MUSIC NOTES -- we are fortunate to have TWO music teachers serve Casey.
Mrs. Pamela Reed is the full time music teacher at Casey. She's been teaching in AISD since 2002 and at Casey for ten years! She's raised three kids that were all in the bands at Bowie High School. Her sister and her aunt were professional musicians also and both of her grandfathers played the violin. Mrs. Reed has a degree in Music Education from Florida State University; piano was her primary instrument. Little known fact about Mrs. Reed is she used to scuba dive when she lived in Florida.
Mrs. Jones is at Casey on A days for just a few hours; the rest of her time she teaches at Oak Hill Elementary. Mrs. Jones lives in Driftwood, just southwest of Austin, with her husband and old dog, Sophie. She has one son, William, who just graduated from Texas State University. Mrs. Jones went to Baylor University and graduated from The University of Texas in Austin with a degree in Music Education. She is certified to teach music for PreK-12th grade. She has also studied voice and choral conducting—she even used to sing opera! She likes ALL kinds of music (of course!) and she loves to cook. Little known fact about Mrs. Jones is she used to teach karate! WHAT WE DO IN MUSIC CLASS
Students in music class can learn basic concepts of pitch, steady beat, tempo, reading staff music, playing musical instruments, and tuneful singing. Students can use dance, singing games, video technology and hands on manipulatives to learn many music concepts. Casey is very fortunate to have a huge quantity of illustrated song books. Mrs. Reed calls these "singing books". While we can't use the physical books this time, many of these songs on the web that have animated versions to view. You are encouraged to look up song titles on YouTube to enjoy the videos but look for ones that have the lyrics so students can sing along. Some of the favorites are listed in the tab for Music so check them out and sing along!
Students in grade 5 started to apply their musical understanding as they were learning to play the recorder. There are many online learning resources to use to learn more. Hopefully we will continue with recorder this year as most students should have their own at their homes.
Many events will be virtual this year but will still happen! We will have performances for some grades from the Austin Jazz Workshop, and the Austin Symphony Orchestra. The Austin Ballet will perform their annual production of the Nutcracker online so hopefully third grade will experience that!
We will work with rhythms a lot this year and do some bucket drumming! Save your plastic containers that will make good drums! Now that we are at home, there are many resources for MUSIC EDUCATION! Please check these out under the Learning At Home tab at the top.