2nd Grade

2ND GRADE: Beyond the First Steps
IN Standards for 2nd Grade Music

Now with some awareness of pitch and rhythm, 2nd Graders are ready for the following six objectives:

1. To further develop rhythmic competencies by reading and writing half notes and half rests, grouping notes into meter, performing rhythmic canons, composing rhythms with one added ostinato, taking simple 4-beat rhythmic dictation, and clapping a rhythm while singing or walking the beat.
2.  To notate, sing, and play melodies with do, mi, sol, la.
3.  To encourage improvisation using poems, rhythms, questions and answers on unpitched and body percussion.
4.  To foster musical independence by introducing basic counterpoint in both melody and rhythm. This includes two unpitched or vocal ostinatos as accompaniment, two-part rhythmic canons, and two-part melodic canons (overlapping imitation).
5.  To build on the rhythmic competencies learned earlier by introducing whole notes and whole rests, determining bar line placement, and constructing 8-beat phrases, adding one or two accompanying ostinatos.
6.  To develop listening skills with music in ABA form.

VOCABULARY

• Call and Response
• Tempo
• Staff
• 5 Lines and 4 Spaces
• Repeat Sign
• Whole Note - 4 beats
• Half Note - 2 beats
• Dynamics - Volume of music
• Meter - The way beats are organized
• Crescendo - Gradually getting louder
• Decrescendo - Gradually getting softer
• Brass - Trumpet, French Horn, Trombone, Tuba
• Step - Moving a pitch to the next closest line or space
• Skip - Moving a pitch from a line to the next line, or a space to the next space
• Classical - Beautiful melodies organized into balanced phrases from 1750 - 1820