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!
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Another one for composing with Boomwhackers with the colored dice I mentioned in an earlier post (scroll down to see other uses for these!):
Some of you are "lucky" and are still on winter break. . .. I'm not one of those "lucky" ones. But, it's all in the eye of the beholder, isn't it?! It was a really fun first day back. The kiddos were really excited to share about their break and ready to get back into the swing of things. Speaking of getting back into the swing of things, we brought this favorite back in 4th grade today. We used it in 3rd grade for low la but are bringing it back now to prepare syn-co-pa (feels like I've been prepping this forever. . . . .). Here's the song: This is a fun boomwacker part that we added with it in 3rd grade: And here's a really EASY Orff accompaniment that my 3rd graders this year did for our Parent Engagement Night: As I mentioned, we're prepping syn-co-pa so here's a new PowerPoint that I made: First, we have lyric slides: Then there are some low la prep slides that I included for next year's 3rd grade: After preparation comes practice, so here are a couple of the practice slides we'll use for review with 4th grade as a warm-up when prepping syn-co-pa: Here are the rhythm preparation slides: And here are the practice slides: After syn-co-pa is presented we'll sing it on solfége, using the stick rhythm and maybe even play "Remote Control" with it: And we'll practice reading the solfa on the staff, with the rhythm. Again, we might use an inner hearing game for this: I mentioned in an earlier post that I know I need to do a better job practicing reading Absolute Pitch Names, so here are those slides: Once we've read syn-co-pa in numerous songs we'll finally get to these cards. I made them for the Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer game but never got to them. Things happen and the kids we're prepared enough, so we "rolled with the punches" and had to change our pacing: I'm presenting at CMEA (Colorado Music Educators Conference) at the end of the month: one session called "Upping the Ante" and another one called "Manipulative Mania". This is for the "Manipulative Mania" session, sponsored by ROCKE (so, all you Colorado folks, you can buy this at CMEA this year!). I LOVE the way this turned out and we'll be using this as an assessment in a few weeks. Here's the beat board, the oars act as barlines: The students will have four canoes and they must put them in the correct order to match the song: Using the back side of the canoe, they can compose their own 4-beat rhythms on each canoe using a vis-a-vis marker. The boards can also be used with other die cutes such as fish, boats, seashells. Here's a couple fish thrown on: If you would like a copy of the PowerPoint above, it's available at my Teacher Pay Teachers store and includes the non-holiday song sorting game from the Rudolph file. I hope you all have a GREAT weekend!!
Wow! In one week, we’ve celebrated Valentine’s Day, seen the start of the Winter Olympics, and started Lunar New Year celebrations – including Chinese New Year on Feb. 15th! We’ve created an entire Chinese New Year, or Lunar New Year celebration at www.musicplayonline.com. If you don’t subscribe to the online site, You can download the […]
Music education blog, K-8, teaching ideas & resources, advocacy, quotes, Kodaly, Orff, bells, Boomwhackers, integration, & home-made instruments.
Our materials are great for preschoolers! Here are some of our products that are especially good for preschoolers, and where to begin.
Play everyone's favorite instrument along with everyone's current favorite song! The score comes color-coded for ease of reading. Improvisation section in A minor in the middle of the piece. Complete with free YouTube video to play along with! https://youtu.be/WqXIm8sTDrE
Boomwhackers Chroma-Notes Stick-Ons Geschikt voor: Toetsenborden, Orff-instrumenten, Melodicas, xylofoons, klokkenspel, chimes, etc. 500 stickers in Boomwhackers kleuren 300 diatonische met letters 100 diatonische zonder letters 75 chromatisch met letters 25 chromatisch zonder letters Zonder scheuren te verwijderen en te hergebruiken Heeft geen invloed op het geluid Leverbaar sinds Januari 2014 artikelnummer 329571 verkoopseenheid 1 stuk
This is a beloved folk song I learned long ago at a workshop and have loved ever since. The original folk song's words are, "I dont care if the rain comes down, I'm gonna dance all day". Needing a song for our holiday concert with a winter theme, I played around with this one and my students helped develop an easy orchestration and form we have loved using. Sing the song as written, each time students sing the word, "dance" they strike a dance pose. Clap "hey, hey" and patsch "carry me away". For alternating sections, students came up with the idea of continuing the orchestration and humming the tune while doing dance moves. Here's how it worked out: A: Song with orchestration B: Hum melody, orchestration continues; perform Macarena movements (this works out perfectly with the song and the dance can be performed twice). A: Song with orchestration C: Hum melody, orchestration continues; perform the Floss (YUP.. what they voted for!). A: Song with orchestration D: Hum melody, orchestration continues; freestyle- students perform movement of their choosing. A: Song with orchestration, end with "I'm gonna dance all day" 3 times followed by a final glockenspiel, "plink". This was SO fun and really had my students moving and grooving. Good for any winter fun! Hope you enjoy this one now or later!
Xylophone Soprano de marque EMUS, en fibre de verre de couleur. Gamme Do5-La6. Ajoutez une nouvelle dimension à vos cours d'Orff avec ces superbes instruments. Son supérieur et solidement construits. Lames avec des caractéristiques similaires au palissandre mais non affectées par l'humidité ou les changements climatiques saisonniers. Inclus 1 lame Si bémol, 2 lames de Fa dièse, et 2 paires de maillets.
