Since last year, the music room has gone through some changes with the addition of our Orff Garage. The state of Georgia has also adapted the National Core Arts Standards, which includes four main anchors: Create, Perform, Respond, and Connect. These standards will be posted in the classroom for students and parents to see and will most definitely help enhance the general music experience for our Ison Springs scholars. I am extremely thankful to start my second year of teaching at Ison Springs and look forward to exploring the foundations of Elementary General Music according to the four units set by Fulton County which are: Rhythm and Beat (Unit 1), Melody and Harmony (Unit 2), Expression and Movement (Unit 3), and Timbre and Form (Unit 4). Through out the year, I hope to share bits and pieces of what happens in the classroom through the Specials Twitter account (@IsonSpecials) so please stay connected!
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Hello and welcome to the new school year!
Since last year, the music room has gone through some changes with the addition of our Orff Garage and The Book Nook. The state of Georgia has also adapted the National Core Arts Standards, which includes four main anchors: Create, Perform, Respond, and Connect. These standards will be posted in the classroom for students and parents to see and will most definitely help enhance the general music experience for our Ison Springs scholars. I am extremely thankful to start my second year of teaching at Ison Springs and look forward to exploring Unit 1 with K-5 students where we will be learning about Beat and Rhythm through singing, playing, and dancing. Ask your students what they did in music class and hopefully they will be able to tell you all about “Up the Ladder, Down the Ladder”, “Higglety Wigglety Bumblebee”, “What’s for Dinner?”, and all the different kinds of instruments they had a chance to play during the class. Thank you for your continuous support in fine arts education and please tune in next time for the Unit 2 update! As April goes and May comes around, we are in the home stretch for the end of the year! Before we say “See you in August” to room 225, we will focus on timbre and form for Unit 4 of the General Music curriculum. All year, students have experienced and performed with vocal and instrumental music and have learned about the foundational elements of music. Combining the current unit with the content presented in previous units, students will also review connecting movement to music and will explore how different structures of form can translate to different combinations and patterns of movement. In the timbre section, students will learn about various common and uncommon instruments – sound production, family categories, how they are utilized in real life, etc. – based on the grade levels. Following the curriculum set by Fulton County, 1st grade will learn about percussive and melodic instruments, 2nd grade will learn about the brass family, 3rd grade will learn about the string family, 4th grade will learn about the percussion family, 5th grade will learn about the woodwind family, and the Kindergarten dimple darlings will learn about the different sections of the orchestra. Before the 5th graders visit Sandy Springs MS in May, the Band, Orchestra, and Choir from the middle school will come and perform for the students on Monday, April 30th. Participating in a performance-based ensemble will not only be an expressive outlet for your students, but will also help with building concentration, work ethic, and cooperation skills. Students who start being in ensembles from middle school and continue to participate through high school are also more likely to be academically successful and are able to receive opportunities for scholarships at a collegiate level – regardless of the major area – so please take a moment to talk with your students about their interest in joining Band, Orchestra, or Choir at Sandy Springs MS or any other middle schools. Thank you so much for continuing to support the arts in public schools and hope you all have a wonderful rest of the year!
“Winter break is almost here!
The students have been learning about the big idea of melody and harmony which means they have been using their voices, instruments, bodies, and brain to feel, play, and understand the difference between pitch and melody, melodic direction, different types of songs with ostinatos, and music notation (which is the crucial component of visualizing melody and harmony). With the weather and season changing drastically, the students have also shifted from songs about Fall and Thanksgiving to Winter, snow, and the holiday season. The students have also learned about songs that are from different parts of the world but are also very similar. As the semester winds up, 4th and 5th grades are mastering how to read music notations in treble and bass clef through individual and group activities, with one of them being a word decoding game. Hopefully the students will be able to create their own melodies and incorporate their knowledge of rhythm to show what they have learned so far!” “Now that students have wrapped up their first unit of the year, they are moving on to learning about melody and harmony! The younger grades will explore the world of high and low sounds (with imaginary baseballs!) as well as sounds moving in high directions/low directions and not moving at all (staying the same). The older grades will build on their knowledge of music notation as well as concepts of varying meters and incorporate stepwise, skipping, and constant/same pitches to create their own melodies. We will also start exploring the world of canon and rounds and build on our knowledge of ostinatos (a short repeated pattern). The students will also learn about the importance of the phrase “Every good boy deserves fudge” and what “Face” has to do with reading notated music in treble clef. Exciting stuff! Once we get in the groove of unit 2, hopefully we’ll get some pictures uploaded as well!”
Hello!
My name is Christina Sohn and I am the music teacher at ISES. I recently graduated from Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green, KY and while I am from Louisville, KY my parents lived in Duluth while I was in college so I am excited to come back to Georgia and start my teaching career here in Sandy Springs. I believe that music is an all-encompassing subject that includes not only traditional subjects such as language, history, math, and science, but also values that are crucial for young students to develop such as self-discipline, self-evaluation, and listening skills. I hope that my classes will inspire students to learn to love and appreciate music of all genres, no matter what their future career path may be. I look forward to getting to know all of you this school year and as one of my professors always used to say, “If you believe, you will achieve!” |
Ms. SohnMusic Teacher Archives
September 2018
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