four Seasons by Vivaldi (composed 1725).

Middle School students learned about their listening journals, which will be assigned each Friday and due the next Thursday. The majority of the students are completing these journals in a shared Google Document. This time, their first journal will be due Thursday, September 18 by 1:00 p.m. They also started practicing our own "island" version of "The Lion Sleeps Tonight," first understanding the history of this song, especially as it pertains to copyrighted music stolen from Africa. We used this playlist to understand how much the song has changed over the years:

The Lion Sleeps Tonight Playlist

In library, the PreKs and K/1s read a book called "Bear Snores On". The students loved imitating the bear snoring as his friends had a party in his cave.

This book can be found in puppet-theatre form on the new PRIS YouTube page, under the Read-Aloud Playlist.

The PreKs also played Happy Book/Sad Book, this time putting the books on the poster themselves.

The 3rd & 4th graders enjoy making their own book groups after checking out. Some read to each other whereas others choose to read alone.

Finally, I would like to draw your attention to a few links of interest. In addition to this blog, I will be posting videos both of the students and videos of interest for the students on the PRIS Music & Library YouTube Account. That address is: http://www.youtube.com/user/prismusicvideos/. Feel free to subscribe. Each class will also have a designated playlist where I post videos and recordings, especially of songs we are using in class. There will be other playlists, as well, such as the Read-Aloud playlist with books from Library.

As always, please forward any comments or questions my way!

Note: Comments are moderated and for privacy reasons, cannot include students' names. Please direct specific inquiries via email.