International Space Station - by Jack

Currently our class is singing international space station !!!!!!!!!!!!
Inter national space station is a song by Chris Hadfield !!!!!!!!!!
We sang it in Tiiu's room who is the room beside us!!!!!!!!!!!!

-Jack

The musical sharing! by Melodee

Today as you all know it is are Skype filming day
but I'm not going to talk about our Skype film I'm going
to talk about the sharing that's going on right now.
At the start of the sharing the strings club played
Awesome music. Then they did a sharing on addiction.
Then it was ukulele time and are class did somebody that
I used to know.

By Melodee

Ukelele singing

Just a few minutes ago our class was singing "somebody that I used to know" on the ukelele for our school's sharing, and a few other classes were singing other things on the ukelele.

Drumming and Dancing with Kathy Armstrong

Little Boxes Dance Party

 

After we shared our song choice, "Little Boxes" with the rest of the Junior students, we came back to Room 209 and listened to several different versions of the song, including a country, rap and punk version. As the songs were playing, a group of students started to dance. An amazing, impromptu dance line broke out. Room 209 loves to dance!

The Lip Dub is Up!

I.S.S. The Lip Dub from shareski on Vimeo.

Remember when we recorded a few lines from the International Space Station song? Well, the Lip Dub is ready!

Check it out above!

I've already tweeted it at Commander Hadfield. Do you think he'll watch it? Will he hear OUR voices bouncing off the moon?

Do you want to know how Dean Shareski (Anna and Daniel's teacher) put together the video? Check out his post.

Sharing "Little Boxes" with the Juniors

The Awesome Choices for Rock of Ages 9-12!

Today in the computer lab, many of the Digital Degus followed the instructions from our latest task and suggested songs for us to bring forward for Rock of Ages 9-12. You may have noticed I was taking part in the conversation! I brought my laptop to my workshop and approved comments as you were posting. It was so fun to be a part of what was going on even though I was halfway across the city!

Below are the song choices that were proposed and fit the criteria. Remember, you had to select a song by a Canadian artist. We didn't talk about whether the song had to be written by a Canadian, so some of you chose versions of songs sung by Canadians. We can decide together whether that fits the criteria.

The songs are an eclectic collection of genres and styles. I am excited to share them with you!

Take some time to watch, listen and reflect. Think about the following big ideas:
-the song we share has to have a message that we can explain to the other classes and back up with evidence from the lyrics
-the artist has to be Canadian
-it has to be a song that can be enjoyed and sung by more than 100 kids
-it will be performed for a wide range of ages and preferences
-some students may want to contribute by playing instruments (like ukuleles)

Sk8r Boi - Avril Lavigne


Little Boxes - Walk Off the Earth


Stutter - Marianas Trench


Wake Up - Arcade Fire


Hasn't Hit Me Yet - Blue Rodeo


I Knew You Were Trouble - Walk Off the Earth


Take a Minute - K'Naan


You Can't - Jason and the Diatonics


Heart of Gold - Neil Young


Like a Hurricane - Neil Young

Believe - Justin Bieber



Thank you to all of the Digital Degus who made thoughtful suggestions. Your job now is to enjoy the videos and think about which one you'll vote for next week. You may leave a comment if you wish and/or make a post on your own blog.

The following students still need to do a job: Cohen, Daniel, Ethan, Vickie, Jackson, Erika, Laryssa, Lauren, Liam and Miguel.

The songs are now proposed, so you won't be able to do the last task.

Your job now will be to comment on your top two songs here. You must write a comment below listing three juicy reasons you like for EACH of those two songs (total of six reasons). Use your best academic writing and double check before hitting publish. Please do this as homework by Monday.

Computer Lab Tasks: Picking a Song

Hello boys and girls,

  Welcome to the computer lab! You have a few tasks to complete today.

  Kim has only seen you working on our blog once, so I'm looking forward to hearing about you impressing her today!

  It is our turn in just over two weeks to lead the Rock of Ages 9-12 classes in a song and we haven't yet chosen one! We are presenting on Thursday, April 4th and need to have our song ready well in advance.

  We have to select a song by a Canadian artist. Think about the songs we've already chosen and try to suggest something that's a little bit different. You may suggest the song you chose for the "Music with a Message" assignment or a new one.

TASK #1: Please leave a comment on this post, or if you have a blog, you may write a post on your blog and then link to it. In your comment (or post), provide the name of your song suggestion, the musician (or "artist") of the song and three juicy reasons that you think this would be a great addition to our song list. You must also link to your song (you can link to a YouTube video if you wish).

  Before you publish your post, double check to make sure you've followed all the instructions, used your best spelling, and done careful, professional work.

TASK #2: Continue to refresh the page and see as your classmates comment. Read about their suggestions and if you are unfamiliar with the songs, listen to them. Write at least two responses. Remember to be kind, specific and respectful in your comments. Continue the conversation!

