Curriculum

Curriculum Overview

Sequence of Music Skills

First Trimester                                                                            Focus: Rhythm

Kindergarten:

  • Moves body to the steady beat
  • Moves body in a rhythmic pattern
  • Claps quarter notes and quarter rests

First Grade:

  • Reviews concepts above
  • Recognizes and repeats steady beat
  • Recognizes and distinguishes rhythmic beat (rhythm of the melody)
  • Recognizes and repeats simple rhythm patterns
  • Reads, claps, and plays a pair of eighth notes

Second Grade:

  • Reviews concepts above
  • Recognizes a change in rhythm
  • Recognizes a repeat sign
  • Recognizes a Triple-ti
  • Begins to Recognizes a musical phrase
  • Reads claps, and plays a simple 4 beat phrase

Third Grade:

  • Reviews concepts above
  • Recognizes dotted half note
  • Creates and plays  simple 4 beat phrases
  • Writes a simple 4 beat phrase from dictation
  • Distinguishes between music that moves in twos or threes

Fourth Grade  :

  • Reviews concepts above
  • Recognizes and identifies value for whole, dotted half, half, quarter, eighth, and sixteenth notes
  • Recognizes and identifies value for whole, dotted half, half, quarter, eighth, and sixteenth rests
  • Reads and plays rhythms with body and rhythm instruments

Fifth Grade:

  • Reviews concepts above
  • Understands simple time signatures
  • Reads and plays simple meters 4/4, 2/4, 3/4, 6/8

During the First Trimester, the Fourth through Eighth grades will also intensively focus on proper singing techniques, applying these as they practice for the Christmas Program. Kindergarten through Third grades will be introduced, learn, and/or review proper singing techniques throughout their classes.

Second Trimester                                                                              Focus: Melody

Kindergarten:

  • Identifies pitch as high or low
  • Reads, signs and sings Sol and Mi
  • Plays sol and Mi on the xylophones

First Grade:

  • Reviews concepts above
  • Identifies melodic movement as up, down or the same
  • Recognizes familiar song melodies
  • Reads, signs, sings and plays La

Second Grade:

  • Reviews concepts above
  • Reads sings, signs, and plays Do, Re, Mi, Sol, La
  • Draws the melodic contour of a simple song

Third Grade:

  • Reviews concepts above
  • Identifies steps, skips, leaps, and repeated tones on the music staff
  • Creates 4 simple melodic phrases
  • Distinguishes between major and minor keys.

Fourth Grade:

  • Reviews concepts above
  • Recognizes and draws Treble clef
  • Recognizes and names letter notes for the Treble staff
  • Identifies pattern for major scale

Fifth Grade

  • Reviews concepts above
  • Reviews symbols for notation
  • Associates the notes of the treble clef with the keyboard.

Third Trimester 

Focus: Form, Notation, Timbre, and Expression (dynamics, style, tempo, phrasing)

Kindergarten:

  • Recognizes fast and slow
  • Recognizes loud and soft
  • Recognizes names for rhythm instruments

First Grade

  • Reviews concepts above
  • Plays fast and slow
  • Plays loud and soft
  • Recognizes names for orchestral instruments

Second Grade

  • Reviews concepts above
  • Recognizes 1st and 2nd endings
  • Identifies simple forms of ABA, ABAC, Rondo
  • Identifies the four orchestral families

Third Grade

  • Reviews concepts above
  • Identifies symbols for dynamics (<,  >, f, p, mf, mp, ff, pp)
  • Identifies terms for tempo ( Largo, Moderato, Allegro, Presto)
  • Write a simple 4 phrase song on the xylophone

Fourth Grade:

  • Plays B,A, G, E, D on the recorder
  • Plays a simple song on the recorder

Fifth Grade

  • Students will learn the E, A, and D chords on the guitar or Keyboard and play some simple folk songs.