TIME TO TAKE A SUMMER REST 
We've had a great year of making music at St. Mary's! It's hard to believe that another year has come to a close. Thanks to all of my students who worked hard on our concerts, as well as in the classsroom.
If you are visiting this web site to check out our school, welcome! Read on for a little information about our music program.
Our music curriculum is set up to teach a wide variety of the basic building blocks of music – rhythm, notes, sight reading, and eventually chords and harmony.
Students come to music class twice each week. Singing is always my main focus, so that is a big part of each music class. We learn to use our voices well. Beyond that, here is a little more detail, along with a sample of what we worked on toward the end of the past school year:
Students in grades K-5 continued to review what they know about rhythm, note names, and pitch reading.
Kindergartners and first graders were using their singing voices more consistently -- how their singing improved since September! Kindergartners learned more about long and short sounds, preparing to learn about quarter and eighth notes and equal and unequal meters next year. (Lots of game or motion songs make this more fun than it sounds!) First graders listened to decide if music is divided into three-beat or two-beat measures. They also began learning to read music with pitch syllables; this year they learned so, mi, and la.
In second grade, students got used to having music books, along with the occasional unit test. They learned the half note earlier in the year, and recently discovered the dotted half note with the aid of "Take Me Out to the Ball Game," which is always a favorite. Adding the syllable re to our sightreading vocabulary during the third quarter expanded the amount of sightsinging the second graders could do. They became pretty good at it!
Students in grade three have become acquainted with sixteenth notes, the pentatonic scale, and high do. Rounds and partner songs helped them learn to sing in parts.
Fourth graders learned to play the recorder this spring and put on a concert for parents and students. Besides the recorder, they have learned about the octave and have begun to understand major and minor, and how to build chords.
Fifth graders made great strides at singing in parts.
They learned about accidentals, half and whole steps, and key signatures. One of our last projects this spring was writing a twelve-bar blues song together as a class.
Students who started band lessons in the fall played together second semester in beginning band with Mr. Ackerman and performed in the spring Band and Chorus Concert.
This concert featured our St. Mary's Chorus and St. Mary's Band, made up of students in grades six through eight. Middle schoolers who don't want to be in a performing group may choose general music class, a more academic approach to musical topics.
This class recently completed a unit on scales and intervals, key signatures, and building major and minor chords, and then finished the year with a survey of Broadway musicals.
My thanks to our St. Mary' families for another great year!
Anyone with questions or concerns, either current parents or new visitors to this page, may contact me at lthorngate@stmb.org. Have a wonderful summer!
Sincerely,
Mrs. Thorngate
