Music with Mrs. Karia

 What has been happening in music class? SONG OF THE WEEK: Each week all the K-5 classes I teach learn a quick song that connects us as a Whittier family. The first week we learned the Wildcat song. In the upcoming weeks, we will start to brainstorm ideas about what makes a wildcat wild. Students will sing this and the Whittier song before we start our next all school assembly. Here is a link to a first grade singing the song! Wildcat Song PARENT SURVEY:  Have you filled out the specials survey this year? (It helps us learn about your child, you and the Whittier Community as a whole)... Some interesting stats so far: Kindergarten and 1st grade: Students have been working on our procedures for music classes over the past few weeks.  We enter with our "Follow the Leader" song where students sing and do steady beat motions. We then move into our "hello song" and jump right into call and response hellos where we explore different parts of our voices.  We have been revie...

 Welcome Wildcat families! I am so excited to be starting my 5th year at Whittier. This year our music bulletin board follows a theme that I will be exploring with students of all ages throughout the year which is to think about the questions surrounding music: What is music? Where can music be found? Who makes music? How do we make music? and Why do we make music? Through playing, singing, dancing, and creating I hope all students will explore and think about music in new and exciting ways this year!

 This trimester 4th and 5th graders wrote a composition and chose a focus for their project: arranging, writing, or singing. Arrangers focused on taking their composition, recording it into GarageBand and making a LiveLoop background. Writers focused on writing the melodies of their pieces on a staff. They also added a Liveloop background if they had time. Singers focused on learning to sing their composition and added a Liveloop background if they had time. Students used the rubric below to assess themselves after the project. I used these rubrics as well but also factored in how much assistance and adjustments I made to the assignment for them to be successful. If after looking at these rubrics you have any questions please write me at akaria@op97.org. You only need to look at the rubric that matches what your child focused on (I put it in their report card comments).

So far in 2022 we have learned Ye Toop Doram (a simplified version of an Afghani game song), A Qua Qua (an Israeli hand game song), Chick-a-la-lee-o (a folk song from Arkansas- we listened to a recording of Almeida Riddle singing the song from the 1950’s) and ... Stolat (A Polish song sung at birthdays). It translates to “May you live a hundred years” and was shared by a Whittier family! All the links for these songs will be shared on my website: mrskaria.blogspot.com and if you have a song you would like to share please write me at akaria@op97.org

Rubrics for 1st trimester grades Below are the rubrics used for the grading of your child's first trimester grades (4th and 5th grade). Please let me know if you have any questions by emailing me (akaria@op97.org).   

Week of 10/27 This week 3rd-5th graders listened to the BTS song "Permission to Dance" while reviewing the 8 Laban Efforts (movements) we learned last week. 3rd graders used percussion instruments to learn about our new rhythm, the dotted half note. 4th graders explored their new rhythm (eighth rest) through the Jamaican song "Biddy Biddy" and played Orff xylophones to accompany the song. 5th graders are learning their new rhythms (dotted quarters and dotted eighths) through the song "Weevily Wheat" and also played Orff xylophones. 1st graders had centers this week focusing on ta and ti-ti (quarter note and 2 eighth notes). They read, played games, played instruments, and even colored during the various activities. Here is an example of a drawing a 1st grader did. The rhythm written below matches the color names of the leaves. Fun video to share! Whittier Elementary Graduate Iman Shupert (NBA player) did a horror themed dance (based on "Us") on ...

What is the Wildcat Playlist? Every week in class, I am striving to feature at least one song suggested by students (for 3rd-5th grade classes). Whether I use it for stretches or other portions of our learning, I want to show that all styles of music have value and can be appreciated. In addition I am hoping to share a bit of music that I have enjoyed as well as new finds. Student Request #1- Harry Potter - John Williams Last week students did stretches to music from Harry Potter (requested by Max). The students were unable to contain their excitement as they entered the classroom to the music. (I am a huge Harry Potter fan myself- go Hufflepuff) Student Request #2-  Bad Habits- Ed Sheeran  Several students (Clara, Aminah, Vivian, Wynne, and Milan) requested this song. For our last activity (which most classes got to) we listened to "Bad Habits" and analyzed the form of the song together. The form of Bad Habits is very similar to a lot of pop songs' forms so students will...