First Grade

I.0:  PERCEIVING AND RESPONDING: AESTHETIC EDUCATION – Students will demonstrate the ability to perceive, perform, and respond to music.

1:  Develop awareness of the characteristics of musical sounds and the diversity of sounds in the environment

a. Identify classroom instruments by sight and sound such as wood blocks, triangles, rhythm sticks, maracas, guiros, jingle bells, sand blocks, cymbals, tambourines, and hand drums
 
b. Identify same and different patterns heard in music

c. Compare musical sounds: fast/slow, loud/soft (quiet), long/short, high/low

d. Use and simulate environmental sounds

e. Listen to and perform music in both major and minor modes

2:  Experience performance through singing and playing instruments

a.  Demonstrate vocal qualities, such as head voice and chest voice and experiment with high and low sounds, matching pitches within a limited vocal range

b.  Distinguish between adult male voices, female voices, and children’s voices in aural examples

c.  Demonstrate the ability to echo short rhythmic and melodic patterns (quarter note, two eighth notes connected, and quarter rest)

d.  Practice steady beat through singing, speaking and playing classroom instruments

e. Demonstrate meter through singing, speaking, and playing classroom instruments

ostinatos

g. Sing a variety of songs with the class or individually, independent of the teacher’s or recorded voice(s)

h. Sing or play in groups, matching dynamic levels (soft and loud)

i. Demonstrate appropriate audience behavior

3: Respond to music through movement

a.  Demonstrate musical characteristics through movement to music

b. Practice steady beat through locomotor and non-locomotor movement

c. Follow musical cues in singing games

d. Experiment with a variety of locomotor and not-locomotor movements to show meter

4:  Experiment with standard and individually created symbols to represent sounds

a.  Use stem notation to read and write rhythm patterns including quarter note, quarter rest, and two eighth notes connected

b.  Relate melodic contour to standard and non-standard notation

2.0:  HISTORICAL, CULTURAL, AND SOCIAL CONTEXT: Students will demonstrate an understanding of music as an essential aspect of history and human experience.

1:  Develop the ability to recognize music as a form of individual and cultural expression through experiencing music as both personal and societal expression

a.  Describe how music is used in home, school, and community

 b. Sing, listen to, and discuss music representative of different activities, holidays, and seasons in a variety of world cultures  

2:  Become acquainted with the roles of music in the lives of people

a.  Listen to and perform a rich repertoire of music representing its roles in the lives of people, such as work songs

b. Perform songs and dances from a variety of historical periods and world cultures, including some connected to general classroom studies

3:  Explore the relationship of music to dance, theatre, the visual arts, and other disciplines

a.  Demonstrate creative expression through music, dance, creative dramatics, and the visual arts

b. Participate in music activities that connect to that of other subject areas, such as, The Planets by Gustov Holst

4:  Develop knowledge of a wide variety of styles and genres through the study of musical history

a.  Listen to music representative of a variety of styles and genres and explain why each example is classified as “old” or “new”

3.0:  CREATIVE EXPRESSION AND PRODUCTION: Students will demonstrate the ability to organize musical ideas and sounds creatively.

1:  Develop the ability to improvise music through experimentation with sound

a.  Improvise sounds to enhance stories and songs

b. Improvise alternate texts for phrases in songs

2:  Develop readiness for composing and arranging by experimenting with sound

a. Create pictorial representations of sounds to form a sound piece

b. Use the voice and classroom instruments to create simple melodic patterns

c. Create short ostinato patterns to enhance given melodies

4.0:  AESTHETIC CRITICISM: Students will demonstrate the ability to make aesthetic judgements.

1:  Evaluate selected musical compositions using established criteria

a.  Use a single word to verbalize how selected music “makes me feel”

2:  Develop personal aesthetic criteria for evaluating musical performances

a.  Apply teacher-identified criteria for evaluation of classroom performances