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High Shoals Elementary School Music Blog, Oconee County GA, Orff Music Instruction
My third grade classes have been focusing on folk songs. We have added Orff accompaniment, learned the cross-over technique, and performed line dances. They really enjoyed our activity with the song John Kanaka! First we talked about the history of the sea shanty: Then, we learned the song and discussed how the steady beat of the song might have helped sailors get their work done more efficiently. As we listened, the students identified the macro and micro beats and we practiced by using a pat-clap-pat-clap pattern. Next, the students transferred the macro/micro beats to a hand clapping game. First we practiced with paper plates: Holding the plate flat with their left hands, students pat the plate with their right. Then, they clap their right hands beneath and plate, pat the plate again, and clap their hands above the plate. They continue this pattern throughout the song feeling the macro beat (patting the plate) and the micro beat (clapping hands below and above): plate, below, plate, above, plate, below, plate, above. After they had a the movements down, we added tambourines and turned it into a circle dance! We got really fancy and rotated our outer circle on the fermata! Great job, third graders!
Well... back to school after spring break.. sort of. I've been out for 3 months, back for 2 weeks just half days and surgery again next Thursday- hopefully a minor one, this time! What a crazy school year! As promised, here are some of the center ideas I've been working on... These are a set of cards you can download, print, cut out and use to work on "musical math" or create a game where students work in groups and time themselves to see how quickly they can figure out the correct answer! Could also be used as a whole class competition; divide class in half and see how quickly students can get the correct answer. Play using "hangman" and see which group wins. Let me know how you use it!
Sarasponda
Here in NC we RARELY get snow.. it's been 2 years since we have had a snow day.. well, woohoo.. got one today! Perfect timing as I've just come back to school from a medical leave (surgery 8 weeks ago.. final exclamation point on this past year of 4 surgeries and intense medical issues and emergencies! Yeehaw!). I've taught 2 whole days.. whew.. and now a snow day, then tomorrow (if we have a full day of school, which is in question because the high today is a whopping 28 degrees, we have an exploratory day and we have students going to a museum and visitors coming to do rotations in the afternoon, so no regular classes then, and back to a regular schedule Friday, Monday, and Tuesday, then a half day Wed. with Chinese New Year assembly that I run Wednesday AM so no regular music then either.. a fun 2 weeks being back at school! It's been so great to see the kids but my energy and my physical strength is not quite up to the task of my normal, so I have set up some rotations with the kinders. and first graders and the 2nd through 4th graders will be getting ready for Music Olympics in early February! Please email me at [email protected] if you'd rather have this in powerpoint. I've given credit where I've found games/ideas from other sites.. if you see something you've developed or know an original source I didn't credit, PLEASE let me know. Thanks for stopping by!
High Shoals Elementary School Music Blog, Oconee County GA, Orff Music Instruction
In C, F & G Major This PDF includes: 3 Conductor's Score Lyric Sheet Individual parts for each instrument (5 Mallet Parts) If you are interested in more winter holiday music, check out: Carol of the Bells with color-coded parts Kwanzaa Oh Kwanzaa Don't forget to leave a comment and rating so you can earn your TpT credits for future purchases in any store. Enjoy!
Sally on the Seesaw
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Spring is one of my favorite times of year - each morning on my walk I hear birds singing and see rabbits hopping on fresh sprigs of green grass. And the flowers! Well, if you know me at all, you know how much I love flowers and especially irises. I have so many flowers planted around my house and particularly love the 20-something varieties of iris I currently have! This is a perfect rhyme and fingerplay for spring. Fingerplays are so underrated! Teach them to younger students as a fingerplay but bring them back to teach or reinforce rhythmic elements in first grade and as a canon experience for second grade, or add a So Mi or So La Mi melody, eventually adding in an ostinato or two. Transfer the rhyme and ostinati to non-pitched percussion, add timbre changes for each line and allow the students to decide how to perform it. For older students, use these as a basis for melodic improvisation or to walk the beat while clapping the rhythm or add a B Section with the names of egg layers - birds, fish, insects, turtles, platypus, echidna, reptiles, and lizards. Or have small groups of students create a movement story of one type of animal and perform for other groups to guess the animal. So many possibilities! For a better image, click here. Enjoy!
