Mrs. Kistler's

Kindergarten Music

 

A typical day in music class

Twice in a 6-day cycle, kindergarten students come to music class for 40 minutes. Class opens with a hello song, movement and an activity about our composer of the month. During class, students participate in a variety of musical activities including singing, rhythmic chanting, playing instruments, music games, listening to and describing music, and movement. Music class is participatory, playful, and purposeful in building children's musical skills.  During each class we are actively engaged in musicking (making music) so that by the end of kindergarten children have begun to use their singing voices, most can demonstrate steady beat, and they have learned basic technique in playing simple rhythm instruments.

 

Building musical understanding
Throughout the year, children are exposed to a variety of music and musical concepts. Some concepts we explore include: steady beat, rhythm (the changing beats of the music), dynamics (loud/soft), tempo (fast/slow), form (the roadmap of the music), phrase (musical sentences), ostinato (repeated musical patterns), musical instruments, and melodic direction (the way the notes go).

 

We talk about those concepts in music that we hear and demonstrate that knowledge through our own singing, moving and instrument playing. We work toward musical understanding where children can create their own music (improvisation), and read and write basic rhythmic and melodic (notes) patterns of music.

 

Composers of the month
Each month we focus on the music and life of a different Classical music composer. We listen to major works by those composers and continue to build our musical understanding as we identify instruments we hear, move to the music, and recognize musical concepts, like changes in tempo or dynamics.