MRS. SUE CASTO, MUSIC INSTRUCTOR
Eli P i n n ey Ele m e n tar y Sch ool
General Music Education
Music Curriculum
WHY MUSIC?
“It’s fun!”- Pinney 3rd Grader
“We get to play games and create
and dance a lot”-Pinney 2nd
Grader
“Learning and performing music
actually exercise the brain-not
merely by developing specific
music skills, but also by
strengthening the synapses
between brain cells...Brain scans
taken during musical
performances show that virtually
the entire cerebral cortex is
active while musicians are
playing...In short, making music
actively engages the brain
synapses, and there is good
reason to believe that it increases
the brain’s capacity by increasing
the strengths of connections
among neurons.”-From “The
Music in Our Minds,” Educational
Leadership,Vol. 56 #3
“Students in top-quality music
programs scored 22% better in
English and 20% better in
mathematics than students in
deficient music programs.” -From
Journal for Research in Music
Education, June 2007
While participating in the Eli Pinney
Elementary General Music Program,
students will have the opportunity to sing,
play instruments, dance, create, listen to
music, learn to read music notation and
play games. Students are guided through
lessons that connect to the Ohio State
Department Of Education Music
Content Standards using music and
dance that represent a variety of genres,
cultures, ethnicities and time periods.
Grade One
First Grade students are introduced
to music by comparing elements such as
fast/slow, loud/soft, high/low and same/
different. After successfully identifying
and demonstrating steady beat, students
learn to read, write and perform simple
rhythmic patterns (quarter and eighth
notes and quarter rests) and tritonic
melodies (la-sol-mi). Students will also
learn to use a singing voice and sing with
accurate pitch and rhythm.
Grade Two
Continuing to build on their skills
learned in First Grade, Second Grade
students will add the half note to the list
of know rhythms and will be able to
improvise and compose simple rhythmic
patterns. Students will also read, write,
play and perform pentatonic melodies
(do-re-mi-sol-la) using the treble staff. The
orchestral instrument families will be
explored and students will learn to
identify and label instruments visually
and aurally.
CONTACT INFORMATION: CASTO_SUSANNE@DUBLINSCHOOLS.NET
Grade Three
Third Grade students will learn to
discriminate between sounds produced by
instruments and the voice and will use the
head voice to demonstrate in-tune
singing. Students will identify simple
music forms and use appropriate
vocabulary to label musical elements.
Rhythmically, students will read, write
and perform sixteenth notes and
sixteenth-eighth note combinations.
Students will expand their melodic skills
by reading, writing and performing
melodies using low la and low sol.
Grade Four
Fourth Grade students will sing a
variety of songs with accurate pitch and
rhythm by themselves and with others.
Students will improvise and compose
short compositions using a variety of
instruments and play the instruments
with proper technique. Students will be
able to read, write and perform
syncopated rhythms, whole notes and the
extended pentatonic scale with high do.
Pinney Fourth Graders will also learn to
sing and move to music from various
countries written by a variety of
composers.
Grade Five
Fifth Grade students will
differentiate between melody and
harmony. Students will read, write and
perform diatonic melodies on the treble
staff and syncopated and dotted half
note rhythms. Students will identify terms
related to form and musical elements
such as tempo, meter and dynamics.
www.dublinschools.net/suecasto.aspx