Kindergarten

Kindergarten First Grade Second Grade Third Grade Fourth Grade Cognitively Impaired

In Kindergarten, students begin to learn how to listen to and audiate music (audiating is basically singing/thinking music in your head). One of the methods that we use to develop successful audiation skills is listening to tonal and rhythm patterns and then singing and chanting them in our minds, rather than with our voices. This exercise helps students to learn that they must think the music in their head before they can perform the music out loud. Students also work on their audiation skills by playing "same and different" games in the classroom. Children listen to two patterns and decide if the two patterns are same or different. Children, like adults, understand what something is by making comparisons and knowing what it is not.

We explore a variety of ways that our bodies can move to music. We move with non-locomotor movements (such as exploring how we use the energy in our bodies through flow, weight, space and time), as well as locomotor movement (such as walking, jumping, hopping, skipping, galloping, etc.).

We coordinate our movements to the music that we are making in an effort to create a whole-body approach to music learning.

We explore the many different kinds of voices that we can use (singing, chanting, speaking, whispering, etc.). We develop our singing voices by doing many warm-up activities (vocal sirens, rollercoaster sounds, etc.) and by singing short songs and tonal patterns. We also focus on developing an understanding of rhythm and meter through the use of chants, movement, and the use of rhythm patterns.

We explore many classroom instruments, such as egg shakers, rhythm sticks, hand drums, and tambourines. We learn many new ways to make music with our instruments!