Our Stories

Hi ho Silver, away!

Continuing our look at Italian composer Gioacchino Rossini, Mrs. James's class yesterday traveled to The Baldwin Project where I read William Tell and his Great Shot to the class. What a grand tale it is! (I had forgotten the reason Tell sheathed the first arrow in his belt before loading a second arrow onto his crossbow. Do you remember?) Terrific drama - the kids sucked it all in. Now the fires were stoked for them to listen to the musical underpinnings of Rossini's William Tell Overture. (The Classics for Kids website is simply outstanding in every way.)

Here's a good site which illuminates the origin of Christmas traditions. Perfect for our class - I can project it on the big screen and let students take turns reading.

Our kids scored an overall 82.6 percent on last week's Mars/Jupiter SpaceQuest test. That means we owe them a pizza party (for scoring 80 percent or above). I think we're going to have it today.

Kids music

Checking out NPR this morning, I bumped into a feature titled, Children's Tunes Revive Spirit of Punk Rock. I was intrigued, so I followed the link to Zooglobble - Kids and family music news and reviews - Kids music worth sharing.

And everybody lived happily ever after. Sort of.

Figaro! Hey Figaro Figaro Figaro Figaro Figaro!

Mrs. James's class finished off Beethoven last Friday with a drawing activity as they listened to the first movement of his famed Fifth Symphony. The kids did a great job reflecting the A - B - A structure of the music.

Yesterday we introduced an Italian composer - Gioacchino Rossini - most well known, perhaps, for the marvelous comic opera, The Barber of Seville, but also highly regarded for his final opera, William Tell. We'll be focusing on the William Tell Overture, whose finale served as the opening thrilling music for The Lone Ranger television show, as well as The Barber of Seville.

My primary source for Rossini is Classics for Kids, a wonderful site for introducing kids to the world of classical music.

Kudos to Alan Kuncel and his choir!

Mr. Alan Kuncel's Conlee School Choir performed their Thanksgiving concert today to appreciative students, teachers, and parents.

I've been listening to school choirs for over 20 years now, and this is the first time I've had the pleasure of hearing well-chosen material performed with grace, beauty, and style. This is also the first time I can ever recall students at this age level (2nd - 4th grades) performing every song on key. Every note sung was in the proper register, the proper pitch, the proper volume. What I really mean to say is that, THEIR SINGING WAS BEAUTIFUL!

Kudos to Mr. Kuncel and his boys and girls for a most remarkable musical achievement. (And to our student, Julian Gutierrez, for choosing to be part of a great program!)

Story and photo here.

Beethoven bye-bye!

Next week our class will finish our all-too-brief look at Beethoven and his glorious Fifth Symphony.

Resources we've been using include the excellent Classics for Kids, the compelling book Beethoven Lives Upstairs (it's in our school library), and, of course, a recording of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony.

Yesterday I was looking for some musical info and ran across a terrific classical music site for kids, teachers and parents - DSO Kids (DSO=Dallas Symphony Orchestra). Lots to see, do, and learn.

Pachelbel's Canon

Hey kids! Look what I found... a mystery guitarist playing Pachelbel's Canon. I learned about it while listening to a short piece on National Public Radio. This is a case of serendipity. Serendipity means, "a happy accident."

Here's the video... enjoy!

And here are the first eight notes we've talked about.

(We introduced our students to Pachelbel's Cannon the first week of school. We've been playing different arrangements from a CD titled Pachelbel's Greatest Hit. Wikipedia has an extensive article on the music and it's composer.)