Ms. Mary Mack-Mack-Mack!

    Who doesn't remember learning and playing a few clapping games with your friends at recess?  In 2nd grade this week the students learned, "Ms. Mary Mack."  The Ms. Mary Mack clapping pattern is very simple it goes like this:

1. Cross your arms, hands on shoulders.

2. Pat your thighs

3. Clap your hands.

4. Clap your partner's right hand.

5. Clap your hands.

6. Clap your partner's left hand. 

7. Clap your hands.

8. Clap both of your partner's hands.

Repeat

    "Ms. Mary Mack," went great with our music vocabulary word tempo.  Tempo is how fast or slow the music is or the speed of the music. With each verse we sang, our singing and clapping would grow faster or faster. Which brings us to our next vocabulary word, accelerando.  Accelerando means that the tempo grows faster and faster.  Give "Ms. Mary Mack" a try.  

I think I can...I think I can...I Think I Know What Tempo Is....

    In first grade we have been learning about tempo.  Tempo is how fast or how slow music is.  We have used the a song about a freight train that starts at a very slow tempo and moves to a faster tempo to learn about our new music term.  We moved around the room as one big first grade train, first very slowly and then we picked up the tempo.  CHOO CHOO!