A busy week for Prep classes… two Spotlight performances in the Forum this week, showcasing our current unit:

Compositions can be organised using musical structures.

Watch the students sharing their own compositions at the performances…

Prep F Spotlight – Tuesday 21 May 2013

Click here to view the embedded video.

Prep C Spotlight – Thursday 23 May 2013

Click here to view the embedded video.

Prep A caught up with the other Prep classes this week. Here is the brainstorm they did:

All classes continued to think about the structure, identifying musical structures using the words verse, chorus, bridge and introduction. Lots of amazing thinking. We used some ‘oldies’ to help us think about structure:

• Y.M.C.A. (Village People)
• We Will Rock You (Queen)
• Happy Birthday (the Stevie Wonder version!)

Listen to your favourite music with your child at home (any language) – see if they can spot the chorus (if there is one)!

1A and 1C began exploring their new How We Express Ourselves unit this week (1B are working on something for their assembly next week!). The central idea for this unit is

The choices people make

when creating art

can influence how it is interpreted.

Using the book “My Many Coloured Days” by Dr. Seuss we started to explore the concept of perspective. The students wrote their own words for the illustrations in the book and then compared them with the words that the other classes wrote. 1C had some time to discuss the word ‘perspective‘. We recorded their initial thoughts in green at the beginning of the lesson. At the end of the lesson the students reflected upon these original ideas and rated them according to how good an explanation of ‘perspective’ their ideas were (the ticks were their idea, not mine!).

Next week we will link all this wonderful thinking to music!

This week, Prep classes started to think about a new stand alone music unit with the central idea:

Compositions can be organised

using musical structures.

The students first completed a pre-assessment to determine their initial understandings of the words that we will focus on. Some great ideas! We will look back at these charts at the end of the unit to see how their thinking changes.

(Prep A will do this next week – they missed one lesson this week due to the Spring Break).

We then started to think about the way a song is structured. Using the song ‘Penny Lane‘ by The Beatles we started to learn about three different parts of a song - ‘chorus’, ‘verse’ and ‘bridge’.

The students listened very carefully and identified the structure as:

V C V B C V C C

We will continue to explore this unit for the remainder of the school year.

This week, Reception classes started to think about pitch.

We used a song from the story Noah’s Ark to help us think about the voices of four different animals – mice, monkeys, bears and lions. The students were first encouraged to find their own words to describe the sounds. We then explored the words ‘high’ and ‘low’ when listening to the sounds of the animals.

Pitch is a difficult musical concept to grasp at this age, and students often confuse the words ‘high’ and ‘low’ with ‘loud’ and ‘quiet’. The purpose of introducing this concept during the Reception year is merely to expose the students to the words and their meanings and to give them opportunities to explore their ideas through play. It is not an expectation that students will fully understand the concept of pitch.

This week, Pre Reception classes continued to play with the characters from The Three Little Pigs story. They used the masks that they had made to help explore the characters. The students also started to use some of the repetitive words from the story, for example:

Big Bad Wolf: Little pig, little pig, let me come in.

Little Pig: No, no, no. Not by the hair on my chinny chin chin. I will not let you in.

Big Bad Wolf: Then I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll BLOW your house down.

Congratulations to Prep A for a fabulous Spotlight performance today! Students had ben working incredibly hard in rehearsals and they seemed to enjoy the final culmination of their stories unit. many thanks to Ms. Pih, Ms. Aman, Mr. Ko and Mr. Pang for their help and support in putting this show together – we couldn’t have done it without them!

If you missed the performance, don’t worry! You can view it here:

Click here to view the embedded video.

While 1C were preparing for their Spotlight performance, 1A and 1B were working on the same learning engagements and had the opportunity this week to perform their creations to their classmates. Each group wrote the scripts for the short presentations and then worked together to devise the movements and actions they would use to demonstrate the information they were conveying. During this process they constantly referred to the rubric devised by 1C:

Please view the videos below of the students in action:

1A

Click here to view the embedded video.

1B

Click here to view the embedded video.

]]> http://sites.cdnis.edu.hk/teachers/sarahhodgson/2013/03/22/exploring-animal-characteristics/feed/ 0 http://sites.cdnis.edu.hk/teachers/sarahhodgson/2013/03/22/story-in-the-dark/ http://sites.cdnis.edu.hk/teachers/sarahhodgson/2013/03/22/story-in-the-dark/#comments Fri, 22 Mar 2013 09:04:30 +0000 sarahhodgson http://sites.cdnis.edu.hk/teachers/sarahhodgson/?p=3348

We had a rather exciting Performing Arts class in Pre Reception this week! And it is the very first time in my teaching career I have conducted a lesson by torchlight! The lights were off (as the classes were tuning in to their new unit about light) so the students had to listen extra carefully. We explored the story of The Three Little Pigs (in the dark!). The students demonstrated their existing knowledge of the characters and storyline and helped me to tell the story. We thought about how the little pigs’ voices might sound  and how different they might be from the voice of the Big Bad Wolf! We also started to learn simple songs for the characters – here is the three little pigs song (to the tune of Knees Up Mother Brown):

Trotting down the road, 

Trotting down the road,

Three little pigs on a big adventure, 

Trotting down the road!

Sorry no photos – it was too dark!

Congratulations to 1C for a terrific Spotlight Performance today! They worked hard to write the information that they wanted to share before deciding in their groups how they would perform this information ‘on stage’. If you missed the show, here is a video of the performance:

Click here to view the embedded video.