Playing Instruments in First Grade

Ask any student what they love most about music and they will tell you it’s playing musical instruments.  Students first experience the instruments they already have — their voice.  They also have body percussion (clapping, snapping, patting and stamping their feet).  Next comes rhythm percussion instruments.  In the below pictures, students experience four main types of rhythm percussion instruments:  Membrane, Rattle, Metal and Wood.  They played a rotation game so they got to play all four types of instruments.

High and Low with Xylophone

Playing a xylophone is a lot of fun.

Students learn proper mallet technique and where it is best to strike the bars (in the middle) for the best sound.

Students need to experience playing the bars — just how hard or soft to strike the bars. They are encouraged to play all the bars in a random fashion and discover just how much is too much.  If the bars jump up or come out of place, then it was too much. But if they can hardly hear the bars being played, it is too little.

Students discover high and low sounds, too.  On our xylophones each bar is a different size which helps students learn “the bigger the bar, the lower the sound” and “the smaller the bar, the higher the sound”.

Students discover that the bars have alphabet letters marked on them.  But it is only the first seven letters of the alphabet:  A-B-C-D-E-F-G 

All students played the xylophones during music class! 

Kindergarteners Move To Music

Kindergarteners love to move.  In fact, they have a hard time sitting still!  So why not use that energy and express through music?  Students used colorful scarves and moved around while listening to Mozart’s “Eine Kleine Nacht Music”.  By using an object while moving, students are less inhibited and can usually find expressive ways to show what they are hearing with the music.  Actually, the music is the motivator and the scarves are just a prop.  It works!