Hello parents,

          Your children will be continuing to learn about Carnival of the Animals this week, but will also learn about the half rest:

That's right, the half rest looks like a top hat. This is quite convenient when teaching the students about other rests, as half and hat sound very similar! This is a two beat rest. I compare it to the half note (they know it as du___ or long du) because they both last for two beats. 
          Since the students already understand the concept of a note longer than one beat, I expect them to learn this one quickly. As soon as I teach it to them we will play a much loved game called Busted! where the students flip over cards and read the rhythm they have created. But! If they flip over a 'Busted!' card, all of their cards go back in the pile. This is a great way for me to quickly and quietly assess how well students are grasping new and remembering old concepts.
          The next step in the learning process is to have them write their own rhythms using the new rest they have learned about, and then using it with Rhythmic Dictation.

Jenna Johnson
Music Teacher

Hello parents,

          Your children have impressed me with their quick learning and understanding of time signatures, measures, bar lines, and double bar lines! We are going to continue our study of rhythms by learning about the half rest (it looks like a top hat!) after April vacation. For the time being, we will be focusing on learning more about instruments with the music of Carnival of the Animals.
          Carnival of the Animals is a musical suite (collection of songs) written by a French composer named Camille Saint-Saens. It is meant to be humorous, with fourteen short pieces written about animals. Saint-Saens actually didn't want this published in his lifetime, thinking that it would ruin the credibility of his more serious works. We are not going to be learning about these songs in the order they were meant to be listened to, instead we are going to listen to them in groups based on similarity. Some songs may be taught alone, while others may be taught in groups of four or more.
          The first group we will be focusing on is the birds. The four bird songs of Carnival of the Animals are: The Hens and Roosters, The Aviary, The Swan, and The Cuckoo in the Heart of the Forest. The Hens and Roosters piece feature the high strings (violin and viola), two pianos, and a clarinet. These instruments are meant to represent the pecking sounds of the hens and roosters eating on a farm. The Aviary features the strings, piano, and flute. The strings create the background sound of a forest while the flute takes on the life of one bird flying around the aviary alone and the pianos provide the sounds of the other birds in the background of the aviary. The Swan is undoubtedly the most famous piece from this suite. It is actually the only on Saint-Saens allowed to be released while he was still alive. It features cello and pianos. The cello portrays the swan on top of the water, gliding along elegantly while the pianos take on the role of the swan's feet, paddling quickly underneath the surface to keep up with the majestic appearance of this beautiful animal. The last piece we will be listening to is the one that the student will have the easiest time recognizing and remembering. The Cuckoo in the Heart of the Forest is played by two pianos and a clarinet. The pianos represent the background noise of the forest while the clarinet occasionally pops in to mimic the call of a cuckoo bird.
          We will first discuss the birds and how they may be represented, and then we will listen to each piece. The next class, the students will fold a paper into four equal parts, and draw on each part what they see when they hear the songs. 
          I am very excited to embark on this new unit with your children, and I hope they are excited as well!

Jenna Johnson
Music Teacher

Hello parents,

          Your children have been doing a wonderful job writing rhythms, they have so much fun with it! They will now be learning about time signatures, which make life easier, but are somewhat difficult to grasp at the beginning. Here is a question I will be asking them at the beginning of class: "If I was playing a song with a band that had 100 beats in it, and the conductor asked me to start on beat 63, do you think that would be hard or easy?" Yes, in fact, it would be quite hard to sit there and count to the sixty-third beat of the song. Each song is broken up into measures (small groups of beats). These measures are separated by what we call bar lines, and there is always a double bar line at the end of a song or piece of music. Now, I bet you're wondering how many beats go in each measure? Is this randomly picked, or is there some logical way to do this? Well, that's where time signatures come in.
          Time signatures tell us how many beats go into a measure. The students will be learning about the three simplest time signatures, they are referred to as four four time, three four time, and two four time.

the number on the top tells us how many beats are in every measure, so 4/4 time has four beats in every measure, 3/4 time has three beats in every measure, and 2/4 time has two beats in every measure. 
          Once the students learn about measures, bar lines, double bar lines, and time signatures, they will come up to the whiteboard one at a time to build a two measure rhythm in either 4/4 or 3/4 time (they get to choose). The next class they will be able to write their own rhythms using a worksheet that I created which has a set time signature for each number and a set amount of measures. This will help me see who understands the concept of a time signature. Then we will move on to Rhythmic Dictation, which I discussed in my last post. The students will have a worksheet with time signatures and rhythms, and they have to listen to the rhythm I say and write it down on their paper. 
          The students may have a little trouble with this, but once they grasp the concept it will make rhythm building easier than ever for them.

Jenna Johnson
​Music Teacher

Hello parents,

          We are coming close to the end of the Peter and the Wolf unit, and are going to start focusing more on rhythms for the time being. We are in fact going to be focusing on how to write rhythms. Your children already know how to read, speak, and play three different notes and one rest, but they haven't worked on writing them on their own yet. 
          The students will start with a worksheet where they simply write each note and rest eight times on a piece of paper. The bottom of that paper will have two different rhythms for them to copy on the line below.
          The next step is called Rhythmic Dictation; this is when I say a rhythm, and the students have to write it down on a piece of paper. I will start out with simple four beat rhythms and make it more complicated as we get further down the paper.
          The last step is for the students to write their own rhythms. This is very fun for them and they are very creative!

Jenna Johnson
​Music Teacher

Hello parents,

          January is an exciting time in music class for second graders. We will ease into the new year by reviewing the rhythms they learned prior to the holiday break. The second week in January the students will start the instrument unit! We will start by discussing the instrument families (with the help of posters in my classroom), and then we will shift our focus to learning the story of Peter and the Wolf, a musical fairy tale written by Sergei Prokofiev. Each of the seven characters in this story are portrayed by a different instrument, with a specific theme. This will help them learn about a few specific instruments, as well as learning about each of the four instrument families.
          The second graders will also learn a new note. They already know beamed eighth notes, quarter notes, and quarter rests. They will learn about the half note, and how to read it, say it, play it, and build rhythms with it. 

Jenna Johnson
​Music Teacher

Hello parents,

     Your children have really started to succeed with rhythms. We are going to start playing a game in my class called 'Poison Pattern.' You should ask your child about it, the game is very interactive and shows me if they can hear the small difference between rhythms.
     The children have also been working on a chant called 'Miss White' this chant incorporates the rhythms they have been learning. The children know how movements to this song, and can even replace some of the words with movements. It is a great way to learn a song.
     Second graders are also learning how to sing Yankee Doodle. While singing this song, we keep a beat somewhere on our body (ex: pat legs). In the next couple of weeks, they will each have a turn telling me where we can keep a beat, but with a two or four beat pattern. (ex: two beats: pat legs & clap; four beats: pat legs, clap, pat shoulders, pat head).

Jenna Johnson
Music Teacher

Hello parents!

          In the first two weeks of music, the second graders start to learn how to speak rhythms, using rhythm syllables from Feierabend's "Converstaional Solfege" curriculum. We also discuss what a respectful listener looks like, and how that looks different in music class.
          Throughout second grade, I partially follow Feierabend's "Conversational Solfege" curriculum. I take certain aspects of the curriculum and combine it with my own ideas and games that make for an enriching curriculum. 
          I am excited to teach your students how to read, write, and play rhythms and to identify instruments this coming school year.

Jenna Johnson
Music Teacher