Funwa alafia (Welcome My Friends)

Ms. Markenson's 5th grade class played boom whacker patterns and African shaker pods to the song Funwa Alafia.  This was the beginning lesson of their African Unit.  Below, the students are working in groups to identify World Instrument Classifications.

Manipulatives for Music Class Stations

While at NCMENC conference this past November, one of the big concepts for music class is to come up with stations for students to use manipulatives for learning.   I've seen these on Pintrest and they are a bit pricey, so I asked my talented husband to make them for me.   Afterwards, I posted on our Onslow County music teacher Facebook page and eight more teachers placed orders for classroom sets. Here are some of the finished sets to fill teacher requests.  Our students will have lots of fun creating rhythms and doing rhythm dictations.  

Kindergarten Christmas Concert CFIES 2016

1st Grade Christmas Concert 2016

Rainbow Christmas presented by 2nd Grade

Second Grade "Rainbow Christmas"  9:00 performance with Mrs. Smith's class, Ms. Barnes class, Mrs. Akins' class and Mr. Stagg's class.  

Second Grade "Rainbow Christmas" 10:00 performance with Mrs. Tyson's class, Ms. Acevedo's class, Ms. LaPorta's class and Mr. Stagg's class.

Impromptu "Ghost of John"

"Ghost of John" is one of the students' favorite Halloween song.  Last year they had a great lesson on form and movement that I picked off of  "Music is Elementary". So this year, we were just singing it as a warm-up, fun activity for my 5th grade class when all of the sudden I decided to play the cannon version and review what a cannon was.  Well they nailed it.  Okay...let's put some movement to it..says my Orff training...bingo..I handed out the scarves and we picked four different movement.  It looked so good I decided to video....well then the students wanted to add throwing the scarves, and sitting and standing.  It truly came together in five minutes time.  Great job Mrs. Johnson's group!  Not bad for an impromptu "Ghost of John" lesson.  Music can be fun.

O-H-I-O

If you know me, I am a big Ohio State fan.  I am from Ohio and I did graduate from there.  So on "school team day"  naturally I am going to support the Buckeyes!  Well this year, I went one step further.  During kindergarten class, you have to love these guys, they followed my impromptu cheer.  Our song had a big Oh! at the end so why not turn it into O-H-I-O.  So much fun!  Ms. Rosage's group did an excellent job cheering for those Buckeyes!