FULL Year End Performance: 2nd Grade Video
Original Music, Dalcroze Style Movement, Poetry
When I first started embracing the Dalcroze approach as my primary tool for teaching music, it wasn’t clear to me how I was going to demonstrate student learning in our year-end program. What could I do that would be impressive, but also an accurate portrayal of our learning and the types of activities we spent our time on. I found an old manuscript for piece called “Ten Children’s Scenes” by Emile Jaques-Dalcroze.
I found the concept for this piece quite appealing… however the actual substance of it was not exactly approachable for my public school 2nd graders. I decided to use it as inspiration for creating my OWN program. I wrote some music, incorporated movement and poetry to tell some classic fairy tale stories. The end result was a show I called “The Story Never Ends.” In this post I’ll share a video of the FULL show! But first…
Housekeeping:
Thanks to AMAZING Dalcroze teacher and writer Katie Couch for reviewing MAKE IT MUSIC in the latest edition of Dalcroze Connections magazine. Here is the first part of her review:
There are some amazing articles in this edition so I recommend you check it out!
If you, for some unknown reason, haven’t bought MAKE IT MUSIC yet, you should do so right now!
From the Archive:
Seed Story: Spring Lesson
Here's a great spring lesson you can use with K and 1 students! It's a great opportunity to reflect on the changing seasons and practice some basic listening and movement skill!
Encouraging students to become more comfortable on stage is a big goal of my program. I have an aversion to the term, “stage fright.” Often what kids refer to as “stage fright” is simply a very normal anxiety or nervousness about performing. Everyone feels it to some degree, and only a very few feel it so strongly that it deserves a clinical diagnosis or category. Students will sometimes ask to be excused from the program because of their anxieties, and I try to exude confidence and support when I tell them “you’ll be fine, I’ll be up there with you and all of your classmates! We’ll do it together!”
In the second-grade program, I require each student to memorize one line of a poem and recite it. This is a big moment for some students. Navigating the microphone, memorizing the words, executing it clearly, these are all challenges for this age cohort. Again, my belief in them is unwavering.
You can hear the mixed results in this recording (apologies for the shoddy audio quality), but I think you can benefit from the overall structure of the program and the general flow of events. I will be making a score and better recording available in the coming months, so stay tuned! (TEAMM Members Only)