Dear Kindergarten Families
Each Friday I will post an ASK ME section here on my website. This is a chance to connect with your child about what they are learning in music class each week. It will contain a new song, poem, finger play, or movement activity that we have learned during the week. Check this section often and at the end of the year your child will have a collection of about thirty songs and activities from their kindergarten year. Please ask your child to sing or perform it for two people (mom and dad, grandma and grandpa, etc.), or better yet, see if she or he can teach it to you! Have fun!
-Mr. Pendergrass, Music Specialist.
At Fairmount Park, students in kindergarten and first grade are taught using First Steps in Music curriculum by *John Feierabend. Scroll down to see a complete description of this engaging curriculum.
The First Steps in Music curriculum is designed to prepare children to become musical in three ways:
Tuneful – to have tunes in their heads and learn to coordinate their voices to sing those tunes.
Beatful – to feel the pulse of music and how that pulse is grouped in either 2s or 3s.
Artful – to be moved by music in the many ways music can elicit a feelingful response.
All adults should be tuneful, beatful and artful so they can participate in the music that is interwoven throughout our lives. Adults who are tuneful can sing lullablies to their babies, sing “Happy Birthday” to their children and friends, sing in worship services, and join others in singing ceremonial songs like alma maters or heritage favorites. Adults who are beatful can rock on the beat while singing that lullaby, can dance at their wedding or their friend’s wedding, and can clap their hands in time with others at a sporting event. Adults who are artful are moved by music and seek out venues to share artful experiences with others in concert halls, in community bands and choirs or listening to National Public Radio. Artful adults enjoy being moved by music.
Adults who are tuneful, beatful and artful are also better able to participate in a community and are able to enjoy opportunities to sing together with others, dance together with others and share listening to beautiful music together with others.
Children who learn to be tuneful, beatful and artful before they leave elementary school will grow to be adults who can benefit from what music can offer. Those that go on to sing in choirs or play an instrument will do so in a more musical manner. Those that do not choose to later sing in choirs or play an instrument will still be enriched by being able to share music in their daily lives.
The First Steps in Music curriculum is a musical workout that grows tuneful, beatful and artful individuals There are eight different activities in each workout. And, like aerobics, in the beginning some participants will likely be clumsy in some aspects of the workout, but if they give it their best, they are bound to improve! And, like an aerobics workout, the more one participates the better the effect. Balancing repetition and variety is key to each workout being effective and interesting.
Following are the 8 musical workout activities.
- Pitch Exploration (Vocal Warm-ups)
- Fragment Singing
Call and Response Songs
- Simple Songs
- Arioso (Child created tunes)
- Movement Exploration (Movement Warm-ups)
- Movement for Form and Expression
- Movement with the Beat
There are aspects of tuneful, beatful and artful development in most of these activities but especially tuneful are #1, #2, #3 and #4….especially beatful is #8 and especially artful are #5, #6 and #7.
*Dr. John Feierabend is considered one of the leading authorities on music and movement development in childhood. He is a Professor Emeritus of Music Education at The Hartt School of the University of Hartford and is a past President of the Organization of American Kodály Educators.
Dr. Feierabend’s teaching has provided thousands of teachers and their students with the materials and techniques to help build community through music by evoking enthusiastic participation of all people. To that end his approach strives for all people to become tuneful, beatful and artful through research based and developmentally appropriate pedagogies while promoting the use of quality literature.