Engine, Engine

We spend most of 1st grade covering essential musical concepts that build a foundation for all musicians.  The things we learn in 1st grade are STILL important in 2nd grade, 5th grade, high school, and for professional musicians!  Two concepts we work hard on are pitch and rhythm.  For our pitches, we are beginning with high and low sounds, specifically Sol and Mi.  Our rhythmic building blocks are the rhythms ta and ti-ti (you might know them better as quarter notes and eighth notes.)  

We learn these concepts through experience of the music--with our voices, with our bodies, with instruments, and with play.  This week, we are experiencing pitch and rhythm with the fun song "Engine, Engine, Number Nine."   After we learned the Sol-Mi patterns for the song, we learned the words and the rhythm, learned the instrument part, and played the game.  All of this was accomplished in 40 minutes! :)  Below is a video of a 1st grade class combining all these elements.