First Grade Music Builds Foundational Skills

By: London Heyerman

“Fun, Messy, Empowering, I love how the students get empowered and inspired by the music that they write.”  -Nura Creitz.

It is clear that first grade students in Nura Creitz’s music class really like her and her units, I can tell the kids like her because they admire and look inspired. When I visited the classroom I could tell that the kids were focused and engaged. Currently, students are learning about patterns, rhythms, and cycles with with the ultimate goal of the kids learning to write their own music and rhythm patterns. 

Nura believes that there is a huge importance of learning music and how to make it. “I hope the result is that students can observe, listen, hear, and see patterns. They can identify notes, and create their own rhythms, and truly just find themselves in what they write," Nura says. She finds that really connecting with the kids through music tends to help them focus and behave. 

This class is not so different from the middle school music classes. Right now, the 8th grade classes are learning how to put together their own beats and lyrics to make their own music, so it is a modified version of the 1st graders and what they are learning. The lower school also has a PYP(Primary Year Programme) which is very similar to what middle schoolers have, the MYP (Middle Years Programme). The goal in both classes supports French International’s focus on a global perspective because students are learning to make music from different parts of the world.

This article and photos are part of the eighth-grade communications class's media intern project, where students worked on a project for the French International Communications department.