Here is a quick and easy play-along for the start of the 2014-2015 school year. The song is "Love Runs Out" performed by the group One Republic. There is much good news with this popular song, not the least of which it is in G dorian mode. Our Orff instruments are all set for this - all you'll need is B-flats and you're good to go! The other good news is the lyrics have no "bad words" so you're safe to use it completely in tact in your classroom. Please be sure to PURCHASE THE SONG before using this play-along. A $1.23 investment isn't much. Once you have it, you can use it as-is, there is no need to alter the key or tempo using a program such as Audacity. This song follows a very simple I, IV, V chord progression, but in case you're not quite clear on the chord changes, I've posted the beginning play-along below. Once you try it out, I'm sure you'll notice where the changes occur throughout the song. Feel free to add or subtract instruments at will. This is a fantastic review for students to see and hear the difference between BEAT and RHYTHM. The hand drum part (or any type of drums will do) clearly plays the steady beat. The other parts are playing a rhythm pattern (some more intricate than others). I did this with my students by having three groups that used the Boomwhacker colors - Green (the G minor chord) Red (the C major chord) Orange (the D minor chord). This was easier for them than having each student play all the chord changes. I placed the three colors on the board and pointed and called out the changes as the recording played. There is a part in the actual recording where the bass line moves from C to B-flat and then to G, but I have only written "the basics" here for you. Have fun!
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A quick post today with a song you can use for upper grades. Add a body percussion pattern (patsch, clap) and raise fisted hand on "Hey" and add T (teacher) clapping/students echoing body percussion patterns (in the score). Create an additional section to create a rondo: C Section: T. plays 4 beat pattern on drum, students choose an adjective to describe themselves that is the same letter/sound as their name: I used Fabulous Pfitzner for myself, I had "Interesting Isaac", "Amazing Allison", etc. Four students, one at a time, say their adjective and name over 4 beats, next student says theirs over the next four beats, etc. My fourth graders LOVED this!
It's getting into my favorite months of the year! I LOVE fall! I'm linking up today with a few fellow bloggers and Aileen Miracle from her blog here. This post is about "Three Things" that worked for me and my students this week. Enjoy! #1. Our family went apple picking in the mountains of NC this past weekend; a little over a 2 hour drive from home. I love seeing the mist rising from the mountains, and driving on the Blue Ridge Parkway; those mountains really do look blue!! So many varieties of apples but we were in luck as Honeycrisps were being picked! We got a bunch and this week I am beginning the song "Apple Tree". I posted about this here with a free pdf you can get by emailing me at [email protected]. I love the game that goes with it and you can choose to make yours a more melodic direction activity or a rhythmic activity. #2. Hula Hoop Activities I have a TON of things I do with hula hoops (and you can get them at Dollar Tree, hurray)!. I lay 4 on the ground, put drums inside one, shakers in another, wood instruments in another and metals in the final one. While we are learning about the percussion family, or during songs where specific instrument sounds play it is helpful to be able to have students together and a place for them to pick up instruments from and put them back into when they are done. It makes organization and clean up easy, also. I also find it helpful to put more instruments than students in each grouping; if there are 5 children at each hoop, I place 6-7 instruments inside so there is still some choice. Y'know they've gotta have choices! :) This week my littles (Junior Kindergarten y'all!) I decided it was time to break them out into some extra movement time; they were SOOOOOO wiggly!! I put several hoops on the floor and tell them they are magical islands. They can only go into the island when I stop the music. Play something fun and fast and let 'em go.. well, I give mine a few additional directions, but do your thing! A big rule - we MUST travel (they are in a transportation unit), they can fly, walk, skip, hop, run (carefully), be a train, etc. Voices OFF! I also do this with other grades and we have a dance party! Once the music stops I call out a body part; pinkie finger. ONLY pinkie fingers may go into the island. They have to go to another island the next time. When the music starts, off they go again. Vary the "body parts"; head (really funny to see how they problem solve it), elbows, knees, big toe, belly button (yes, really!). It's a great Brain Break, also, and really gets them into following directions. #3. My fourth graders really love "Boom, Snap, Clap". We use the song, "Chester" (from Action Songs Children Love, vol, 3) to go with it. This is a great collection of action and substitution songs for older kiddos. Boom, Snap, Clap is full of body percussion and once you've learned the words to accompany the motions, you can perform it with body percussion alone. I like to pair it with Chester; half the class performs Chester, half Boom, Snap, Clap. The song isn't as long as Boom, Snap, Clap so at the end everyone gets to perform Boom, Snap, Clap with both hands. Boom, Snap, Clap will be in my next volume of Hand Clapping Songs coming out hopefully next spring! Here it is now: You can also watch it on youtube:
