Tuesday, October 28, 2014

Humuhumunukunukuapua'a

1st graders have been learning about echo songs and songs that have repeats in them. What better song to talk about repeats that "Humuhumunukunukuapua'a"?! After listening to the song and creating a hula dance to tell the story, we drew pictures of what we thought this creature looks like. The origin of the name means "the fish with the pig-like nose". We also learned that it is the state fish of Hawaii. Do you know what your state fish is?



Friday, October 24, 2014

Bow Wow Wow!

The 3rd and 4th graders have been studying the pentatonic scale. I found a great pentatonic pack on TeachersPayTeachers with lesson plans, activities, assessments, and Powerpoints. It has been extremely helpful and the kids have loved the lessons. One of the first lessons is for the song "Bow Wow Wow". While singing the song, we include triangles, a xylophone ostinato, and a dance. Every kid has a job to do and we rotate through each position. Instruments, dancing, and singing in one lesson... What's not to love?!

Thursday, October 23, 2014

So-Mi-La Songs

2nd graders have been spending a lot of time reviewing So, Mi, La this year. We spent the last two weeks composing a SML song. First, we created an 8-beat rhythm pattern using tas and ti-tis. Then we added pitches to those rhythms. Finally, we notated those onto a staff. We drew a treble clef and discovered that our piece was in 2/4 time. We also had to learn about bar lines, so this was a great review project for lots of things!

This was our first real practice putting notes onto a staff, so it took a bit of time for some of the kids to grasp drawing notes on lines and spaces (something I realized I need to spend more time on in 1st grade when we learn about lines and spaces). After they had notated their song onto the staff, I gave each student a glockenspiel to practice their piece. Once everyone was done, they performed their piece on the xylophone for the class. The students loved showing off what they had written!
On a side note, if I could do one thing differently, I think I would have had the staff notation on a separate page. That way, when the students played it on the instruments, they were reading from the staff notation and not the rhythmic notation they had on top.

Five Little Pumpkins

Kindergarten's letter 'F' song this week is "Five Little Pumpkins." I cut out and laminated 5 pumpkin "masks" for the kids to wear. The pumpkins get to have the speaking parts of the song ("Oh my, it's getting late!" "There are witches in the air!", etc.). I encourage them to use scared or scary voices to add to the effect. We also use the thunder tube to create a storm when we get to "Whoosh went the wind and out went the lights." After all, thunderstorms are the main reason our power goes out, right?

Tuesday, October 21, 2014

Engine, Engine No. 9

The Kindergarteners are learning songs for every letter of the alphabet again this year. Last week we were on the letter 'E' and learned "Engine, Engine No.9". After learning the song, we split into 4 trains. The engine of each train kept the steady beat with sandpaper blocks, which made our train sound more real. At the end of the song, the engine passed the sandpaper blocks to the next person and then became the caboose. The 4 trains were told that they weren't allowed to crash into another train or go too fast. If they did, they had to sit down. I did this with 58 kindergarteners, and I didn't have a single wreck! Yay!

 

Monday, October 13, 2014

This is Why We Dot!

3rd graders just learned tika-tika. We have been doing lots of things to practice. We've notated rhythms with popsicle sticks, clapped flashcards, and notated songs on the board. Last week we did a composition activity using stickers called, "This is Why We Dot!" Using either 1 (ta), 2 (ti-ti), 4 (tika-tika), or 0 (shh) stickers, students composed an 8-beat rhythm pattern. Once they were done, they traded cards with others in their group and clapped them. After that, some groups had the idea to put all of their papers together and make one giant rhythm. I love when they think of new ways to challenge themselves!



Surround the State in Song 2014

Every year, NDACDA has an honor choir for 5th and 6th grade students. Teachers select their top 6 choir students to attend and they spend one day together rehearsing for a concert that afternoon. The cool thing about this choir is that at the same time our concert was being performed, 4 other concerts with the exact same music were being performed at the exact same time all around the state. We literally "Surrounded the State in Song".

This is always one of my favorite events during the year and its the first time many of these kids have sung together with a large group. This year, our conductor was Beth Rasch, the music teacher at Ramstad Middle School in Minot. She did an excellent job! Our choir was made up of around 50 students from 10 different schools. Here are some pictures from our day.



Hanging out with Colonel Sanders!
 Two of the instrumentalists for the percussion in "Rhythm of the Rain".
Another percussionist for "Rhythm of the Rain"


The students from Ely and Little Flower
And of course we had to take a goofy picture! 

Tasty Time Signatures

The 5th Graders have been studying time signatures the past few weeks. To help review meter in 2, 3, and 4 we have done several activities. (Some of these may seem a bit easy for 5th grade, but I'm finding that it's really helping to reinforce the number of beats each note receives for those students who always struggle with that concept.) Here are a few of them.

Build A Cupcake: In groups, students match the time signature on the frosting to the correct number of beats on the cupcake. When they were finished, I had them line up the cupcakes and create two large rhythms. (This game can be found on TeachersPayTeachers)
 

 
 
Noodle Notation: Using an idea I got from www.mrskingrocks.blogspot.com , I cut up a bunch of pool noodles that I bought at the dollar store this summer and made them into rhythms. The 5th graders had to compose rhythms in 3/4 and 4/4 time using the noodles.
 
 
Autumn Leaves: I have a bunch of autumn leaves laminated with different rhythms on them. Using those leaves, students created measures of 2/4, 3/4 and 4/4. Once they had finished, they notated their rhythms onto a worksheet.
 
Tasty Time Signatures: This will be my final assessment on time signatures for the students. It is as worksheet that I created. Since we are in the month of October and close to Halloween, I used the idea of candy rhythms. Students have to color each piece of candy to represent the meter it belongs in. I added in the rhythms after I printed it off. This way I can modify the worksheet to be easier or harder for different students/grade levels.
We are also doing some listening activities to identify whether a song is in duple or triple time. All of these activities will springboard us into our introduction to 6/8 time later this month. 


Thursday, October 9, 2014

Down By the Bay

Kindergarteners are practicing rhyming in their classrooms, so to reinforce that concept, we did a fun activity with the rhyming words in the book/song "Down By the Bay." After going through all of the rhyming animals and making up some of our own, we created watermelons out of paper plates and glued on a rhyming set to create a verse from the song. On the top of the plate I wrote, "Did you ever see a..." and they glued on their first picture. On the bottom of the plate I wrote, "Kissing a.." (or whatever the action was) and they glued on their bottom picture. The kids had a blast doing it, however, it was so busy during the cutting and gluing day that I didn't get any pictures of their finished plates. I posted a similar post last year, so you can look back and find the picture sheets that I use and examples of finished watermelons.
Coloring their watermelons

Don't forget the seeds!

Lines and Spaces

The 1st graders are practicing their lines and spaces on the staff. To practice, we used our lap packs and bingo markers to mark the 5 lines and the 4 spaces. We always practice counting from the bottom to the top, that way when we learn the note names in 4th grade, they follow the same rule. We also played a relay game where they had to race to put their foam dot on the correct line or space on the rug staff.
And can I just say again how much I LOVE my new flipForms?! They are absolutely perfect for creating small, organized groups when doing an activity like this!