C.A.G. First Grade Music
What are we doing now and why?
How playing an instrument benefits your brain - Anita Collins
Our Current Topics
Piano
We learn piano to put our brains to work! Right now we are reviewing the letter names of the piano keys. The students have a worksheet for homework and we are playing games in class. If your child is struggling to complete the assignment, please use the image below to help them.
There is also a game below which they can play to reinforce this concept - which is crucial to everything else they will do in piano for the rest of their musical career.
TEXTURE IN MUSIC
We are learning about how music can go from being "thin" to "thick" by adding layers of sound. We are going to learn how to play an ostinato, Italian for repeated pattern, along with an existing song to add another layer to it.
Reading and Writing Music
At C.A.G. we use a curriculum that teaches music like you would a language. The first graders have been learning to "hear" and "speak" music (which lasts from preschool until semester two of first grade.) Just like in a spoken language, where letters represent sound, there are symbols which represent sound in music. This semester we will be learning to read and write the symbols you see below. We will not learn the technical names for them yet, just as we don't learn grammatical terms when we first learn to read the alphabet.
Fun with Instruments
BoomWhackers
At this age we use BoomWhackers a lot! We can play them by reading colors and shapes instead of musical notation. For a glimpse at what fun can be had with BoomWhackers you can watch the video below.
Prélude n°1 aux tubes musicaux (boomwhackers)