Grade 1 Music, October 2025

In October for our Super Quiet Uninterrupted Listening Time, or SQUILT, our goal is to reach two minutes of sustained quiet listening by the end of the month. Our musician of the month is Austrian composer Franz Schubert. We will also be exploring the poetry of German poet Goethe, listening to Schubert’s setting of his poem Der Erlkonig.

This month our singing focus will be the song Up, Up, Up! by Susan Reed. We will also be working on our breathing technique, breathing deep into our diaphragm and expanding our ribs in all directions, in addition to using tall posture when we sing. We are still working on the folk dance we started in September, the Heel and Toe Polka.

First graders are beginning the very first steps of learning how to read music notation this month! We will we be using the syllables Du and Du-De to describe rhythms that use quarter notes and eighth notes. Students will echo rhythm patterns and learn to decode them, repeating them with Du and Du-de when they are presented with the rhythms played on an instrument.