Update on what we are working on

4th Grade  As I had hoped, students are enthusiastic about playing the songs on page 13, and it warms my heart to witness them practicing the songs in small group during warm-up and tuning time.  We also played 3 songs at the altar for the Day of the Dead as our first performance and may play songs my nursery class the Tuesday before Thanksgiving.

A number of students are still forgetting instruments and books.  I know the schedule shift makes it hard to get used to, but please help your student remember an instrument and book on Tuesdays and Fridays.

We will skip page 14 in Strictly Strings and work on page 15.  Students need use only open strings (no left hand fingering), and this provides students a chance to make their eyes and minds familiar with reading notes on a musical staff.  I refer to the donkey, dog, cat, and rooster from The Bremen-Town Musicians to help them.  To scare the robbers, the donkey stood on the ground, then the dog on top, the cat above that, and then the rooster.  In a similar way, a note way down below the staff is likely to be the donkey sounding, thick, low g string--while, by contrast, a note at the top of the staff is likely to be sounded on the thin, sharp, rooster-sounding e string.

5th Grade  We will continue to work on songs on pages 3 and 5.  The students enjoy playing them.  A student who has mastered the A part for Scarborough Fair could learn the B part as well.  We have started working on the G major scale on page 6, and will work on those scale exercises, as well as Frere Jacque on page 7.  If we do really well, we will start La Cucaracha before Thanksgiving.

6th to 8th Grade  We are polishing the songs in More Strings Extraordinaire--pages 2 to the beginning of 6, as well as Ghoulish Gavotte on page 12--with the idea of performing them in the future.  In Jazz Philharmonic, we will give the first two songs a rest, and work on "daydream" and "devious," as well as the exercises on pages 10 to 13.

Thanks for your support of our students and school.

William Dolde