Curriculum and Grades

Learning Goals are the main skills we aim to master within a given unit. Any skills marked in BOLD are the skills I will be observing and checking for growth. While learning is a main focus in music, so is discovering the fun and joy of music. My goal is that students will remember not just the content of music, but the good times that they shared within these walls.

Grading

Kindergarten and First Grade

These primary grades receive an S, W, N or U. Here are the percentages that correspond with these grades, as well as what they mean:

S – Satisfactory (100-80%): student meets expectations

W – Working On Skills (79-70%): student is working toward skill mastery

N – Needs Improvement (69-60%): student is not meeting expectations

U – Unsatisfactory (59% and below): student is significantly below skill level

Second, Third, Fourth, and Fifth Grades

The upper grades receive an O, S, N or U. Here are the percentages that correspond with these grades, as well as what they mean.

O – Outstanding (100-90%): students exceeds expectations

S – Satisfactory (89-70%): student meets expectations

N – Needs Improvement (69-60%): student is below skill level

U – Unsatisfactory (59% and below): student is significantly below skill level

Learning Goals for Quarter One

Kindergarten

We will be learning about the steady beat through imitation, movement and playing instruments. We will also be learning about different types of voices: singing, speaking and whispering voices.

 

First Grade

We are learning about folk music. We have talked about how folk music has been passed down through generation. We will use these songs to work on the skill of singing songs with more than one verse, such as Old Brass Wagon and This Land is Your Land. We are also working on music vocabulary: DYNAMICS (volume) and TEMPO (speed).

Later in the quarter, we will even get the chance to try and improvise our own rhythms.

Second Grade

We are learning about the four groups of percussion instruments: metals, woods, shakers and membrane. We will work to be able to correctly sort instruments into the correct percussion group.

We will also be learning about musical form: AB, ABA and ABC.

 

Third Grade

We are learning about four famous composers: Peter Tchaikovsky, Aaron Copland, Ludwig van Beethoven, and John Williams. We will learn facts about the composers, as well as some of their most famous works. We will also learn some important words related to musical form, such as verse and refrain, rondo, intro, interlude and coda.

Later, as we start to prepare for recorders, we will work on reading MI, RE and DO on the staff. These are the first three notes we will learn on the recorder in quarter 3.

 

Fourth Grade

We are learning about four famous composers: Peter Tchaikovsky, Aaron Copland, Ludwig van Beethoven, and John Williams. We will learn facts about the composers, as well as some of their most famous works. We will also incorporating vocabulary that we learned earlier in the year, and using the words to describe music that we hear.

Fifth Grade

We have begun Recorder Karate, where students will be able to earn “belts” by playing recorder songs of increasing difficulty.

We will also be learning about some famous composers, including John Williams, John Philip Sousa and Peter Tchaikovsky.