Grade 5 General Music, January 2026

Our musician of the month for January is an American duo named Black Violin. Black Violin is a violin and viola duet that blends classical music with hip hop. We are also exploring the poetry of Ralph Waldo Emerson, who lived and wrote in Massachusetts from 1803-1882. Students are choosing between his poems A Nation’s Strength and The Chickadee to memorize this month.

Now that we have finished our musical theatre projects, we are returning to more traditional music class activities. Our main areas of focus for the foreseeable future will be preparing our repertoire for the school concert in May and working on students’ music literacy skills. Students are learning the piece For Good from the musical Wicked. Our music literacy skill for January is reading rhythms containing dotted quarter notes, sets of three eighth notes, and quarter notes followed by eighth notes.