Starting to Integrate the Arts

One of my major goals for this year is to make the arts as much a part of our curriculum as Reading and Mathematics. I want to both teach the arts sequentially as disciplines in their own right and to integrate them into the other subject areas. We began that journey today.

One of the most important parts of the Open Court program is Blending. Unfortunately, it is also one of the dullest aspects of the program. I think of Blending as sort of like jogging - good for you, but so nice when it's over! So today we used music to liven it up a bit. We had two students play a simple repeated bass melody on a tenor xylophone. Another student played a different little motif at the end of each line of the glockenspiel. Meanwhile, I used a hand drum to keep the steady beat for the unison repetition of the words. The instruments and the drum just helped keep the class a little more focused on what would have otherwise been a really tedious review of short vowel words and contractions.

We also started our daily music lessons today. Our first concept is really a pretty difficult one, and that is beat. Although being able to tap your toes or snap your fingers to the beat in music may seem "natural" to most adults, it is in fact a learned skill. Today, since video games and other passive amusements have replaced much of the rhythmic games and jump rope chants that were so much a part of childhood in an earlier era. We are using some of the techniques from Eurhythmics, as system of integrating music and movement created by a Swiss professor named Dalcroze 75 years ago, to help do students discover rhythm and beat. Today, we explored using the body as a pendulum and swinging to a steady beat. We also began our instruction in singing by working on correct breathing and posture.

Homework: Internet and Library permission slips went home tonight. Please get those completed and returned as soon as possible. Students should continue work on the math assignment sheet. They should be finished by tonight with the first 5 assignments (up to page 13 in the book).