Ms. Perry and I are so incredibly proud of our hardworking 5th through 8th grade students who were part of the 3 amazing performances of Once On This Island Jr.! Here are some pictures of our cast and crew wearing their OOTI Jr. t-shirts with pride right before opening night!
This week, 5th graders are working on the note low E on their recorders, and are challenging their recorder skills with this fun but fast song. Click below for the play along tracks for "Shrimps on Tour". Chorus students can practice their songs for our Holiday performances by listening to recordings I made with my iPhone during rehearsal on Tuesday. Just click on the audio players below each song! And download the lyrics of the songs by clicking HERE. Click on the image of the song on the left to hear a professional recording of this song! Thank you to all of the students and families who attended our first-ever Arts Residency Kick Off event! The evening was full of music, art, and fun! Those in attendance were treated to an introduction of all of Stone's fabulous arts opportunities, an amazing sitar performance by 8th grader Faith G., a gallery of impressive textiles from the Minasian Rug Collection, and an awesome performance by Edgar Gabriel's StringFusion. I am very much looking forward to an enriching year of arts education at Stone, and hope you are too! Welcome back to school everyone! I'm excited to be getting back to Stone after a great summer break! I hope everyone is excited for all of the new musical opportunities that will be going on this school year. I am excited to announce that this year, each grade level will participate in a unique arts residency at some point during the year. Many of this residencies will reflect our ongoing arts partnerships throughout Chicago, while others will introduce new arts partners to our Stone community. And as always, there will be plenty of student performances occurring this year, including our annual Holiday and Heritage Assemblies, an Evening Performance featuring the chorus and fall play, and the Middle School Talent Show. And of course I will be working with Ms. Perry on another fantastic musical theatre production this winter! We'll be adding in an additional assembly in the month of March as well. Stay tuned for additional information about the dates of these performances. I'm excited to have some new technology tools in my classroom this year, including a cart of Chromebooks that will be housed in the Auditorium, and some new MakeyMakey invention kits I received as part of a DonorsChoose grant. I am looking forward to a musical year at Stone! If you have any questions throughout the year, please feel free to email me at [email protected]. 4th graders (now 5th graders!) were given a summer packet to use with their recorders over the summer months. Click here to access my recorder page for play-along tracks and websites with fun recorder songs and games. And don't forget to bring those recorders back in September! 5th graders were the first to experience the new littleBits Synth Kits I purchased as part of a grant I received from the Chicago chapter of the Illinois Computing Educators. Students enjoyed creating their own space-age robotic sounds using the various synthesizer modules that came with the kit. We'll continue exploring these kits in the next school year, but students can watch the video below for inspiration and check out the littleBits website for more ideas about music making with these kits! Our annual Winter Celebration of the Arts, held on Thursday, December 5th, was a huge success! Thank you to all of the families, alumni, and community members who came out to support the Stone chorus and drama students!
Zombies have taken over the Auditorium at Stone! Well, they may not be real zombies, but they sure can dance! 5th and 6th graders learned a cool recorder song about zombies that uses only the notes B and A. Students can play along with the track below if they brought their music and their recorders home this week. (Students: if you did bring your recorder home, don't forget to bring it back to school on music class day next week!) As all of the students figured out, this recorder track is based on Michael Jackson's Thriller. If you have your parents permission, watch the full 14 minute Thriller music video/movie on YouTube by clicking here!
|
AuthorMr. Marsland teaches K-8 music at Stone Scholastic Academy in Chicago, IL. Archives
April 2015
Categories
All
|