Term one 2009 - music at Balmoral School

Hi everyone,
We have started the year off well at Balmoral in the music classes having fun and learning lots of cool things.
The Year 3 and 4 children have been continuing to use the time blocks from last year with some great results in understanding time values and music symbols. We have learnt a variety of games using this equipment so that now the classes can be split into groups to work independently on each one. I can then go around to each group and assist those that are needing help. The favourite game so far seems to have been playing Shop with the time blocks. We are also continuing to use the Music Room resource to learn about other music concepts.
The Year 5 and 6 classes have been learning to accompany the song Junkanoo using a variety of tuned and untuned percussion instruments. It is great to see the stundents learning to cooperate in groups to produce a cohesive group performance. The addition of ukuleles to the school instrument selection has been a source of fun and new learning for the Year 5 to 8 students. Many have picked up the basic skills of ukulele playing very fast and it will be exciting to see how far they will go in learning this rewarding instrument. Here is a link to a very cool ukulele solo on the jazz standared tune All Of Me

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISj9LVIZbEY

Here's another - While My Guitar Gently Weeps

...and here is a good site for basic ukulele chords and strumming from
Hawaiian music supply on you tube

Have fun!!

The new hall building is in progress and should be up around the last term of school. This will be great for the music classes because we will finally have a music classroom and practice studios.
All in all we have had a great start to the year and I look forward to continuing to participate in the children's discovery in the coming terms.

time blocks

Here are some kids using the time blocks that I have made to help them understand how to read, write amd play rhythms. There have been some promising results so far with children being able to correctly label and find combinations of various notes to equal a given note. We have been playing games like 'trainloads' and 'Mystery man' to achieve this. This is a new approach to teaching this material that I am trialling The method has been around for ages but I am reviving it for in the classroom. It is a little like using Quesionaire blocks (sorry about the spelling errors). Each block is represetative of a note of a certain length and each successive block is half the size of the preceeding one. The use of these blocks is a great way to approach more than one concept at a time, namely music rhythm and fractions. Later we place large cards alongside the blocks to link into the written rhythms concepts. We are working from the concrete to the abstract.
We are using games as a fun and easy way for kids to get into these concepts.

Te Manu Aute

I have recently been on a music teachers retreat to Motutapu island and while there was privaledged to sit in on workshops taken by Mark Dashper an expert on Maori instruments. He is employed by team soultions Faculty of Education The University of Auckland.
He heads up a new initiative for enhancing the education of Gifted and Talented (GATE)in Northland. The collaborative media approach (Web 2.0) to education is, in my opinion, quite revolutionary and well worth checking out. You can gain access to this site by using the below
username: tmuser
Password: tmpass

A related site is also this one

http://mediasite.temanuaute.org.nz

You can gain access to the presetnations on this site by using the below
username: temporary
Password: exciting

I will also make these links available on the side bar of this blog.

Recent work at school

Hey there everyone.
We have been having a great time in music at the school.
The Y5-8 students have been working on creating soundscapes and atmospheric music as well as graphic scores. There have been some creative and varied compositions put forth by the students. A note to students - don't forget to check out the graphic scores link on the side bar of this blog.
The juniors have been discovering different ways to play percussion instruments and have also been working on graphic scores as a means to compose music of their own. These students are always surprisingly creative in their approaches and also have loads of enthusiasm for the tasks set.
I will be posting some of the students' work in due time.

room 10 Loletta rhythms

Here is the link again

room 10 kids playing Loletta

These are the room 10 kids Milan, Jarvis and others playing rhythms borrowed from Loletta by Salmonella dub on percussion instruments in term one


http://www.box.net/shared/esdjhdk0k8

Music so far at Balmoral 2008

Hi one and all,
It has been a wonderful start to the year at Balmoral School in the music department. I have really enjoyed teaching all of the age groups at school.
The children are very enthusiastic, talented and creative.
This year is a new venture for the school having never had a music specialist. I am hoping to introduce some new things into the school programme in music this year.

One of the exciting things that has been introduced so far has been the KBB band. It is a great opportunity for children to learn a new instrument. Some of the students that have begun learning are in Year 3. This is a good age to start learning an instrument.

We have been studying and using the Music Room resource in Years 1-4. I have found it to be a very well suited resource for these levels. The first term in Y3&4 we concentrated on Rhythm and in term two the focus has been on Pitch and Melody. The Senior Primary and Intermediate kids had a similar focus but at a more advanced level.

The Intermediate children were very impressive with the range of creative ways they found to produce sounds from buckets. Some intermediate children were really taken with the Stomp video and the follow-up activities we did. There are some real dance hopefuls in the school!

In the term one holidays I attended a Marimba (big xylophone-like instruments) making course. This was an exciting chance for me to learn how to make these beautiful instruments. My intention is to eventually make a set of 4 or 5 of different pitch ranges for the school. The first one has been completed and we have been using it in the senior school in our arrangements of the song Wimoweh. The children have responded enthusiastically to the instrument and its characteristic sound. (We are playing an instrument that is somewhat different to the one you'll here on the link but it is essentially the same type of instrument)

Here's to future fun in music!