Unit two has been well under way in all grade levels and the students are having a great time learning about the different instruments and their families. We have lots of instruments for hands on exploration as well as performing on. Ask your child which instruments they learned about and got to play. This year we were very fortunate to have quite a few high school band members come to Odessa and play for the students and answer questions about the instruments they play and why they chose to play in band.

Kindergarten – Learning and performing on classroom percussion instruments

1st grade – Grouping classroom percussion instruments into pitched (xylophones/metallophones) and un-pitched (maracas, hand drum, triangle, woodblock…)

2nd grade – Grouping un-pitched classroom percussion instruments into sub categories: metals, woods, membranes, and shakers/scrapers.

3rd grade – Identifying and describing common characteristics of instruments that are grouped into five different families (categories) Keyboard, String, Percussion, Brass, and Woodwind.

4th grade – Identifying visually and aurally instruments from the five families (building on last year’s third grade unit).

5th grade – Identifying all common band and orchestra instruments, as well as keyboards aurally. (building on last year’s unit).