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Round Valley Arts Curriculum

I. ARTISTIC PERCEPTION AND RESPONSE

Students sing together. They play with invented sounds and sounds from their environment. As they sing, listen, play, and talk, they increase their musical awareness of:

1.      various musical elements, including tempo, dynamics, and pitch,

2.      melodies and rhymes as patterns which repeat,

3.      simple harmony,

4.      silence (rests) in music.

Awareness also develops through experiences, such as:

1.      identifying and imitating songs from different cultures,

2.      identifying instruments by sight and sound,

3.      observing a short concert/demonstration of one or more instruments played by visiting musicians or older students,

4.      identifying families of musical instruments (string, woodwind, brass, percussion)

Students use these terms:

II. CREATIVE EXPRESSION

Students experience the social pleasure of singing together. They sing songs they know and like, and learn new songs related to familiar places, activities, and situations, developing skills through:

1.      Singing-learning songs by imitation and example,

·        Songs students and teachers know and like.

a)      Folk songs.

b)      Action and game songs.

·        Improved simple rhythmic "playground" poems and chants.

·        Rounds.

2.      Playing-enjoying music by making sounds and music.

·        Rhythm games

a)      Musical questions and answers with voices and instruments such as rhythm sticks and tambourines (echo clapping, imitation).

b)      Rhythm bands: combined sounds from instruments and bodies.

3.      Moving to music.

·        Move body with quality of music (high/low fast/slow loud/soft).

·        Dance to music.

·        Invent movement and Iyrics for improvised raps.

·        Make up hand movements for favorite songs.

4.      Listening-exploring and creating sounds.

·        Identify similarities and differences in voices and sounds from daily life, from live and recorded sources.

·        Make simple instruments from found objects.

·        Record and listen to "conversations" (a la "Dueling Banjos") between school-made instruments.

·        Record and listen to class singing.

5.      Performing-simple performances for classmates and parents, using skills learned in class.

III. HISTORICAL AND CULTURAL CONTEXT

Students discover music belonging to their family heritages. They attend performances and hear recordings of music from their families' cultures and times. They listen to, sing, and/or talk about:

1.      instrumental and vocal music from their own background, famous musicians from that background, or areas studied,

2.      famous composers such as Bach and Gershwin,

3.      orchestral music such as Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra by Britten,

4.      short concerts/demonstrations by local musicians.

IV. AESTHETIC VALUING

Students learn that music is part of everyone's everyday life, in and out of school. They reflect on the music heard and sung in their own families, talking about:

1.      differences and similarities heard in music from their classmates' families.

2.      audience etiquette: appropriate ways to respond and react,

3.      reasons for personal preferences ("I like. . ." or "I don't like. . . because. . .") of songs sung by themselves and others.

V. CONNECTIONS, RELATIONS, APPLICATIONS

Students understand relationships between the arts and with disciplines outside of the arts.

Students can connect, relate, and apply various types of arts knowledge and skills within the art form, across the arts disciplines (dance, music, theater and visual arts), and with disciplines outside of the arts.