Core Knowledge Music
Music is taught in all our classrooms, grades K – 8, utilizing the Core Knowledge Sequence as a base for our curriculum. This curriculum is designed for all aspects of the student’s education and includes basic guidelines for music. The Core Knowledge Sequence aligns both with the
Massachusetts Arts Curriculum Frameworks and the National Standards of
Music.
Music students are exposed to the classics as well as modern composers. All the senses are used to help familiarize the student with music basics. Starting with the younger classes, students are engaged with movement, rhythm instruments and pitched instruments, such as the xylophones and glockenspiels. This is an approach to music education designed by
Carl Orff. Carl Orff, a German composer, felt movement and activity should be incorporated into a child’s music education. The Orff philosophy combines the elements of speech, rhythm, movement, dance and song with participation, creativity and personal musical growth. Also used in collaboration to this method are concepts from the
Dalcroze method of music. Emile Jaques-Dalcroze was an Austrian composer who integrated movement into music education with the concept that children learn more effectively by using as many of their senses as possible.
Students at BFCCPS learn music through a combination of these methods. They move with music, play instruments and sing as well. They take turns at different musical stations. Not only is this fun and rewarding for the students, but it is an effective way to develop an understanding of musical concepts. When young students come home talking about “chips and papers”, they are talking about how they are learning to read music through a game. The game incorporates solfedge; a system of hand signals that teach note literacy designed by Dalcroze. Each note in the scale has a certain hand signal. The lower grades learn Do – Mi – Sol, as an introduction to notes on the staff. By the 3rd grade, the students are reading notes on the G clef. In 3rd grade recorders are taught as a part of the student’s music education, to prepare them for an interest in band the following year.
The music program at BFCCPS fully aligns itself to the Department of Education’s
Massachusetts Arts Curriculum Frameworks, which is outlined below:
THE PRE K-12 STANDARDS FOR MUSIC STRAND (page 41 of manual)
- Singing – Students will sing alone, and with others, a varied repertoire
- Reading and Notation – Students will read music in standard notation
- Playing Instruments – Students will play instruments alone, and with others, to perform a varied repertoire of music
- Improvisation and Composition – Students will improvise, compose and arrange music
- Critical Response – Students will describe and analyze their own music and the music of others using appropriate music vocabulary. When appropriate, students will connect their analysis to interpretation and evaluation.
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