Music at PNA...there's SO much going on!
10/26/2017
Where to begin?! Every school year feels like a never-ending, fast-pace, whirlwind of one show to the next! Oh, and throw in what we are learning about music in class in there too....WHEW! So, music at PNA...yeah, there's ALOT going on!
This past week, Alumni Dylan Eck came by to help out with budding baritone player, Ethan! It is always great to have experienced musicians help out with the PNA Band program! Dylan's mom, Kathy, can always be seen nurturing future flute players, Evan and Kennadi! I am very happy with the progress that these young musicians have made. Even band members who started last year, like Keno (clarinet) and Isabella (trumpet) are always eager to help their new band mates. It has been said that the best way make sure you understand something is to teach it to someone else! So what else is going on, you might ask? Well...in addition to learning their music for the Winter Concert... Kindergarten is on a musical, alphabetical safari! Each class, students solidify their knowledge of the alphabet while learning about a unique animal to go with that letter! And don't forget the funny song to go with it! And did I mention they are making a book about this adventure?! Does your 1st grader come home singing about "Pop-Tarts" and "Scrambled Eggs"? Concerned? Don't be! We are simply using food syllables to teach rhythm and understand the beat of music!
To help 2nd Grade get into the Halloween spirit (like they needed the encouragement), we have been listening to some "spooky themes."
Camille Saint-Saens wrote a chilling theme where on Halloween night, skeletons rise from their graves and dance to the music of a violin. Here, Saint-Saëns uses the xylophone to imitate the sound of their rattling bones! The skeletons dance all night until dawn; when they must return to their graves until next year.
https://youtu.be/YyknBTm_YyM
Now that 3rd Grade can identify music notes, they are putting their skills to the test by playing the piano! Elias is practicing his best Middle C Position!
4th Grade is rocking out to the ukulele! But in addition to learning how to play chords, they have learned to play tablature, or TAB. The four lines represent each of the ukulele's strings. The number tells you what fret you are playing in.
Keeva is learning how to play "Morning Mood" from the Peer Gynt Suite.
5th Grade is spending this year learning all about composers. Our goal is to get all the way up to modern day composers like Danny Elfman and other rock and roll artist like Paul McCartney and John Lennon. But right now, we are in the heart of the Nationalist Period learning about composers like Verdi, Wagner and Tchaikovsky! While listening to the 1812 Overture, Lucy draws a fantastic image of the cannon's being used as part of the orchestra!
The 6th, 7th, and 8th Graders are very busy learning their music for the big Winter Concert, PNA: On Broadway! Mark your calendars for Friday, December 1st @ 6:00 when the students of Pacific Northern Academy, from Beginners to 8th grade, perform the hits from "The Great White Way!"
Did you know this nickname came about because Broadway was one of the first streets in the United States to be lit with electric lights! Below is a sketch of the set you will see that night! Parents and students are invited to come help with sets and costumes on Friday, November 17th from 3:30 to 6 and on Monday, November 20th from 10am - 4pm! Be ready to paint!
Beginner and EK costumes for "Getting to Know You" from the King and I.
From band, to concert preparations, to everyday activities in the classroom, there's ALWAYS a lot going on in music at PNA! Art with Brenda Jaeger!
It is really great to be part of PNA, where children are learning so many important areas that will help them to be well-adjusted, resourceful human beings!
In our Art classes, the Beginners continue to develop their techniques and skills in art through learning to draw animals. Recently, we have been developing our watercolor-resist techniques. Our Early Kindergarten are combining their techniques with learning about drawing textures. We have been privileged to have Ms. Jo teach us five minutes of traditional Filipino dancing at the end of some of our classes. Interdisciplinary opportunities allow the children to gain in their large and small motor skills, while learning more about our world cultures. The Kindergarten have worked with practicing their skills and techniques in art. They have drawn both people and animals, and are doing well. The First Grade continues their knowledge of line, shape, value, texture, and perspective. They know how to cover their paper, drawing large, with their compositions. I am very proud of them! The Second Grade class has been drawing one of our student's Grandmothers, or Lola, as we say in Tagalog. It is wonderful to have a family member sit for the students. It is so calm and peaceful and happy when someone comes and takes their time to pose. Thank you so much, Lola!
The Third Grade has been working on studies in the manner of Rubens, Rembrandt, Ingres, Michelangelo, da Vinci, and other Master Artists. We are working our our facial features, and hands.
