Tuesday, December 23, 2014

It's December In Our Town

It's December in our town...

A wonderful place to be...

It's December in our town...

Excitement, look and see

(From Roger Emerson's December In Our Town)
December at Porters Point is a time to explore observances and holidays that take place during the month and seek out musical opportunities to learn.  We do not celebrate holidays at our school, but we do look for cultural examples from all over the world to broaden our understanding of music.
Porters Point has a long standing tradition of holding a whole school Sing-Along in December.  This is viewed as an "assembly" as opposed to a concert.  Students and faculty gather in the multipurpose room and raise their voices in song, sometimes unaccompanied (a cappella), sometimes with pre-recordings, and sometimes adding instruments to the experience.

In the song, “African Noel”, students explore the tubano drums, always connecting to the beat. All students had a turn to play the drums during music class. At our sing-along, there were 12 tubanos and one student from each class played during this song.


Students sang songs about Christmas, Chanukah, Las Posadas, winter, and Kwanzaa.  

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I love the slideshows you have on your blog. What program do you use to make them? The students look like they're enjoying playing the drums!

Ms. Martie Mutz said...

Thanks, Sandi! I use Animoto.com to create the slideshows and then upload them to YouTube. I use the free version and try to keep the videos under two minutes as everyone's time is precious. I make sure everyone in the slides has permission to be photographed.