Lower+School+Syllabus+(1st-4th)

**__General Music Syllabus__** Parents,
 * __Lower__** **__School__** **__(1st-4th)__**

It is my joy and privilege as the new music director at Beaufort Academy to introduce and guide your young child through the exciting world of music! Children learn music and language in a similar way. Both are **aural** arts, learned first through listening. Early listening experience in music and language forms the foundation for further learning. What we have learned creates in each of us the **listening vocabulary** to eventually speak, sing and chant, and to hear and understand complex forms.

Lower School General Music instruction is sequenced to **parallel** this learning process.

Students first develop an extensive aural and oral music vocabulary. Only then do we introduce music reading and writing. Because music is learned aurally and orally, the teacher must serve as a model of excellent musicianship. The teacher will sing, chant, move, play and create in order to teach the children successfully.

Lower School students will experience music at BA in a three-stage approach:

Stage 1: during Classroom Activities, students will experience music in a holistic way through many tonalities, meters, styles and timbres. They will sing, chant, move, dance, listen, play percussion instruments, bells and chimes, create and improvise, read, write and perform. Music content is introduced in Stage 1.

Stage 2: during Learning Activities **, ** children will respond alone and in a group to patterns performed by the teacher. In this stage, students study the parts of music by learning a specific vocabulary of tonal and rhythm patterns. Music skills and music reading are introduced in Stage 2.

Stage 3: during Classroom Activities, students will begin to understand music : Content experienced in Stage 1 is woven together with skills learned in Stage 2 to provide understanding and comprehension of music. This understanding results in students engaging in musical activities in a more sophisticated way than they did in Stage 1.

Lower School general music students will have the opportunity to achieve all of the goals as defined for each of the levels within the **National Standards** of the Music Educators National Conference (MENC).

Also, an optional donation of $1 per child would really be appreciated and would directly go into the weekly drawing of toys, erasers and stickers…etc. for outstanding participation and behavior. Research shows that implementing a reward system for a desired behavior positively reinforces said behavior. In this case, the rewards will be for good behavior and participation. It also keeps students interested and focused on making healthy behavior choices.

School Supplies:

-A composition notebook -Pencils -Crayons (an 8 pack will do fine) -A “music bag” to keep all supplies and papers from class in for easy transports (canvas bags from the grocery store tend to work the best)

My classroom number is 524-3393 ext 233 and the online wikispace for my classroom is http://music281.wikispaces.com. I encourage all parents to take a look at it frequently as it will provide important updates and information as needed.

I would love to receive some personal information about you so that we can work as a team to ensure the best care and education for your child. Please complete the form below and note the due date for the form to be returned to me:

1st grade- September 7, 2010 2nd grade- September 7, 2010 3rd grade- September 10, 2010 4th grade- September 8, 2010

Thank you! I look forward to teaching your children music! Stephanie Sullivan