What a wonderful year it has been so far!

It has been one of the goals of the music department to align our lessons with the themes and content being taught within the Pre-k classrooms and this year we are now able to do it. Pre-Kindergarten has been doing learning songs like “Canta y no llores” during the feelings week and also balanced bean bag “apples” on our heads while moving to the song “The Princesses’ Game with the Golden Apples” from Stravinsky’s Firebird during the apple themed week.

Kindergarten has been busy with their farm unit and has enjoyed playing musical games, instruments and singing songs about an animal on our farm each week. Each week students are also introduced to and play a new instrument. One of their favorite game/songs has been “Hunt the Cows” and it was fun pretending we were looking for our lost cows while moving to a cowbell. We will wrap up our farm unit next week before moving on to our next theme of Autumn music.

2nd grade has head a great time with our rhythm review and the introduction of solfege. We have been learning lost of new songs that use So-Mi-La and will continue to build on our solfege ladder throughout the year. We have also had great fun playing the xylophones and glockenspiels to accompany our songs. Students have learned proper technique for holding mallets and when to play their part. We will continue to incorporate our regular music instruction, but will also start preparations for our musical in December soon.

4th grade has been traveling around the globe with both Mrs. Fleming and Mr. Z in their exploration of musical cultures. We have been learning goodbye songs from Indonesia, the welcome song “Funga Alafia” from Africa and how to sing the sargam scale in Indian music. We have also learned about lots of different instruments that are used in the music of different cultures. It has been especially wonderful to have students add their own personal knowledge and experience to our conversations. Many of them have shared that their family performs or listens to music that we have discussed in class. We will soon begin our preparations for the December musical and information in regards to rehearsals and casting will be going home soon.

Lagniappe (a little something extra):

The Girls Chorus roster will be announced at the end of this week with rehearsals beginning the week of September 27th

We are wrapping up 7th/8th grade Nebraska Honor Choir Audition recordings and will be sending those off at the end of the month. We should hear back about who was selected in late October.

6th and 7th grades will be attending Marian’s production of “Footloose” on October 20th

Welcome to music for the 2021-2022 school year at SPSL! It is going to be a fun and exciting year with so many new changes and opportunities. We of course will continue with the traditions of the previous years including our many programs and musical field trips/experiences, but we have also added some new exciting things. Last year we were blessed to add ukulele’s to the music program and several grade levels will continue their skill building this year. We are welcoming Mr. Z to the music team and he is bringing with him a wealth of knowledge and zeal. His addition to the team is allowing us to make some changes to the students that we will both teach. Below is a breakdown of the grade levels that will be taught by each of us this year.

Mrs. Fleming will be lead teaching Pre-K, Kindergarten and 2nd Grade.  I will also teach 4th Grade once a week.  Based on scheduling, there are a few classes 5-8 (5A, 6B, 7A and 8A once a week) I get the opportunity to teach once a week.

Mr. Z will be lead teaching 1st Grade and 3rd Grade twice a week. He will also teach 4th Grade once a a week. Mr. Z will be teaching the majority of the 5-8th music classes twice a week with the exception of the classes being taught by Mrs. Fleming.

We are both looking forward to the return of programs this year and being about to bring back our girls chorus and show choir. One change this year is that the 5th/6th grade musical will be moved to the Spring to allow for ample preparation due to the ever-changing precautions.

My approach to elementary music education focuses primarily on vocal and Orff instrument playing, so students will be learning musical skills through the making music together on daily basis. Collaboration and exploration are key components within our classroom. The theme for this year is “The Year of Yet” within my classroom and our focus will be on developing our growth mindsets. We will be challenging ourselves to not focus on what we can’t do right now, but on the fact that we might not be able to do it “Yet.” Instead of thinking “I don’t know how to play the ukulele” or “I just can’t do it.” I will encourage students to add “Yet” to the end (i.e. “I just can’t do it yet”) and think about the ways or steps they can take to accomplish the task. Learning is a process and my goal is to teach them that they don’t need to be perfect or get it right away.

I look forward to a great year ahead and we have so much “Yet” to learn!