I teach Junior Kindergarten, which means I have 4 and 5 year olds who are in a half-day program at my school. They are L.I.T.T.L.E! Cuties, for sure! Their classes leave me wrung out; exhausted! And after only 30 minutes per class. But things are BUSY with them and I always over plan just in case something doesn't work out during a lesson or we move too quickly through a particular song or concept. Right now my littles are learning about dinosaurs! ROAR! Although I have lots of songs that are about dinosaurs, I wanted a song that helped them with a musical concept. This morning while wandering through my stash, I came across some plastic bones I have used before (mainly at Halloween). The kids love to play them like rhythm sticks, although we have to be a little more careful as they are plastic and not wood. I got these at Dollar Tree several years ago but you could also use rhythm sticks and call these the bones! I did find some here for sale and these are about 3-4" long. These are from partycity.com and look to be about the same, also about 3-4" long. I keep everything in my room labeled like this with how many I have so I know I can have 12 children playing these (2 per child) and my students will need to have partners. It makes it easier to label everything with the quantity! So this morning after I found the bones I wrote a quickie to go with it. You will get the general idea from the song; I will be using Garage Band to play along with them using a growly electric guitar on Smart Guitar (love that feature) and will hold my dinosaur bones to demonstrate what to do with them as I find this works better than me at an instrument for these littles; one class in particular has to have the assistant stay as she is a wiggly, wily, willful child who becomes angry very easily! Yikes! I will have the children learn the song first and play with our "human bones" (hands), then partner up, one student will get dinosaur bones and the other child will sit behind them. We will practice playing our bones in different ways, maybe even make some letters out of them, then sing and play with our "dinosaur bones". The rhythms included are just suggested. After I wrote the song (of course I printed it, too!) I thought of a second verse, "Dinosaur eggs..". We will break out the "dinosaur eggs" (shakers) and play and sing that one, too! If you want a cleaner copy, email me at [email protected] and I will send you a jpeg or pdf file of the song. Happy Bone Playing! (oops, does that sound weird).. ha ha! Aimee
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November 20, 2013 We have been learning all about "tempo" (the speed--fast or slow--of the beat) and "rhythm" in ...
double-sided tone ladders for Apple Tree and Little Leaves The second graders are currently in the land of "do." We've sung and played games, body signed, showed the "low" note by bending or ducking as we sang, echoed patterns while using individual tone ladders, and written do melodies with leaf note heads. staff boards and leaf notes for melodic writing This week I'll present do and the do clef and we'll focus on identifying, reading and writing do songs on the staff. do Songs Apple Tree Little Leaves Mouse Mousie Pumpkin Man (only the first two measures) One, Two, Three (Johnny Caught a Flea) One of the practice activities I'll be incorporating is my Apple and Pumpkin Melody Match I found foam apples (the come in packages mixed green and red and can be found in the dollar bin,) and foam pumpkins. (I really need to own stock in Target stores. They receive a lot of my cash.) On each apple I wrote the solfa of a do melodic pattern. On the pumpkins I wrote the same melody on the staff with a do clef: I stripped away the rhythm of these patterns because I want students to focus on the melody. (Have you ever noticed when showing mystery songs many kids will figure it out by matching the words and the rhythm and neglect the melody entirely? No? Just me? ...ok...) Each student will start the game with a pumpkin or an apple. They must find their partner and then write out their melody jointly on a staff board. I have pumpkin, ghost, leaves, and blackcat noteheads, (thank you, Amy!) once the pair have found each other they can choose which noteheads they use to write their pattern. Here are some of the do patterns I've used and what song and phrase they are from: Do you have additional do songs/activities? Please let me know. Have a lovely autumn week!
