Curriculum: Music at the School for Children

Music in the Lower School

The Lower School music program builds on the spontaneous musical instincts of young children. Musical experiences involve the doing and making of music through three forms: singing, dancing, and playing instruments. Each class sings with the music teacher in their classroom once a week; they also go to the large music room once a week, either in a whole group or a half group, where they move to music, learn songs and singing games, and play percussion instruments. Once a week, there is singing assembly for the entire Lower School community, to which parents are welcome. The Spanish language teacher works closely with the music teacher in planning and sharing the song curriculum either in classrooms or during assembly. In late spring, children participate in Lower School field day in Riverside Park, where they dance and sing with their families.

The musical elements that the 3s are introduced to are: stopping and starting, duple time (two beats to a measure), introducing 3/4 time, varying tempos for dancing and playing, fermata (the holding of a tone), controlling loud and soft sounds, differentiating between fast and slow, identifying families of sound, singing in the key of C and D and pentatonic scale of five tones, and differentiating among singing, outside, inside, and laughing voices. Children move around the rug together and adapt their bodies to changing tempos that inspire movements such as marching, crawling, tip-toeing, and skipping. The instruments they learn to play are hand drums, maracas, tambourines, and xylophones. The 3s are encouraged to sing songs they choose from a collection of at least twenty-five songs while they play instruments. They sing these songs in the classroom as well and also make up songs about their daily life with the music teacher.

4/5s

The musical elements for the 4/5s are the same as the year before; however, there is an explicit expectation of more accuracy, joyful counting as the group starts together, and celebrations when music ends together. The challenge for this age group is to experience themselves as individual musicians while at the same time they focus on the whole group sound. The 4/5s begin with drums, and learn to play their names by counting beats (syllables), hearing similarities and differences of their peers' name beats, and playing the accent. They also begin mixing families of sound by playing xylophones, metallophones, and drums together. In the spring of the year, the class sound becomes rhythmically cohesive. Children are all playing the same pulse and the tone quality indicates that they are hearing the whole group sound. As in the year before, children are asked to request songs, and their repertory becomes doubled. Unique to this year is "teeny-tiny" music, a rotating group of two children from each class. The four children explore string instruments, dulcimer, violin, bowed psaltery, and ukulele and are encouraged to talk about their discoveries and to make up and name invented sounds.

5/6s

Unique to the 5/6s is the half group music classes where children can both explore musical detail and respond to overall form. While taking turns with the Orff percussion instruments, they experiment with melodic patterns, listen to each other's ideas, imitate peers' ideas, and strive for musical accuracy. Children play in sections, as they would in an orchestra or chorus, and are asked to stay focused when not playing. At this age, they become musical as well as musicians. Most children can sing in tune within an octave range, adapt to a group pulse, choose and anticipate dynamic changes, articulate their discoveries about sound, and recognize melody and the particular feeling of a song. They sing as they play, which supports their developing sense of tonality and harmony.