Ms. Miller's Music Blog

  Hello Tuscany Families,  What a joy a privilege to work with such talented and creative students!  Bravo to all the students who are working hard and doing a fantastic job in music.   Part of the music curriculum is to participate in singing a round.  I chose the tune of "Frere Jaques" and changed the words to match the season of winter.  In some classes we also played it on xylophones, with one group of students playing one phrase of the round. This is what makes my day!!  Such beautiful music I get to hear daily!   We also enjoy playing the Boomwhackers and I think partly because of the name.  There are winter songs we have been performing as a play-along and when we are practiced enough, we turn off the sound and just listen to ourselves playing the melody.   Here we are, very focused. 

Hello Wonderful Tuscany Families,   These are just a few of the activities we have been doing in music recently.  Enjoy the photos! There are many fun rhythm play-alongs to use on technology.  We learned 'repeat sign' on this one, plus it helps us to track music from left to right and reinforces reading rhythms that we know. These colorful and fun ribbons are new to the school.  When we perform our movement activities, it is great to use these new ribbons to move creatively.  We are using instruments to practice reading and playing the rhythms that we know.  It's a fun way to read rhythms.  What is happening here?!   We are playing a game of "Cobbler Cobbler Mend My Shoe".  Half of the students are the "store" waiting for a customer.  While Ms. Miller sings a song in Spanish about a shoemaker, the students walk around.  At the end of the song the "customers" sit and have their shoe mended by the cobbler tapping the rhythm ...

Hi Tuscany Families, The grade 1 and 2 classes are awesome!  Please read the Success Criteria below to find out some things we have been doing in music: 1. I can move to a steady beat using various actions. 2. I can ID ta, ti-ti, and rest (gr. 2's can) 3. I can perform a steady beat in a group, while another group plays the rhythm. 4. I can perform the rhythm in a group, while another group plays the beat. 5. I can use a singing voice. 6. I can understand that pitch can be high, low, or in the middle. 7. I can understand that penta  means five and when some bars are removed from the barred instruments, the bars that are left make a pentatonic scale. 8. I can understand that music is organized into sections called FORM and is labelled with upper case letters beginning with A. 9. I can identify most environmental sounds I hear. 10. I can show different ways to use my voice, such as singing, talking, whispering, shouting and thinking.  (Ms. Miller likes the thinking voice th...

  Hi Tuscany Families; The KG students have been enjoying music class and I have been enjoying the KG students.   Success Criteria for the KG students so far includes: 1. I can participate in playing instruments, games and singing.   2. I can show a steady beat. 3. I can feel when my voice is on and when it is off. 4. I can make lip puffing sounds and I can make tongue dancing sounds. 5. I can identify four families of non-pitched percussion instruments.  Woods, metals, shaker/scraper, and skin families. 6. I can experience pitch as high, low and medium. 7. I can move and improvise movement to music. 8. I can experience music and movement as fast/slow and loud/quiet. The KG classes participate in a variety of games that have a particular focus in music. We play games that encourage students to use a solo singing voice and games that help the student to experience music at different tempi and dynamics.  They enjoy the opportunity to choose which tempo o...

 Hi Tuscany Families; Recently, the grades 3-5 students recorded the song, "Strawberry Moon" by Tara Williamson, who composed song in Ojibiway and in English.   Tuscany registered to compete in the Canadian Music Class Challenge and chose a song by a First Nations Artist because of our rich work surrounding the First Nations people.   Let's cheer on our students for a job well done!! Strawberry Moon recording Learning Intentions for "Strawberry Moon" by Tara Williamson 1. I can sing the melody. 2. I can understand that the melody makes a song recognizable. 3. I can understand the musical FORM of the song as A B A B A B A A 4. I can sing using good diction, enunciating the lyrics clearly. 5. I can sing using different dynamics. 6. I can experience singing in a group. 7. I can respond to the conductor's cues

 The grades 3/4/5 classes have been experiencing and learning about strong beats and weak beats.    We sang a song that had a pattern of strong/weak, strong/weak and placed an accent mark above all the strong beats.  We discovered that this song had beats grouped in 2's, meaning that there are two beats between the bar lines with a strong beat and a weak beat.  The students are learning to understand the vocabulary TIME SIGNATURE.  The time signature of the song we learned is 2/4.  The top number means how many beats are per bar and the bottom number means the type of note that gets the beat, in this case it is a quarter note.

Hi Parents; Grade 1 and 2 students have been learning how to hold the mallets properly!  The top picture shows, "come from the top, come from the top, curl and stick your thumb, curl and stick your thumb".  Below we show that the mallets are held at an angle, although they are not supposed to cross!  This is the students practicing pre-paper/pencil notation of rhythms.  The circles represent the beat and we use pop-sickle sticks to 'draw' the rhythms.  Our next step is to use paper and pencil, which they have now completed.  Grade one's can print a 'ta' and grade two's know how to notate 'ta', 'ti-ti' and a rest.