I've seen several posts on FB pages about what to do at the end of the year. If you've been here before you know I started a tradition a few years ago singing camp songs. Picture on bottom is kids reaction when we get ready to start camp songs! They are the PERFECT finish *ta da* at the end of the year. It keeps the kids singing, clapping, and they are just plain FUN!! This is a previous post I had that has several including tons of variations to "A Sailor Went to Sea" that my kids can't get enough of! This is the expression I usually see when I tell them it's time for Camp Songs! In addition to these my students also love: "Highland Gates" from the Amidons book Down in the Valley- get the book.. you won't regret it!! http://www.dancingmasters.com/store/books-cds-dvds/down-in-the-valley I use this with First Grade on up through about third. Jump Jim Joe https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1m-DIa5QTA GREAT for littles- PreK/ Kinder/First Grade And I see this from the older kids when we are doing camp songs: Sashay the Donut also from the Amidons book of the same name (grades 3 and up) They LOVE this one!! These are some of the youtube videos I watched to learn how to sing/perform the songs and chants and then personalized them. I don't use these with the kids. We actually put a crackling fire on the screen to watch and turn the lights out so we have a campfire atmosphere. Wisconsin Milk is here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Mr0ccX7RCc Mac n Cheese: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xV46eduDyTY Go Bananas: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFXitbTQ0-E Ricky Ticky Toomba: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCmvCJU6v6E&list=PL9738E2086220EEBA&index=4 Tarzan: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7w1aREkMnwY&list=PL9738E2086220EEBA&index=8 Herman the Worm: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCgwV-iI80E&list=PL9738E2086220EEBA&index=9 Singing in the Rain also called Chili Bop: (LOVE this one!) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5bbHVrtx0Ow Pizza Hut: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ctjeZD0c0A Humpty Dumpty: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYY7JHl_nFw HYSTERICAL! instead of the pelvic thrust on "huh" I have the kids clap and jump as high as they can go. Found a Peanut: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOh6tnceO3Q Froggy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VoLaQV8aE8 Baby Shark: MUST DO!!! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=da2IgWbkvI0 Start at 1:15 And a couple more: Have fun and keep the music going until the bitter (or sweet) end!
We music teachers love our manipulatives, whether they are the mini-erasers from Target, stuffed animals, popsicle sticks, or printed items. Engaging students to actively create while in remote/3-learning is challenging. I have been using Google slides to create manipulatives students can move around and wanted to share these with you here. You can use these in many ways - the final slide has the ones you may want to use with students to go with the Bee Bee Bumblebee rhyme. Here is what the moveable slide looks like - with cards the students can click and drag to create new rhythms based upon the traditional rhyme. There are other slides to use as well in the classroom: Here's another to use with Bluebird Bluebird: Hope you enjoy these and let me know how you use them!
My kiddos love this game and BEG to play it again and again. The beauty of it, well.. it's also a great informal assessment! I use this with my Junior Kindergarten (ages 4 and 5) up through first grade. This is based on a similar one in Gameplan. The song and graphics are my own and so I am not stepping on Jeff and Randy's toes by sharing it with you but will give them all the credit for the game!! :)
I have posted before about the end of the school year and how I sing camp songs with my kiddos. They love it and can't wait for the end of April to start singing these crazy, silly, hysterical songs! It has become a much anticipated tradition! Here are a few I recently learned and my students love! 1. Alligator This is serious fun here, folks! Dramatize the first call and response part and then really let loose with the craziness on the "alligator" chorus part. You can see it in action on the youtube video below the music. 2. Big Camp Mambo I love (almost) anything with syncopation and this one has it in spades! 3. Boom Chicka Boom This is the first one I always teach them and I can't tell you how much they LOVE it. The sillier you are, the more they will love it! We start with the traditional while performing a patsch, clap pattern, then we do their favorite "styles": Girly style (high voice, pretend to fix hair, put makeup on, fan your face, etc.) Muscle Man (make bodybuilding gestures and use "Arnold" voice.. y'know what I mean!) Underwater (speak the chant and move pointer finger up and and down on lips very fast) Baby Style (a goo goo ga goo goo ga... high baby voice) Barnyard Style (I said a moo chicka moo... I said a milk chicka moo, chicka milk, chicka moo) Surfer Dude (I said a dude chicka dude.. I said a whoa, chicka, narly, chicka wave, chicka dude) Opera Style (use your imagination) Grandpa Style (use your imagination, yes, again) Parent Style (I said a room, go to your room... I said a room, go to your room, don't come out until next June) Star Wars Style (OH, they LOVE this one and I always end with it! I said a zzzzt chicka zzzzt... I said a Luke I am your Father, join the dark side chicka doom.. end with "Jedi" instead of "uh huh" and "Dark Side" instead of "oh yeah" and then I end with "The Force Be With You". WINNER!!!
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