Beyond Core Curriculum – Music Enrichment at Kendalwood Montessori

At Kendalwood Montessori and Elementary School, our academic program goes beyond the Ontario Curriculum in many aspects. Beyond the core curriculum, we are always further developing our enriched Arts offering, including drama, dance, fine arts and in particular – music.

Learning to makes music together is a wonderful exercise for students to experience and Kendalwood provides many musical opportunities in our classrooms. The process fosters cooperation, teamwork and an appreciation for the skill required to produce a pleasing tune.

A Joyful Experience across All Ages + Stages

Creating a joyful musical experience is at the heart of our music program. Music is integrated into our curriculum at all ages in a fun and interactive way.

In our Toddler program, music education begins with simple songs and rhythms. Songs such as, “Poor little bug on the wall” and “C is for cookie” are among our current favorites. The addition of diverse music from around the world adds interest and complexity.
In our Casa programs we increase the complexity of our music while keeping it developmentally appropriate for the students in each class. Our focus is on group singing, learning the fundamentals of rhythm, and call and response songs. We are currently exploring the similarities and differences in culturally diverse music using Eya Emose, a lullaby originating in Sierra Leone.

Music theory fundamentals are introduced at the Lower Elementary level. We always work on applying our learnings to the music we enjoy together in class. Our song selection ranges from world music to original compositions written for events in our school. These original pieces of music allow the students the opportunity to study musical composition in a more personal way. We have recently introduced our lower elementary class to the Penny Whistle this year, a 17th century transposition woodwind instrument. It has been such fun to learning how to play it together!

The Upper Elementary class spent the fall term exploring musical theory and learning the history of western music. We are now learning to play the ukulele as a class. Our lessons are built around a favorite Bob Marley song with a special focus on student composition.

The Inspire Choir

The Kendalwood music program comes together in our Inspire Choir, a weekly club focused on creating music for performance. In each class we focus on the most important element of music; that it is a joyful expression of the human spirit, which allows us to join together in harmony as a school community. It’s so much fun!

We are looking forward to our annual Spring Concert, where parents will have an opportunity to see their children perform some of their newly acquired musical skills.  Our theme will be A Cultural Celebration and each class will be performing a cultural song or dance to portray around that culture. We hope to see you there!