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Hello!
I'm Mrs. Ahlborn and I teach K - 4th grade general music and 5th -8th grade orchestra.  Almost the entire school!!  I love music and sharing it with Reagan Academy students!  
 
5th and 6th grade orchestra students will use the book String Basics Book 1 by Jeremy Woolstenhume and Terry Shade. The 7th/8th graders will be using String Basics Book 2 and String Basics Book 3. 

I love working with my students and watching them grow!
 
 

Posts

Mrs. Lewis' class performing with their caleembas

Mrs. Lewis' class playing Rain Rain while playing the caleembas they made in Mr. Pratt's class.

Mrs. Lott's class playing caleembas

Mrs. Lott's class playing Rain Rain Go Away soundscape on their caleembas they made in Mr. Pratt's class.

Mrs. Beagles caleemba performance

Mrs. Beagles class performing "Rain Rain" go away on the caleembas they made in Mr. Pratt's art class.

Ms. Chappell's class playing their Caleembas

Ms. Chappell's class is playing a soundscape using the caleembas they made in Mr. Pratt's art class.

Ms. Russon's class playing their caleembas!

3rd grade students made caleembas in Mr. Pratt's art class and we perform a little rainstorm soundscape with them. We blow into them, play the keys and rub them to produce a percussive song.

Mrs. Oligshlagers' class playing Caleembas

4th grade students made caleembas in Mr. Pratt's art class and we performed a soundscape of a rain storm.

Letter to 3rd grade parents!

Hello 3rd grade parents!
We are having an amazing time in music this year!  I wanted to give you and your student a "heads-up" with what we will be doing in the next 2 weeks.  We have gone over the main musical families: strings, woodwinds, brass and percussion as well as different world instruments.  We took notes as we went because next week your student is going to write an essay on which instrument they would like to learn to play and why.  (This is great preparation for when they get to choose an instrument in 5th grade).  Once they have completed the essay in class they get their very  own musical instrument to bring home – it’s a surprise what it will be!!

The following week we will also be incorporating engineering (STEM) into our lesson by designing and building their own musical instrument.  This will be due the week of March 6th after we have gone through the design process in class.  Could you as parents help your student by saving tissue boxes, paper towel rolls etc. that your student could make a musical instrument out of AT HOME and bring to school to share.  If this project seems overwhelming and you are worried about your student's grade -- don't worry!   We will do an alternate activity at school if doing this project at home is too much! Here are  some internet links with ideas:

Strings: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHB-tT6Vi88

Brass: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzvuE7Y48-U

 

Woodwinds: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ne8Jq_UwPSo

Percussion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHFqi5tXYLI

With that being said, please keep your student's musical instruments at home until after March 6th -- I know some students are very excited and have made their instrument already but I don't have space to store 80 more instruments!

Always, if you have any questions, don't hesitate to e-mail me!
Mrs. Ahlborn

Immortal Gladiators - 7th grade orchestra

This is a small snippet of the piece called Immortal Gladiators which is the song at the end of our Book 2. We had fun trying to ham it up!! Great job 7th graders!

Toasted by the 8th grade AT's

This is a typical jam session that includes piano, recorder, drum, and guitar. Notice the places in the song where we have some improve solos on recorder!