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Music Room News

Your kids have been doing great work in their Music Classes this fall!!! I am extremely proud of them; and you can be too. So, I’d like to tell you a little about the specifics what we are doing in Kindergarten, First and Second Grades.

The kindergartners have been playing many fun quick reaction, follow, replacement and interrupted canon games (see my last letter) to study beat and rest, loud and soft, high and low, fast and slow, staccato and legato. They have been singing a variety of charming short traditional folk songs, such as “Fire Fly”, When You Get A Good Thing”, “Pumpkin Stew”, “Great Big House In New Orleans”, “The Counting Song”, “Bell Horses”, “It’s Raining, It’s Pouring”, “By Lo, Baby O”, “Star Light, Star Bright”, “Snail. Snail” and many others in order to begin to learn how to distinguish their singing voices from their speaking voices, match pitch and learn to sing and remember various pitch patterns. Kindergartners are also starting to sing some of the rounds and songs the whole school knows such as “Thirty Purple Birds”, “Eating is Fun”, and “Weave”. They are playing traditional singing/ circle games such as “On A Mountain”, “Down Came A Lady”, “Frosty Weather”. Kindergarteners are have also been playing on the “Kitchen Orchestra Instruments” (a variety of kitchen utensils I use as one way to introduce the children to timbre), Rhythm Sticks and the Orff Instruments. During this instrumental work the children are learning how to be conductors, soloists, section members and part of a whole orchestra. The children are in the process of learning how to read, write, and compose patterns of beat and rest. For our reading/performing games the children read from rhythm flash cards and their own compositions. They perform these patterns, by clapping, choosing to use specific animal sounds with their voices—horses, lions, dinosaurs, snakes and every other manner of creepy or crawly creature, or on the Rhythm Sticks.

The first graders continue to work on the concepts introduced in kindergarten and build on them in more advanced ways. The First graders are have been working on twice as fast and twice as slow as the beat (quarter notes, eighth notes and half notes), crescendo/dimenudo (gradually louder/ gradually softer), getting higher/getting lower (refinement of sense of pitch), accelerando/ritardano (gradually faster/gradually slower). They continue to sing some of their favorite songs from kindergarten and we are adding ballads (longer songs that tell a complete story) such as “The Turkey Song”, “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star”, “Baa Baa Black Sheep” (versions by Iza Trapani with many verses), and “There’s a Spider on the Floor.” They are learning rounds, “Make New Friends”, “Ghost of Tom”, “Hey Ho Nobody Home”. We have been studying beat and rhythm pattern through the clapping and speaking of poems by Douglas Florian including “The Crim” and “The Teek” from Monster Motel. They also worked on a poem created by Anne Zisman’s 1st Grade class called “Mice”. Our First Graders are also playing the Orff instruments, practicing how to play together on the C scale, and now on very short songs, like “Hot Crossed Buns”.

Our second graders are busy consolidating the skills that they have been developing in Kindergarten and 1st grade. Second graders are studying rhythm patterns (combinations of long and short sounds and silence) through the Dalcroze rhythm games. We have been speaking poetry not only to feel the rhythm patterns of words but also to see how different tempos, dynamics, articulations and accents help to express the meaning of the words we speak. This is preparation for adding these qualities to our singing voices. We have been using poems by Douglas Florian such as “The Crim”, “The Gazzygoo”, “The Teak”, and “The Persian”. We have also spoken and clapped the rhyming book Rap A Tap Tap by Leo and Diane Dillon. We continue to sing ballads and rounds learned in the first grade such as “Shoo Fly”, “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star”, “Baa Baa Black Sheep” and the “Turkey Song”. They are singing the rounds “Make New Friends”, “Thirty Purple Birds”, “Eating is Fun”, “Ghost of Tom”, “Hey Ho Nobody Home” and the “Peace Round”. The children are also starting to tell their own stories in chanted song. The students play circle chase games such as “Cut The Cake”, “Charlie Over the Ocean” for lots of fun and to study the movement of the body through time and space. Second graders are continuing their study of rhythm notation by reading and performing rhythm patterns from flash cards. The children select cards and put them together in new ways to create rhythm compositions for themselves to perform by clapping, speaking, or performing on instruments.

If you would like the words and music to any of the songs your children are working on,

just let me know by putting a note in my box. In my next letter, I will tell about what’s happening in 3rd, 4th and 5th Grades.

Art News

v Josie's Kindergarten Fall Watercolor Paintings and Collages were sent home last week!

v Coming Soon: Pam and Angela's classes mounted watercolor paintings of fall scenes and leaf rubbings.

v Parent Volunteers Wanted: If you are interested in helping to mount finished artwork please call Jessica at OLG, 201-795-4692. Thanks to Vicky Duerdan for her terrific help!

INNISBROOK WRAPS delivery took place the Tuesday before Thanksgiving ! Don’t forget you can still purchase on line. For registration, Elysian’s number is 120231. Thanks to all who ordered!

KUUMBA UPDATE!!!!

KUUMBA Day is 1– 5 PM in the OLG Building. Please note that for one hour, 11:30 -12:30, OLG will be closed to Elysian. All set-up (by Elysian families and outside vendors) must take place by 11:30. Please keep this in mind when volunteering (see attached volunteer form). KUUMBA happens only with your help! Please look over the volunteer form and sign up!

Don’t miss the dancing! The 3^rd grade will demonstrate what they learned during their dance residency around 2:30 PM, and they will be followed by Seventh Principle Dance Company’s performance of a South African Gum Boot Dance.

Candace and Ya Ya’s twins are expected to make an appearance and YoBo’s daughter.. Come say hello to our dance teachers’ new family members.

November Calendar

· 6 – 7:15 PM, Wallace School, Tryouts for Biddy Basketball today and December 4^th. (See December 4, for different time/location.) for students grades 5-6.

December Calendar

· 10 AM sharp! Open House for Prospective Parents. Call or e-mail Lynne to volunteer!

· Tryouts for Biddy Basketball, 5:30 – 7:15, Demarest School gym, for students grades 5-6.

· Arts to Grow, 2-4. Make-Up Session. Parents of participating children please take note!

These sisters are daughters of the late, great, master potter, Lucy Lewis of Acoma Pueblo, New Mexico. Lucy Lewis’ lightening pot was on a U.S. postage stamp and her work is in the Smithsonian Museum, among others. Lucy and her children make pots without a wheel, using ancient methods, which the two sisters, Emma and Delores, will discuss in their brief presentation/demonstration. Their pueblo is the oldest, continually inhabited settlement in the United States.

The ladies will have pottery for sale, but be warned, they are not inexpensive! Dolores and Emma are my houseguests; they have come to New Jersey because they were invited to participate in an exhibition at Montclair University Art Museum.

A Note from the Library

A HUGE thank you to the PTSO and all the families who supported the Scholastic Book Fair! As a result of your hard work and generosity, the Elysian Library has received a brand-new 52 volume set of books about the United States (including DC and Puerto Rico). The fifth grade, in particular, will make excellent use of these books. In addition, we have a new six-volume set of science books, The Earth and Physical Sciences. These will be of most interest to the Middle School.

Good News! Max Tamarkin and two other Hoboken students won the first place team trophy in the 6th grade division of the NJ State Elementary School Chess Championship on Sunday, Nov. 18th.

Art Room Donations Needed:

Sponges, and Baby Wipes