February 2012 Update

Hello everyone!

Well - a lot has happened in the last month! We have successfully relocated the music room downstairs, and everything is up and running smoothly. We are very fortunate to have the opportunity to make music in a beautiful, large space AND we have a SMART board, which has been a wonderful and exciting addition to our music classes! All students will benefit from this technology, and it's been very exciting to see the students so engaged with this new tool.

All classes have finished their music workshop stations, and we are now beginning new instrument units. Grade 5-6 students are working on instrumental orchestrations that require them to play various classroom instruments in an ensemble setting. Grades 2-4 are currently working on sound stories using fun children's literature (gr 2: "Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day;" gr. 3: "Mortimer;" gr. 4: "The Great Kapok Tree: A Tale of the Amazon Rainforest"). They are adding sound effects to the stories, as well as learning songs that relate to the stories. Grades K-1 are currently working on songs and activities that highlight musical opposites (i.e. faster/slower, lower/higher, etc).

In other news, rehearsals for our school musical, "Disney's 101 Dalmatians: Kids" are well under way! The students have been working so hard, and I can already tell that this show will be FABULOUS!

The choirs have restarted for the 2012 season, and are currently working on repertoire for the 2012 PEI Kiwanis Music Festival which will take place in May. Stay tuned for more information coming your way!

We are also getting ready to start our very first Parkside Show Band! Grade 6 singers, guitar players, bass players, and keyboard players have auditioned and the band list will be posted on Tuesday, February 7, 2012. The first rehearsal will take place on Thursday, February 9, 2012. This band will focus more in current pop/rock music and is intended as an enriched musical experience for those seeking more of a challenge. I'm so excited to see what these students can do!