2nd Grade Group Compositions

This past week in 2nd grade music, we have been singing the call and response song "There Was An Old Woman." This song is so great because it touches on many different musical skills and concepts that we work on in 2nd grade. We first learned the song as call and response, and worked on getting our "ooo's" to be nice and round and creating lots of space in our mouths for our sound. We also talked about the melody on the "ooo" part (how it is going down, how it moves by steps and a skip, and how the song is in minor tonality). Then, as a class, we wrote our own verses to the call part of the song, and created our own class story (this was really fun!)

A couple classes later, we broke up into groups of 4 so that they could create their own compositions. Each group was given about 20 minutes to write and practice their 4 verses together. Before we split up into our groups, we talked about how as a group, they could earn 4 points for working together. We had a great discussion talking about what a "4" looks like and how we can all get 4's if we do our best and work well together. Working well in different groups has been something that we have been working on in 2nd grade music and will continue to build those teamwork skills as the year goes on. 

Here is the rubric that we came up with. After talking about this, every group did a wonderful job and I was so impressed with how responsible, kind and respectful they were to one another. 

The following day, each group  had a chance to share their composition with the class. Everyone in the class also had a chance to practice their respectful audience behavior as well. We had a great time sharing our hard work and getting to hear what other groups came up with. Here are a few of the compositions that I recorded today. 

Great job to ALL of the 2nd grade groups! I was thrilled with what you came up with! You should be very proud!