K-5 Music
Gateway’s music program is based upon the Orff-Schulwerk approach, an innovative approach to teaching and learning music based on the ways children naturally communicate. It weaves together speech and poetry, movement and dance, drama and song, and improvisation with playing musical instruments. Direct experience with sound and movement precedes theoretical study, and cooperative ensemble work is encouraged over competitive individual virtuosity as students develop their innate joy for music.
Using their voices to speak, chant and sing, and their bodies to move and dance, the children experience intensive learning through total involvement. Using their own bodies as instruments, using small percussion and melody instruments like xylophones and metallophones, the children are encouraged to move joyfully from musical imitation to improvisation and literacy.
