Kindergarten

Kindergarten Music update

Hello SK families,

We have been having a great time in our music class this year. We missed quite a few classes due to the Jewish holidays in September and October, but we are now meeting regularly and have been making some great progress on our musical journeys.

We have learned a few Hebrew songs that the students have loved singing along with.

  • Baruch Hagever (Badada)
  • Am Yisrael Chai
  • Ah Ah Ashrei
  • Hashem Melech

Your child has been learning to sing along with these songs and will likely know how to sing them to you.

We just began our unit on keeping a beat. Students are learning to find the beat in a song and clap along with it. This week, we worked on creating our own beats, where they make a 4 beat order of their choosing by demonstrating different motions within the beat, such as hand clap, knee tap, finger snap or foot stomp. Their challenge is to keep a beat with the order of motions that they have chosen.

In another few weeks, we will begin to focus on Chanukah songs and learn to sing and understand some of the miracles of Chanukah.

I hope your kids are enjoying and learning and I look forward to seeing them every week!

 

Moreh David Kogut

About Your Music Teacher

Dear OJCS Families,

I am honoured to be back, teaching music at OJCS once again this year. I am privileged to have met many of you and I hope to meet all families this year. I wanted to introduce myself and let you know about me and what I have done to lead up to my role in OJCS.

I was born and raised in the Montreal Jewish community and a graduate of Hebrew Academy high school. I graduated Dawson College from the Social studies program, completed my psychology degree from Concordia University and completed my Master’s of Jewish education and administration from Azrieli at Yeshiva University. I also attended Yeshivat Ohr Somayach in Jerusalem. I am a Chazan and have lead services in many Orthodox and Conservative synagogues in Montreal, Seattle and Ottawa.

This will be my 17th year teaching at a Jewish day school. I worked at the Seattle Hebrew Academy for 12 years as a music and Jewish studies teacher. I also taught at the Torah Day school of Ottawa for three years, before joining the OJCS team as a music teacher in the lower school and the Rabbinics teacher in the middle school. I am also a Bar and Bat mitzvah teacher and have been training students for over 25 years.

My goal for music at OJCS is primarily to have fun! I offer the students a more energetic class full of fun, laughter and music. I teach Jewish songs throughout the year and engage different classes with different types of music related projects, including instruments, song recordings and music video production. Each month, the school organizes an all school assembly for Rosh Chodesh, where all students come together to sing along to our songs of the month, among many other fun and unifying activities that we participate in together.

Please always feel free to reach out to me about your children or about the music program. I love hearing from you! I will always respond to emails. d.kogut@theojcs.ca.

Thank you and have a wonderful year!

 

Moreh David Kogut

It’s Shabbat!

Hello Kindergarten and Grade 1 families!

We have been having a great time in our Jewish music class! this month, we are learning about songs for Shabbat. We have been singing songs like “Shalom Aleichem”, “Gilli good Shabbat”, “Bim Bam” and a new song that I taught, called “It’s Shabbat”, which was originally performed by the Maccabeats and is to the tune of Baby Shark. This song takes us through many steps of Shabbat in order from before lighting candles, until Havdalah, after Shabbat has ended. When teaching the song, I showed them pictures of each step to help them visualize and understand. We also completed a cut-and-glue worksheet, which helped them to demonstrate that they know the order of some of our Shabbat traditions.

Here are the words to this song. Again, it is to the tune of Baby Shark and student should all be able to sing it at home.

Moreh David Kogut

 

It’s Shabbat – Maccabeats

 

It’s Shabbat do do do do do do

Tzedakah – do do do do do do

Light candles do do do do do do

Shabbat songs la la la la la

Make kiddush do do do do do do do

Eat challah do do do do do

Yummy food do do do do do

Go to Shul do do do do do do

Family time do do do do do

Take a nap do do do do do

Havdalah do do do do do do

It’s the end



Songs for Kindergarten and Grade 1

Hello OJCS Kindergarten and Grade 1 families!

Here are some songs that we have been learning in our music classes this year. Please play them for your children at home and listen to them sing along!

Baruch Haggler (badada)

Don’t Walk in from of me (ve’ahavta le’reiacha Kamocha)

H’ Melech

Ah Ah Ashrei

Kol Ha’olam Kulo

Kindergarten Music

Music in Kindergarten has been off to a great start this year! So far, we have learned to sing and move to several Jewish songs, including “Baruch Hagever” and “Hashem Melech”. We have also taken time to speak about the Jewish Holidays that have just finished. We had demonstrations of blowing shofar and shaking the lulav and etrog and learned some songs that are associated with the holidays, such as “Avinu Malkeinu”. 

I lead songs for them as I play guitar, so I have taken time to teach them all about the guitar. We have learned how it makes sound and we have learned the names of the different parts of the guitar and what their purpose is. We also had the opportunity one week to explore and electric guitar and how it works a little differently than an acoustic guitar. 

We have now begun some very light music theory, as we learn about beat, rhythm and high vs. low sounds. 

As the year progresses, we will continue to learn new Jewish songs and they will usually correspond to upcoming Jewish holidays. The goal will be to give them both a deeper understanding of the Holidays, as well as an excited anticipation for all of them.

Avinu Malkeinu

In Kindergarten to Grade 2, we are currently learning a new song for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. The song is Avinu Malkeinu in the classic tune. You can listen to it and practice it here and be prepared to sing along at whichever synagogue you may attend for the High Holidays.

Avinu Malkeinu Chaneinu Va’aneinu

Ki Ein Banu Ma’asim

Ashe Eemanu Tzedakah Vachesed

Vehoshi’einnu

 

אַבִנוּ מָלַכֵנוּ

אַבִנוּ מָלַכֵנוּ חַנֵנוּ וָעַנֵנוּ

כִי אֵין בָנוּ מַעֲשִים

עֲשֵה עַמֵנוּ צְדָקָה וַחֶסֶד

וְהֹשִׁעַנֵוּ

Kindergarten Music

In Kindergarten music we’ve been doing a lot of great things! Since our last post, we’ve worked on singing and school spirit by learning and performing the OJCS anthem. The class has also been exposed to a variety of instruments and we’ve discussed how they work, make sound, and are played. We’ve also more recently been developing music reading skills and identifying rhythms. And of course we’ve been having fun along the way!

Check it out! Kindergarten

Kindergarten Music

In kindergarten music class, we have been doing many great things! As you can see in the video, the students have been learning a warm-up song which they sing at the beginning of every class to get them in music mode. We have also been learning all about different kinds of instruments, some common and others less-so. As a class, we’ve been looking at identifying instruments, how to play the instruments, how the instruments produce sound, and other unique qualities about each of them. We’ve also been having a lot of fun and doing many games along the way. I hope the students are having as much fun classes I am. Let’s keep up the great work!

Check out the singing! Kindergarten