Clear Lake 

Here's what your student can expect to learn in music class at Clear Lake

 

Music literacy and vocal and instrumental proficiency are my three main areas of focus.  Below is a grade level break-down.

 

Kindergarten:  Vocal exploration and performance.  Exposure to all basic types of instruments.  Basics on music such as high, low, loud, soft, fast, and slow.  We sing songs, dance, move and use sign language.

 

1st Grade:  Vocal exploration and pitch matching.  We sing songs and learn about Do, Re, Mi, Sol, and La.  We read and write rhythms using quarter notes, beamed eighth notes and quarter rests.  We learn about the basic parts of a music staff.  We play pitched and unpitched percussion, pianos and just begin playing recorders.

 

2nd Grade:  Vocal performance and pitch matching.  Students will sing rounds and partner songs. Students learn to use a head and chest register in their singing.  We add in reading of whole and half notes and rests to the 1st grade reading.  Students learn terms such a step, skip with regard to notes on a staff.  Students should know the names of all notes on a staff.  We are reading simple melodies on piano xylophones and recorder.

 

3rd Grade:  In addition to all the 1st and 2nd grade music goals, students are now learning to play guitar.  We are learning music markings such as piano, forte, lento, allegro.  Students learn about the bass clef, repeat signs, crescendos and decrescendos.  We begin to discuss form, meter and tonality as we describe music that we play and hear. 

 

4th Grade:  Students are now eligible to participate in orchestra and choir.  Sixteen notes begin to enter into our rhythms.  Students are familar with hearing and singing an octave. We continue to play instruments with a particular focus on piano, recorder and guitar techniques.

 

5th Grade:  Students are now eligible for 5th grade band and can opt to learn to play flute, clarinet, trumpet. trombone, french horn, or baritone.  In this culminating year, students are singing, playing and reading more sophistocated rhythms that include some syncopation and dotted rhythms. Students should be able to classify music according to pitch, tonality, meter, genre, speed, and volume using musical vocabulary.  On piano, students are playing simple two hand songs.  On guitar, students can play melodies and chords.  On recorder, students can play duets and trios.