The Fourth Grade is working on their designs for canvas painting. They will learn how to paint a canvas many ways. First, they will wire their canvas on the back with D-rings and coated wire. The Fifth Grade has been focusing on watercolor techniques, and designing their canvasses. The Sixth Grade is working on Martin Luther King, Jr., in ink, making excellent images. The 7th/8th Grades are also finishing their Martin Luther King, Jr., images. They are doing a beautiful job! As I explained to one of the youngest grades, at PNA, we learn all the foundational concepts, skills, and techniques from age 3 on. I have told them that I started teaching my daughter at 4 months. I explain that all you need is the time, and the child to work with. Everyone gains in learning art, at all ages. I believe that children become well-versed in art through repetition, through mindful practice, through being surrounded by art and knowing that art is an everyday, valuable experience. At PNA, a child learns to assess the work done, to have confidence in when going through the process of art, and to know and understand other cultures through their art. As we all know, a culture is determined by the culture and art left behind. At PNA, we value all the arts. We hope that we can also leave a legacy of the arts for our children, and those they come in contact with in the future. Specialist Blog: CTF!
10/23/2017
Specialists News: Fine Art at PNA!
10/12/2017
It is wonderful how far the artists at PNA have gone in their development of fine art concepts, skills and techniques! We have a school filled with artists who are practicing their critical thinking skills as they assess their progress on each work they create. Here we see a student thinking about his next step in drawing, and his Lola (Grandmother) sitting for the First Grade Art Class.
The 6th Graders have drawn self-portraits and worked with line, shape, value, texture and color theory. This year we work toward more complex renderings in our work, as we develop in-depth our skills and techniques. We are looking forward to painting on canvas, and completing our design work this fall. Much awaits ahead! The Beginners and EK classes have been working through color theory: hue, value, intensity, complementary colors, analogous colors, wam and cool colors, with more to come. When studying art we bring in other disciplines: music, art, literature, science, math. The Fine Art Program strives to present a comprehensive foundation in art. Students learn to be critical thinkers and working artists. Brenda Jaeger, Artist-Teacher at PNA, recently had work in an exhibition at the new Parsons Galleries, which opened October 7th & 8th during the Artwalk Ventura 2017. Randy Parsons, owner, a luthier of custom guitars, will have the hard opening in December. He is also one of three luthiers selected out of LA area to be showcased at NAMM, January, in Anaheim, CA. Brenda will also have her work at the Dayton Center for the Visual Arts Annual Holiday Show, opening November 15 and running for five weeks in Dayton, Ohio. Brenda has developed two lines of notecards with her images: Alaskan Landscapes, and Guitars I. Another line, Guitars II, is in progress and will be out by December. Locally, at the Great Harvest Bread Company, Brenda has her image Fallen Cross with Jim Hanlen's poem Permafrost as one of the broadsides presented by Cirque Magazine. It is a project to commemorate locations in Alaska. It is up for the month of October. Music Notes1st - 4th graders telling whole stories in Spanish, in front of the class? PNA students are challenged each day in their classes to take risks, display courage, and make mistakes, with the understanding that the classroom environment is a place where they can feel safe and supported to learn from those experiences. Screwing something up yourself can be a great opportunity to learn that they way you did it was incorrect, and you will do better next time. Seeing a friend screw up, and watching them both not be emotionally defeated and use it as an opportunity to learn and do it the right way can be an even greater opportunity. Learning by doing is a process fraught with small failures, which is exactly what children need to experience in order to be successful. The PNA Spanish program is engineered specifically with these ends in mind -- get students comfortable enough with new words and phrases that they will feel OK getting up in front of everyone to use them, and let them do it themselves and make their own mistakes to learn from. The students know from the first week of Spanish class that using new Spanish and making mistakes is the only way that the class can earn double "fiesta minutos" -- minutes toward a class party. If the class can together collect 45 minutos -- the length of one class -- then to the fiesta it shall be! Students are intrinsically motivated to "give it a shot," even if they are not confident that they will do it just right. Children need to know that it is OK and even encouraged to mess up sometimes. Nobody ever got any better at skiing by staying on the bunny slope week after week! Using the TPRS method, students added the creative details to a Spanish story focused around the "Egg Drop" project that the 2nd graders recently completed. If you'd like to know more about TPRS, click the button below: The target structures for the story were:
PONE - puts TIRA - throws ROMPE - breaks SOBREVIVE - survives HUEVO - egg The students decided who participated, ranging from teachers to other students to Star Wars characters to pop stars. They decided what each participant put their egg in for the toss, who threw the contraptions from the roof, and whether each egg broke or survived. Once the story was complete and drawn on the board, students interacted with it in various ways - answering circling questions about the story, making up their own 5th participant's details, drawing the story themselves, reading a written version, and finally re-telling the story to the class based just on the pictures on the board. The video above shows a smattering of PNA's wonderful Lower School students (grades 1-4, in this case) re-telling their classroom stories. Some were nearly perfect, some were far from it, but every last one got to the purpose of what the class does - takes risks, tries out new skills, and feels safe learning in a community. |
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