First Grade Music--budding composers

Primary goals with first grade during October include:
1. Keeping a steady beat
2. Pitch-matching (sol-mi-la)
3. Listening walks and "found sounds"
4. Sounds their voices can make
5. Moving safely through shared space
6. Feeling one sound, two sounds or no sound on a beat (preparing reading quarter notes, quarter rests, and paired eighth notes)

The students will work together composing, arranging and performing an original piece inspired by the changing colors of the leaves.

We're also going on a listening walk through the school, noticing the ambient sounds all around us as we go through our day. Inspired by Paul Showers' book "The Listening Walk" (1991. New York, NY: Harper Collins), the students will collaborate to write about our own walk around the school and describe the different sounds they hear. During music class we will record their ideas of sounds using their own voices, classroom instruments or body percussion and create a sound track.