The third and fourth graders danced as the early American pioneers did for entertainment years ago before the days of television, video games, and computers. Students learned the dances in music class and taught their parents some of the moves ahead of time. The early pioneers didn’t have much to bring over, but they did have their traditions of music and dance. Some of the dances learned were: Sasha, Y’an Pettit, Line Dance, Yesh, and a stick passing game from Sweden.

Great job dancing this difficult Spanish dance fourth and fifth grade! Here you can see the 4th and 5th grade dancing a 16th and 17th century court dance from Spain complete with real music from Spain.  For fun, see the same dance below with different music.

Grass Lake students will love hearing this group of talented fifth grade students sing this Fleetwood Mac song.

Listen to how a composer from China got his ideas for composing the very first YouTube Symphony!

Boys and girls, here you can see and listen to the first you-tube symphony in the world famous Carnegie Hall in New York City! Mrs. Vrotny went to a concert in Carnegie Hall to hear her nephew sing with his choral group a few years ago.  It was kind of cool to see that they symphony would be playing there. The musicians practiced a lot for a chance to be chosen to be in the first you-tube symphony.  Mrs. Vrotny played the piano music at home, and wanted to audition.  The composer decided to add piano players during the last week of auditions. This wasn’t much time to practice, but at least she has the music and can play it for you at school if you want to hear it. Hope you enjoy seeing and hearing all of the instruments! Please comment if you would like, and I’ll post your comments for others to read.

Here is the song that was chosen to be the melody for the Grass Lake School song. Your assignment is to come up with the lyrics to go with the tune.

Special Note: Words should be written for the first part of the song only. When the big band music comes in the middle of the song, there shouldn’t be any words there. Your ears will tell you when this happens.

Directions: Listen to the music many times.

Think of words that can go with the tune.

Use words that would describe Grass Lake School and show school pride. You might want to Google words to school songs for some ideas.

I can’t wait to see what you are able to come up with. A few teachers will be the judges and pick the winner. The whole school will learn your song when we come back in the Fall of 2009!  Your name will be on the school song forever! Good luck!

Summer is a great time to come up with some ideas. You can bring them to the first music class and we can vote right away at the beginning of the year.

Ask any questions that you may have.