  In total, you will write at least three comments. If each student is writing at least three comments, how many comments will we have today?

TASK #3: When you are finished adding comments on this post, you may visit Rock of Ages 9-12 and leave comments there.

  Please make sure you stay on task and use your time well! I'm looking forward to hearing your suggestions!

  Some students have gotten really good at using blogger, so please ask one another for help as needed.

UPDATE: Great start, Digital Degus! Remember to read all instructions! If you need some more inspiration, check out Tiiu's blog. She has posted some great Canadian artists and songs.

UPDATE #2: Fiona's posted her song suggestion on her blog! Pat has posted his, too!

Belly Breathe

In class, we've talked about feeling worried and anxious and we've practiced some ways to calm down. A friend of mine sent me this adorable video from Sesame Street with a super catchy song reminding us to "Belly Breathe" when we feel stressed out. I was thinking this would be a really cool thing to share at a school Sharing. What do you think?

A Class of Rock Stars!

This is how we dress every day for Gym.

Dear Pandas: We Can Tell We're Gonna Be Friends

Today, we got together with Dana, Owen/Andrew, Ray, Natalie and Tiiu's classes to play music and sing to welcome the Chinese pandas to Canada!

A Great Collaboration Between Flight of the Conchords and Kids

O'Canada Challenge to Welcome Pandas

I sent this memo out to the staff tonight and Dana and I have been chatting about it on email. I wonder if we can come up with a creative song to enter this contest with? Dana's idea was really good, she thought of singing "Safe Here".

Two giant pandas are coming from China to live at the Toronto Zoo for five years. FedEx is holding a contest, inviting Ontario schools to send in a video of their school "band/ensemble" performing any song. Then, they'll pick their top entries and have people vote for several days (starting March 14th). We'd only have Thursday or Friday to pull this together.

What do you think? Can we come up with something great? We'd have to upload the video to YouTube...

UPDATE:
We are going to sing "We Are Going to Be Friends" in Dana's room at 11:10 a.m. tomorrow (Friday, March 8th).

Please wear a plain red, black or white top.

Please practice your singing, and if you have an instrument and want to practice that and bring it in, feel free to do that as well!

Lip Dub - Signed Up!

Hello Digital Degus,

 Remember when I told you Anna's teacher, Dean, was wanting to do a Lip Dub? We talked about it very briefly in class, and as always, you were all very keen to participate in something new! Well, it's happening. I just signed us up tonight!

UPDATE:

The Lip Dub song JUST changed (as of Tuesday, March 5th at 10:20 a.m.) to Is Somebody Singing?/The International Space Station Song

  The song that we'll be Lip Dubbing is "Home" by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros. Many of you will know it. We'll be assigned one line to lip synch. I don't know yet which line it will be. Once we know, we'll have to come up with a creative way to lip synch it so we can really stand out!



Listen and see if you can learn to sing along with some help from the lyrics.

The first time I ever heard this song was from this adorable father-daughter duet. Check it out too!

That father-daughter duet reminds me of this other awesome father-daughter duet that just came out. It doesn't have anything to do with our Lip Dub, but it's just too cute!


If you haven't seen a Lip Dub before, there are MANY of them out there, but my personal favourite is this one that was also a wedding proposal:
The only problem is, it makes me cry every time I watch it.

Ukuleles by LIam

Ukulele is a fun instrument and it's popular in our school. Ukulele practice is on Thursdays and  somethimes on Wednesday and Friday at lunch recess. We play ukulele Tuesday afternoon in class. Owen teaches us ukulele and he's a fun ukulele teacher. The songs that we've learned are "Some Nights", "Somebody That I Used to Know", "Another Brick in the Wall" and some others. Today, in Ukulele Club, I learned a new chord called D-7. It inspired me to get a ukulele and go to ukulele lessons!

-by Liam

Lip Dup Video With Anna's University Class

Hey Digital Degus,

  I got an email from Anna's teacher, Dean tonight. He had a really cool idea to do a "Lip Dub" video with all the students in his class, plus the mentor teachers (like me) and students (like you!) towards the end of the term (their term ends in April).

 Check out his idea and let me know in a comment what you think!

Earth and Space Duet

You can read about this on Teach Kids News.

Rock of Ages 9-12 Site

Heya kiddos,

  I've whipped up a new blog as a trial. Check it out. All the other Junior teachers are also authors on it and hopefully we'll use it to upload the songs we discuss when we meet as a Junior team to sing and talk about music this year.

  Let me know what you think! Matt gave me the idea for the name!

Junior Condition

 

Matt and Jeff came in today to record our class album. We got five tracks down and we'll be listening to a rough cut tomorrow! It's very exciting!