The Casserly Classroom
at St. Mary of the Mills
Programs Tailor-Made for All Needs
Overview
Students will be able to demonstrate skills in reading, writing, and performing music. They will build an understanding of the creative process off of the structured rules of music theory and how music affects the brain and body. Students will explore music history from 500 AD to modern times.
Basic Program: Kindergarten through Second Grade
Students at this age will develop social, kinesthetic, and literacy skills while introducing them to song and instruments. Students will write their own tonal and non-tonal music along with expanding their repertoire. We begin building solfege skills and focus on writing and creating new music using those skills. We still play a lot of games to learn new songs but we use those games to start building a foundation of aural skills. We use a mix of Kodaly and Orff methods in these classrooms.
Intermediate Program
We still use game-based learning at this age but we focus on building dexterity on all of the instruments in the classroom. When students are able to accurately sight sing and transcribe music, I love to put as many instruments in their hands as possible! Fifth-grade also has the opportunity to sing as choir every Friday as a combined Fifth-grade class. They will also experiment as a percussion ensemble group.
This age focuses heavily on advanced music theory and western music history. We also study the effects of music on the brain and body and how to use music to learn study skills to become a more effective learner.