In music we have the opportunity to create a learning plan. A learning plan is beneficial as it supports the diversity of learners by allowing each child to create a course of action based on their levels and abilities. It provides students with a choice and voice in their learning. As such, I was able to choose an instrument the xylophone and learn how to read music. My action plan consists on trying to learn how to read music and then learning the 3 following songs, while following my designed criteria and timelines.

  • Hot Cross Buns
  • Amazing Grace
  • A Thousand Years

Since this is my first blog post I wanted to give a little outline of my inquiry project and now I can move on to the start of my learning journey with the xylophone. To put into context I have never really done music, so a big goal of mine was to learn to read music during these first three weeks. With the help and guidance of my instructor, I was able to learn tricks (which are demonstrated in the picture below).

I also was able to effectively learn how to hold the mallets. I also had the opportunity to use different kinds of mallets (rubber, fabric and wood). When we had the time to practice during our personal learning day, I was able to play Hot Cross Buns more smoothly with the slight adjustments to my hand grip and continuous practice. By the end of this practice day, I was able to play Hot Cross buns without following a video tutorial but instead read the notes and finally without just by memorization. A similar manner will be for the other 2 songs as well, except I will also be adding an additional step which will be playing the song while singing. Stay tuned for more updates on my learning journey of the xylophone! I quite enjoy this instrument as I believe it is a great opportunity to learn this instrument as it can be beneficial for my future classroom and  daily classroom activities.