This little invention has been a hit with kids as well as teachers. I first created a Bop-o-phone out of desperation for additional xylos. The frame/box costs basically nothing, and it adds some versatility to a set of Boomwhackers. Here are easy instructions and pictures. Please post additional ideas or feedback. Enjoy! Materials needed: an empty, sturdy box that contained a case of 8.5" x 11" copy paper (usually easy to find in the faculty workroom), wide tape, a meter stick, a marker, sturdy scissors, and a about six feet of yarn or soft string. For each mallet, you will need a pencil or 10" length of 1/4" diameter dowel, a small rubber ball (party favor or from 25 cent vending machine), and glue. Step #1 (1) Begin 2 cm from the left side of the box and mark along the top edge 4 cm wide by 1 cm deep arcs, 1 cm apart. Repeat markings on opposite edge. Cut out the arcs. (Cutting from each side and meeting in the middle will give cleaner results.) Step 2 (2) Gently pull the glued seams on one side of the box apart and lay the end flap flat. Mark a line through the center of the bottom of the box from the open edge to 7" from the opposite side. Then mark a "V", extending from the center line to each corner of the box. Cut along these lines. Step #3 (3) Fold the bottom sections over each other with the "V" on top (inside), narrowing the width of the open end of the box to about 8". Then fold the end flaps up, trim/square them up, and tape your seams. (4) Place Boomwhackers in the 'cradles' in diatonic order. (You can leave some off for pentatonic activities). Tie two lengths of yarn around the box and tubes lengthwise as shown in the top picture. Tape yarn in place on bottom of box to keep it from sliding around. The yarn will keep tubes in place, and it doesn't really inhibit tone. (5) Make a mallet by carving/drilling a hole in a rubber ball, applying glue to in the hole and on the end of the dowel or pencil, and inserting the stick into the ball. (Soft rubber balls actually sound better than hard ones.) You can use the Bop-o-phone as an Orff-type instrument for ostinatos or as a melody instrument. It's very easy to convert Boomwhackers to and from this mallet format. Here's a link to my digital song collection of color-coded melodies (with ostinato suggestions), which you might find very useful and versatile: http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/The-BIG-BOOK-of-FOLK-SONG-FUN-for-Bells-or-Boomwhackers-466033
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Here is my arrangement of Frere Jacques. This piece introduces a round and can also be used to practice eighth notes.
Wow, December is upon us just like that! Celebrating Thanksgiving so late in November seems to have shortened the Christmas season a bit, so some of you may be looking to simplify holiday lessons or performances. Here's an easy, fun (yet worthwhile) activity I'll be doing with K-2 classes at several schools this month. Practice chanting the poem to a steady beat first. Then have students play assigned bells on the beat, and sing all syllables that belong to one beat on the pitch the designated bell produces. I have several of these I hope to add to my TPT store soon. For now, here's a freebie 4 U. Enjoy it with your kiddos! : ) I'm back : ) I finished the set of Rhymes and Chimes for Christmas Time, and I'm having so much FUN with this! I designed this material for myself, K-3 classroom teachers, music teachers, home-schoolers, and families. There are some great language fluency skills that come with this 'spoon full of sugar,' and the language concepts and activities flow into musical ones so easily. Also, this is the easiest way to put together a musical performance with bells and young children. Here are some sample pages: I created five pieces with five options for each: poem text, poem text with accented syllables (the ones bells will be played on), colored text, colored text with bell icons, and actual notation for teacher reference or older students. (Teachers and students don't need to be able to read the music notation to be successful with this.) I've also included a sheet of printable labels to color-code plain chimes or bells. You can click on a sample page to go to my store and purchase this set of five piece set (20 pages of printables or projectables). Thanks for stopping by!
Houten standaard Boomwhackers Deze Boomwhacker standaard is een must voor elke Boomwhack speler. Het is geschikt voor zowel de diatonische set van Boomshackers als de bijbehorende chromatische aanvullingsset. Zo kunt u zorgen voor de perfecte opslag en ordening van uw Boomwhackers. Wat zijn Boomwhackers? Boomwhackers zijn gestemde percussiebuizen. De plastic buizen hebben verschillende lengtes en zijn ingedeeld in één kleur. Als ze op verschillende materialen worden geslagen, verandert de klankkleur, maar de toon blijft hetzelfde. Hoe korter de Boomwhackers zijn, hoe hoger de speelbare toon wordt. Boomwhackers kunnen vrijwel onmiddellijk door iedereen bespeeld worden: er is geen ritmische of muzikale kennis voor nodig. Kortom, een uniek instrument, dat het genot van het spelen van muziek al bij vele honderdduizenden mensen heeft weten over te brengen. Geschikt voor klein en groot! Maar zeker ook een hele leuke manier om kinderen met muziek en noten kennis te laten maken
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Miss White had a fright In the middle of the night Saw a ghost eating toast Halfway up the lamp post! Here's a fun arrangement to use with your young students, just in time for Halloween!
