Eurhythmics

One of the most interesting things I've tried this year with students has been our exploration of Eurythmics. I'm not talking here about the pop group from the 1980's. Eurhythmics is an approach to music and movement created a century ago by Jean-Jacques Dalcroze, a Swiss music professor. Dalcroze observed that most of his students, though on the surface highly competent pianists or violinists, could not play with much real expression nor did they seem to have much sense of rhythm. Dalcroze decided that these two problems both stemmed from the fact that students were not taught to experience music physically. He developed a series of exercises designed so that students would experience musical concepts like tempo, dynamics, and phrasing through movements of their bodies.

We have been using some materials developed for elementary school students by Robert Abramson, a professor at Julliard and the nation's leading exponent of Eurhythmics. It's been really fun for the kids, and a great learning experience for me.
Homework: (1) Finish pages WB 59, WB 63 and WB 64 in the science packet. (2) Continue work on the math packet. (3) Practice telling and acting out the folktale. Note that there is no spelling this week.