binary forms

Creativity is the biggest focus in learning in classrooms. In order to keep children of a younger age focused on the lesson being presented to them, we as teachers need to make it as interesting as we possibly can for them to be able to learn. There are a lot of ways to integrate music into lessons. Not only can we incorporate songs and singing into lessons, but we can bring in different instruments to bring a story to life. Adding musical instruments to stories helps students put their own ideas into the lesson and what is being learned because they can associate different parts of the story to how they think it should sound. This allows students to explore their own creativity. By incorporating many different elements into a story, students can stay more focused on the story and learning instead of having their minds wander. We learned a new concept, binary forms of songs. Binary means two, giving us two different elements. A lot of music these days use binary forms of music and pretty much any song you listen to on the radio has two elements in their music. These can be choruses and verses, which seeing it that way, you can understand how almost all songs have binary forms. No matter the gene these days, pop, country, rock, classical, there is almost always versus and choruses.

Chilldren's Literature

This week we did a lot of singing and sounds that we incorporated into children’s books. I think this a great way to get children involved in the books we read to them, especially if they cannot read. This way they are able to engage in what is being read and interact with that. Kids are very imaginative when coming up with sounds for different activities and I think that in this way reading for them comes to life. Reading then becomes more than just words on pages that are being read, it comes alive into a story for them. I had never thought about doing something like this for a just any regular book. Boo-hoo baby was a great example of this because we took a song and changed it to fit into the book we were reading to help engage the listeners even more. This also allows us as teachers to see the creativity each child has and maybe we can get a better understanding of them through this. Student-centered learning is very prominent in lessons that involve activities such as this for many reasons. The child is able to chose the sounds they want to make, like in the listeners book, and they have the control of what they chose to do or not. Also because the students are interacting so much with the book and getting involved in what is being read makes these lessons very student centered. I think any way of getting children motivated to participate in their own way in lessons is the best tool we can have because it gets them so much more into what they are learning instead of getting bored with stories being read to them time after time. The two lessons we saw this week are good examples of what we can do in our lessons for this project.

Mid-term

This week we had our mid-term. To get ready for this test I went through and did the study guide reviewing everything that was on it. I also went through and read the artile on Kodaly and also the other document online. AFter I made myself a study guide, I looked over it several times. I think I know that the notes in both C and G scale and also the solfagee. During the test I think the hardest part was the last part because it was so confusing. I think once we figured everything out it was a lot easier. I think the test was a good overview of what we have learned so far. I think though that if something is going to be on the test it should be learned before the last class before the test. I know we went over the G scale before but I feel like we were all confused and that problem was never properly addressed. I was in music a lot when I was younger and it was even confusing to me, which makes me think for the people that have no musical background probably had no idea what was going on. So far this semester we have learned the the terms of melody, rhyhm, steady beat, harmony. We have learned the fingerings for the recorder with the notes, GABCD. We have also learned how to plan lessons incorperating singing songs. WE have learned about musical concepts and skills, as well as non-musical. Time signatures, notes in c and g scale as well as note values. Kodaly and his views were also introduced this semester and how he used solfagee and hand sings to go along with them. He also used rhyhmic duration sylablles to got along with note values.