Westmount Elementary School Tues April 15 12.15-1.15pm

Excellent work today. Here is what we covered:

LEVEL 1 (Iris, Sean and Ryan)

• Lesson and practice number 19 with Miss Mendelssohn and Miss Melody.
• We learned about Middle C position. Both thumbs are on middle C with the wrists up and fingers tips resting gently on the keys.
  
• Reviewed moving by step and moving by skip with our fiver-finger ant tunnels.
• Practiced playing legato (smooth) and staccato (bouncy).
• Played a new game - treasure hunt. You have to use your ears to hear what note to play. High notes are played with the right hand in middle C position, and low notes are played with the left hand in middle C position. You only get three tries to find the note, otherwise there is no treasure and only a hole.

All of you were very good at this game and were able to find the treasures on your first or second try! Very impressive.

LEVEL 2 (Aoiffe, Sophia, Morgan, Lidya and Josie)

• Completed lesson 30 with Mr. Mozart, as well as lesson 31!
• We practiced drawing the four types of notes we've learned so far: quarter, half, whole and dotted half notes.
• Practiced clapping these note values along to a drum beat.
• Learned new songs, played the Soup game and spent time in the improvisation room.
  
• Your songs are sounding better and better. You're getting very comfortable with playing melodies, hands together in middle C position.

Finally, we played a game that would help us remember our musical alphabet really well.
It is like hot potato. We all sit in a circle and pass around the monkey beanie saying one letter each, keeping a steady beat. We tried doing this forwards and backwards. Not bad - this game is harder than it sounds. You have to pay attention!

I handed out report cards, invitations, postcards and a little treat for everyone at the end of class.
See you next time.