1-13-10

The classroom at Chavez was SHAKIN’ this week as students finished their maracas.  Step 1: Students popped the balloons inside of the paper-mached shell of their maracas.  Step 2:  Students put beans inside of the maraca and listened to the sound, adding more beans until they liked the tone.  Step 3:  Students sealed the maracas and added paper-towel tube handles.  Step 3: Paint and shake!

Sarah helps students create the shake

Marina and Jose paint their maracas with Monica's help

The final product! Yazmin's beautiful maraca

1-6-10

HEArt at Chavez is back in action in 2010.  To continue the flow from our Hip Hop workshops in 2009, we started the class by circling up with a set of percussion instruments.  We are entering a new unit that focuses on ways we use the creative arts to express our emotions and cope with stress.  In an exercise on emotional literacy, each student was asked to name an emotion that they’d felt during the day and to play an instrument that expressed that emotion.  After each student took a turn, we introduced a method of making home-made maracas out of simple everyday materials.  The students blew up balloons and covered them with paper mache to create a shell mimicking that of gourds, the traditional material.  Next week, we’ll put beans inside the maracas so that they shake, cover the hole and add handles.

Tamara, Viri, and Oswaldo

6th Graders Viri, Vanessa and Marina making maracas

12-9-09 and 12-16-09

In a two-week workshop, guest artists Tefferi Brook and Patrick Davenport came and taught the Chavez middle school students a little something about hip hop.   Teff and Patrick are both deeply involved in MMAP’s History through Hip Hop Program.

Week 1 began with a percussion instrument jam session to get the beat going.  Teff then went through basic hip hop terms including tempo, hook, verse, bridge, and bar.   Students learned how to count bars and identify the basic skeleton of a rap song as we listened to “Down” by Jay Sean ft. Lil Wayne.  By the end of class, everyone was dancing and singing to the music!

Week 2 also began with a percussion jam session with all the students reaching for their favorite instruments from the week before.  This week, our guest artists focused on the history of hip hop music.  Working in groups, students learned about the four key players in hip hop: the DJ, the MC, the B-Boy, and the Graffiti Artist.  Students also learned about four pioneers of hip-hop music:  2Pac, E40, Too Short, and Mac Dre.

Guest artist Tefferi Brook

Tefferi and Sarah with students Freddy, Ana and Alexia

Tamara and 7th grader Emmanuel present on Too Short

Patrick gets spiritual during the percussion jam session