Whitehill’s Elementary School Music K-4 General Music Program

First Grade The first graders work on their perceptive listening skills. As they listen to “Aquarium” from “Carnival of Animals” by Saints-Saens, they have their fish follow the shape of the melody. If the melody went high, their fish would swim high. If the melody slowly sank to the ocean floor, so would their fish!

2 nd Grade Students explore the movement elements of weight, space and flow as they move stylistically to the music. The students use the scarves to help them move fluidly through their own self-space.

Second Grade The second graders sing the song “Oranges and Lemons” as they play this musical game. Two students are chosen to sit in the center of the circle. They secretly agree which is going to be the “orange” and which is “lemons”. Each time a student is added, they sing a tonal pattern and secretly whisper to the two children in the center, either “oranges” or “lemons” and they are directed to sit in the proper line. Each time they sing the song, they help each other row the line to the beat. After the last student is added, the class finds out which row is which. Today…the orange row won because more people chose “oranges”.

Third Grade The third graders pair up to learn a folk dance to add to the hilarious song “Rattlin’ Bog”. This funny song begins by describing the things found in the Rattlin’ Bog, listing a tail on a bird, in a nest, on the bough of a branch, on a tree in the bog “down in the valley, oh”. During the folk dance, the students dosido and sashay with their partner down the line.

4 th Grade – Under Construction