Music

At PAS, we offer an extensive music curriculum that encourages active student participation through the use of movement, improvising, performing, and listening. The national arts standards of creating, performing, and responding, guide our work throughout the year.  Additionally, students in all grades levels will gain exposure to music & musicians from diverse styles and cultures.

In grades K-2 we are working towards becoming tuneful, beatful, and artful musicians using the First Steps in Music curriculum.   Taken from the curriculum of John Feierabend, students are learning to be tuneful by having tunes and their heads and learning to coordinate their voices to sing those tunes.  They are becoming beatful by feeling the pulse of music and how that pulse is grouped in either 2s or 3s.  They are becoming artful to be moved by music in the many ways music can elicit a feelingful response.  Lessons include rhythm, beat, melody, movement and introductions to instruments.

In grades 3-5 students continue to develop their voices and musicianship through songs, games, instruments, movement, and performances.  Group piano instruction through the Music & The Brain curriculum begins in the Winter, as well as introduction to other classroom instruments.  They continue to develop their understanding of instrument families, music theory, and notation.

In middle school, we continue to build upon the skills they have learned in music through projects and continued instrument exploration.  Students learn a variety of instruments including, ukulele, piano, and bucket drumming.  Through project based learning, students will determine how musicians generate creative ideas, choose music to experience, and interpret musical works.

In addition to music learning in the classroom, PAS offers Orchestra & Band to students in grades 4-8.  We also produce a spring musical and other concerts throughout the year.

To find out more, please visit our PAS MUSC website at https://sites.google.com/philasd.org/pasmusick8/home