Mid-winter Blues..

It has been a long week at the middle school.  Students complaining about erratic behavior in some teachers, everyone coughing and sneezing with the terrible virus that is going around, some bad behavior that made students weep, because they thought they would never get caught.  Let's just say, it is the doldrums, the mid-winter blues!

 I am happy that it is Friday, but I am also happy that despite the doldrums we got a great deal accomplished as well.  I had the other teams for fifth grade music for the beginning of third quarter, and we did the same project as the groups last week did, on "DYNAMICS"- pianissimo, piano, mezzo piano, mezzo forte, forte, and fortissimo!  There were many delightful performances this week using these different dynamics, and every single one was unique.  I told them they could not use any real instruments, only their bodies and things they found in the classroom for their sounds and their composition.  Today I had a group of three girls and a boy doing ballet moves as a part of their composition.  Their pirouettes were pianissimo, their degages and tendus were piano, there was a boy in the back pounding with his feet for mezzo forte, and then they did a pas de deux with yardsticks and then arabesques and when they moved closer to a chair, they made forte sounds with the yardsticks hitting the chairs.  It was a delightful and entertaining performance.

Another performance we had were all boys, I called them the bathroom buddies, because they had been practicing out in the hall.  (The other day they were so loud, they got the attention of the principal and assistant principal walking down the hall, who moved them into another room, where they added more fuel and imagination to their performance piece.)  They enter from the bathroom making lots of noise, singing, "Whey-o" several times.  It magnifies the sound, coming from the bathroom, that is why they were getting called out for it.  They returned into the classroom, answered the phone, hit walls and doors and tables along the way, and then one of them ran down the row of chairs with a metal stick and did fortissimo that way.  It was a moving performance, not moving as in emotional, but moving as in, you had to move around to watch the whole thing.  Pretty clever and innovative!

The last performance I will share with you was written down as well, so I will share their composition papers.

PP-Pencil, Kristen drops it.
P-marker- Abby drops it.
MP-Ruler-Brittney drops it
MF-Wipes- Abby slams on the ground
F-Wall- Brittney hits it.
FF-Basket-Kristen slams it on the ground
subito Piano-Heart tin-Maryem
Subito Forte-Kristen
Trash bucket slamming-Maryem

I called them the Dumpster Divers, because they needed, they said, to use the trash can, and had to take the little bit of trash out of it before they could make it work.  Quite delightful!!