Hello Everyone,

Mr. Skaife and I will be holding live, multi-grade Zoom sessions together starting next Monday. The sessions will be bi-weekly, alternating between Grades 3-5, and Grades Kindergarten-2.

Mr. Spano:

anthony.spano@watertown.k12.ma.us

Mr. Skaife:

kurtis.skaife@watertown.k12.ma.us

Grade K-2 Zoom Meeting:

Monday, May 4th, 2:00pm

Password: musicart

Grade 3-5 Zoom Meeting:

Monday, May 11th, 2:00pm

Password: musicart

Instrument Lesson Zoom Meetings:

Mondays from 3:00-3:30pm

• Mr. Spano's students
• Ms. Slesinger's students
• Ms. Schneider's students
• Mr. Boynton's students
• Ms. Byham's students
• Mr. Jordan's students (Mr. Jordan is meeting on Tuesday, the 5th this week)

Please enjoy the second of my Beatles medley videos. Sing along if you'd like. The lyrics are all there (although I suspect many of you know the tunes by heart).

Beatles singalong #2: You've got to Hide your Love Away / Let it Be

Beatles singalong #1: Here Comes the Sun / Blackbird

Here is a readalong/singalong of Abiyoyo Returns, the second in the Abiyoyo books by Pete Seeger. Typically in class, we would read the book, sing the songs, and act out the story for an informal play.

Abiyoyo Returns - Singalong/Readalong

Enjoy the orignal Abiyoyo book with this video clip from "Reading Rainbow."

Abiyoyo - Reading Rainbow

Last month, we did the "Banana Boat Song"

Banana Boat Song

Banana Boat Song - Harry Belafonte - The Muppet Show

2nd Graders - click here or look down below in the 3-5 section at my Isle of Tune video tutorial. You'll probably need your parents help getting setup with the program, but it's a lot of fun. Give it a try.

Here are the first videos of my singalong series:

Los Pollitos Dicen/Rubber Blubber Whale

Over in the Meadow

In early March, we had started exploring how sound and vibration work in the different families of musical instruments. Check out the first of my videos on this topic: Woodwinds, Part 1.

Check out the video section of the Mr. Spano Website:

https://sites.google.com/a/watertown.k12.ma.us/spano-lowell-music/video

It features a mish-mosh of songs we've sung this year and other interesting short videos. I'm also hoping to include some personally recorded sing-alongs in the coming days.

Also, check out the Piano and Guitar pages on my website. If you have a keyboard, piano, guitar, or even ukulele at home, you can print out some of the packets and materials we use in class for home practice.

Lastly, I'd like to plug a few fellow music teachers:

Mr. Boynton

Quite a few of our PreK and Kindergartners may have had my colleague Mr. Boynton as a pre-school music teacher. He's been creating amazing videos on his YouTube page over the last few weeks.

Mr. Evan - Music at the Blissful

Mr. Evan has been my sons' music teacher from the time they were both babies. He teaches private music classes in Jamaica Plain and has been live-streaming his super-engaging music classes on both his Instagram and Facebook pages every morning at 9:30am. His lessons are perfect for ages 2-6, so our PreK-1st graders should definitely go check him out.

This week, watch this video tutorial I've created for a site called Ableton - Learning Music. Ableton is a sequencing program like GarageBand. While the full version costs money and needs to be downloaded onto your device, this link has tons of free web-based activities and resources to check out. Explore the site, do some reading, and make sure to create your own song on one of the sequencers. It's really fun.

If you miss doing GarageBand in class and don't have the ability to do it at home, check out this video. It'll show you how to use a new web-based program called BandLab which you can do from any computer. You'll need your parents permission, your email address, and this invite code:

UM8DGT1

I've made an Isle of Tune video tutorial. Many of us have worked with Isle of Tune in class. Watch the tutorial to either introduce you to or review this fun web-based composition game. Feel free to copy my composition, create your own, or just experiment. When you're finished, figure out how to create a web link to your project and email it to me. Mine and Mr Skaife's addresses are above.

Check out the links page on the Mr. Spano website and also this musictheory.net video tutorial which will show you how to customize our keyboard and note quiz that we do in class.

Instrument students! Check out this video tutorial I've created introducing you to Essential Elements Interactive. It's basically a digital version of your instrument lesson book. It'll make practicing a bit more exciting with play-along backing tracks, a recording function, and lots more cool stuff. You'll need your instrument, your book, and the "school code" which is 'watertown.'

Make sure you link to and sign up for my Google Classroom site. You'll need to enter the invite code:

autm6sl

And then you're all set.

Lastly, check out the Piano and Guitar pages on my website. If you have a keyboard, piano, guitar, or even ukulele at home, you can print out some of the packets and materials we use in class for home practice.

Last week students transformed a household object into a character. This week we will build on that and use a few different objects to create a still life. A traditional still life is a picture that illustrates what a collection of objects look like. Our still life will be similar expect that your objects have come to life.

First you will need paper and a pencil. Next, find items in the house that you want to draw. Possibilities include: a hat, a bottle of mustard, a bunch of bananas, a toy or whatever you can find. Of course, make sure you have parent permission before using an object. When I chose my objects I tried to think about what kind of characters they might become so that I could plan ways in which my objects could interact.

Take a moment to arrange the objects in a way that looks nice to you. As you draw the objects you can transform them into the characters you imagined. There are so many different ways for your object to become a character. What kind of face will it have? Will it have arm or legs? Will it be saying something?

Have fun with your drawing and use your imagination. Feel free to use any art materials you have on hand and as always, it would be great if you could post an image of your completed art work.

Kindergarten invite code: cvs562m

1st Grade invite code: 4r4lm6p

2nd Grade invite code: qubt4px

This week's art project is a classroom favorite, The Drawing Challenge.

Choose one noun and one adjective and figure out a way to draw what those two words combined would make. Feel free to generate a word of your own if these are not properly inspiring you.

The goal of this activity is for you to push your creativity and abstract thinking to solve a complex drawing task that has no clearly defined answer. You will have to use your imagination and drawing skills to convey your intentions.

Draw as many as you can. See how many different solutions you can come up with for one set of words. See if you can get a family member to do the with you.

As always, it would be great if you posted your final pieces for all to see but make sure you write the two words you illustrated so that we know too.

NOUNS: cat, apple, fork, shoe, phone, bird, hamburger, lamp, tree, butterfly

ADJECTIVES: crazy, confidant, heroic, guilty, depressed, hungry, uncertain, annoyed

3rd Grade invite code: plicrt5

4th Grade invite code: 7xxxuqj

5th Grade invite code: cbrihpi