Follow the Music Teacher
"Music to the soul is what words are to the mind." M. Mouse
I am excited to teach music at Breckinridge Elementary School!
What a wonderful opportunity I have to start teaching in the Botetourt County Public Schools. The area is so beautiful and I am excited to work with the students as well as their families.
A Little About Me!
Some facts about me:
- I am from Detroit, MI area.
- We moved to Lynchburg, VA June 2023 and to Eagle Rock, January 2024
- I have taught music K-8 for 27 years
- What I love about teaching music is watching kids create and perform.
- My activities to do outside of school are kayaking, hiking, camping and crafts.
- Something I'm excited about is watching the kids perform on instruments.
More pictures about me...
My best pal
Meet my dog, Mocha!
From city girl to country girl.
I have never owned chickens in my life until I moved to Virginia!
Yep my chickens love me. (Maybe a little too much!)
What buildings I am at and on which days.
What Happens in Music Class?
During the month of August...
I spent the month of August getting to know the children, finding out their interests, going over classroom expectations and exposing them to fun opportunities in class. We got some new instruments in class and I am looking forward to using them. I love hands-on opportunities. The children got to explore the variety of instruments in the classroom as well as learn some basic concepts in music. These children are amazing! I am so excited for what this year brings and to watch these children grow in music class.
Practicing our rhythms.
Instrument exploration
Instrument exploration
During the month of September...
There's a lot going on at Breckinridge in music class this month. The littles are echo singing, being introduced to steady beat as well exploring various instruments, scarves and movement. Kindergarten and first graders are echo singing, chanting, playing and moving to a steady beat. By the end of the month, they should be able to tell you what the heartbeat of music is and demonstrate it through clapping, patting or marching. They are also learning about voice choice; speaking, singing, whispering and shouting.
Second graders and third graders will understand the difference between steady beat and rhythm, Each child will sing, pat, clap and play instruments to both the steady beat and rhythms of songs. We also can divide the class in half and one half pats the steady beat while the other half claps the rhythm. All of this while singing at the same time! They will also be able to read and perform 4 beat patterns that include the quarter note, quarter rest, 8th notes, half notes and whole notes.
Fourth and fifth graders are doing a little of everything. Our focus is being able to read and play rhythms that include quarter note, quarter rest, 8th notes, half note, whole note, dotted half note and sixteenth notes. Fifth grade also covers syncopation. Syncopation is displacing the beats or accents in music from the stronger beats to the weaker beats. Both grades will not only perform these rhythms on the rhythm sticks (easier to hear being played correctly) then transferred to world drums and Orff instruments (Xylophones and Metallophones). By the end of the month they will be playing the melody to the correct rhythms of a song they learned in class. Eventually this will progress to creating our own accompaniments using the classroom instruments and singing the songs at the same time. The students will create the "extra" sound effects to make the song their own. This will happen over the next few months, we START the process in September.
It is going to be an exciting month to see what the students can do!
Instrument exploration
Instrument exploration
Instrument exploration
During the month October...
Again a lot going on... 2nd grade is preparing for a veterans concert in November and 3rd, 4th and 5th are getting ready for a Christmas concert in December.
Pre-K: We continue to work on echo singing, steady beat, following directions, fast and slow, creative movement, and story play.
Kindergarten: We continue to reinforce voice choice (Speaking, singing, whispering and shouting), steady beat, echo singing to match pitch, fast and slow tempos, and learn/practice high and low pitches, creative movement, and story play that goes along with the Fall theme.
1st Gr: We continue to to reinforce echo singing to match pitch, steady beat on body and instruments, simple rhythms that include the quarter note, half note and quarter rest, as well as fast and slow tempos. We learn learn and reinforce high and low pitches, up and down musical contour, short and long sounds and discover the relationship between small/large instruments and how it relates to high and low pitches.
2nd Gr: We are preparing for a Veteran's Day concert in November. We continue to reinforce time signatures, reading rhythms, singing and vocal exploration, classroom instruments (pitched and unpitched), and add the whole note to our rhythm reading.
3rd: Most of the time they are preparing for a Christmas concert in December. We are also reviewing our rhythm reading skills every week, singing rounds, time signatures and how they feel different, ABA, AB, and rondo forms in music, and we will being to learn about instruments in the orchestra.
4th: Most of the time they are preparing for their Christmas concert in December. We are also reviewing out rhythm reading every week, singing skills in two parts (Partner songs), pentatonic exploration, time signatures and how they feel different, line and space notes in the treble clef, and phrasing.
5th grade: We are spending time preparing for the Christmas concert in December. We are also reviewing and sight reading rhythm patterns on a weekly basis. We are reviewing our note names in the treble, learning about themes and variations in music, and will add dotted rhythms as well as 8th and 16th note combinations to our rhythm learning.