What's New in Musicplay with Denise Gagne

Review and Request

The last week of school, I really enjoy doing review and request.
I ask the students to brainstorm a list of their favorite songs, singing games and activities from the school year.   If they forget what songs they’ve done, scroll through the song list at Musicplayonline.com to help them remember — or if you’ve kept a song log (see below) use the song log to help them remember all the songs/activities learned.

Lots of your students will spend some time in the summer camping.As the weather warms up and you’re thinking about summer, campfire songs make a nice unit.  In my view, campfire songs are songs that are familiar, that you may have sung at summer camp, and that are easy for all ages to sing along with.  There are lots and lots of songs at www.musicplayonline.com to use as campfire songs. And don’t hesitate to use Kumbaya in K, with a Grade 3 class.  These songs are timeless and ageless.

Are you doing assessments for your end of the year report cards?  One of the areas that I want to assess is how well children perform music in choirs, Orff ensemble, on unpitched instruments, recorder, ukulele or guitar.

The Grandview Elementary School talent show was an annual event that had the most amazing array of talent.  We had a 12 year old world champion double baton twirler, and a young world class tumbler, who worked with Cirque de Soleil after he graduated.    We also had many karate kata performances, dance solos, and one spectacularly cringe worthy recorder performance.  We had piano solos, including one seven year old that could play Mozart piano sonatas.
This school had about 350 children, and the entire school attended the performance in the gym.
 
In our school the talent show was held on one of the last days of school.  There was no time limit on it, but if it was longer than 90 minutes the children in the audience would get restless.
 

Are you doing assessments for your end of the year report cards?  One of the areas that I want to assess is how well children can read, write, hear and transcribe melodic patterns using solfege.  I use solfege only for note reading in Grades 1-2-3, then transition to a combination of solfege and absolute pitches in Grades 4-5-6.

Did you know Musicplay Online has a new Easter Unit AND a new Spring Unit?