Sing About Martin!

The Kindergarteners celebrated Martin Luther King Day by learning this familiar tune. We added sign language for Martin, caring, peace, world, and love. The second day we sang the song, we added hand drums and tambourines in place of the clapping. I also let students come up and sing the echo as a solo.

Musical Form

Here is an activity I did with my 3rd graders to work on musical form.  First, we created patterns using our ZooPal plates and ABC letters. Then, each group composed 3 different rhythms to accompany each section. Having the visual of the characters on the plate, the rhythms below, and the ABC letters above really helped reinforce the idea that all of the A's need to be the same, all of the B's the same, etc.

A Rondo pattern of ABACA

 

Another of my favorite form activities is using lessons from Artie Almeida's book, "Parachutes, Ribbons, and Scarves, Oh My!". We studied AABA form and listened to "Gallop". I finally got to use the pool noodle ponies I made this summer. The students took turns galloping around the room during the A sections and grazing in the pasture during the B sections. Other times the boys rode during the A's and the girls during the B's. So much fun!!

 

 

 



 

 



Animals Galore

Each year after studying, "The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra", by Benjamin Britten, I take the 4th graders to see a live orchestra perform. We are fortunate enough to have a symphony nearby that puts on a free children's performance every January. This year, the performance was titled "Animals Galore". Selections included "The Firebird" by Stravinsky, "Spring" by Vivaldi, a piece featuring a high school violinist, the theme from "Jurassic Park", and "The Carnival of the Animals" by Camille Saint-Saëns.

This is one of the most memorable experiences my students and I have each year. I love watching the reactions the children have when they see a double bass for the first time or when they giggle at the crazy conductor bouncing around on his podium. Some of them get so excited after a piece they want to stand up and cheer (but we've talked about concert etiquette, so they don't!).  For most of my students, this is the only experience they will ever have with a live fine-arts performance of any kind.

All of the excited 4th graders ready for the show to begin!

The orchestra tuning before the concert

Bouncing to the Beat

Here is a video of my 6th graders "Bouncing to the Beat" at halftime of our boys basketball game. We've got mad skills ya'll!!

 

 I found this awesome idea on Kristen Lukow's blog: http://kristinlukow.blogspot.com/. Check her out, she does amazing things with her students!

Spreading Christmas Cheer!

Each month, the 6th graders work on a different project. So far this year they have made instruments, composed sound pieces, and studied musical styles; but not done any singing! Our December project was caroling. The students split into groups, selected a carol, and worked independently to prepare their pieces. I would work with groups individually at the piano, but while they were waiting, each group recorded themselves practicing on either an iPad or a tablet. This way they could watch their performance and critique themselves. The students loved recording themselves and I found this really increased the level of participation from some of my non-singers. I was gone for two days, but the students were able to record their practices and upload their videos to my Dropbox so I could watch and review them from home. Technology is so cool!

On the last day before Christmas break, the students flocked the hallways, singing for anybody and everybody who would listen. Here are some pictures of the kids around the building.

A group recording their performance on the iPad

Singing for the Kindergarteners

In the computer lab

They even went to Phy Ed!

Serenading the ladies in the office

Yup, they even stopped people in the hallway!

Bring on the Snow!

The 3rd and 4th graders had their musical last month. We did "Bring on the Snow!" by Andy Beck and Brian Fisher. Due to the large number of students we are gaining at the elementary, each grade level had their own performance this year. One of my 3rd grade teachers took a ton of pictures for me during the show, but unfortunately I did not get any pictures from the 4th grade program. Sorry! Both grades did a spectacular job! Here are some of the pictures from the 3rd grade performance.

Knock, knock!

Heidi Plume and Tommy Billfeather

Some of our sharply dressed penguins!

I know, let's make angels in the snow!

Ms. Flurry and her snowflake ballerinas

Extra! Extra!

Ole and Gilbert, the talking mounted reindeer heads

Blizzard on the Way

More knock, knock jokes

The cute snowmen I made to decorate our stage with

The entire 3rd grade cast. Way to go, kids!

Bucket Drumming and the Dreidle Game

I have slowly collected a large bag of coffee cans and love pulling them out to do some bucket drumming. I found a great bucket drumming routine to go with "Trepak" from "The Nutcracker" that I did with my 5th graders before Christmas break. It was very loud, but a very fun way to study form!

Faces of extreme concentration!

Another holiday activity we did was learn about Hanukkah. After learning the Dreidle Song, I taught them how to play the game. The students (especially the boys) loved the game. I think this was because there was a sense of "gambling" involved! We played with fake gold coins, but they still were quite competitive.

Zoo Pal Solfege

1st graders have just begun talking about So and Mi. We used Zoo Pal plates to compose S-M patterns on a 2-line staff. I simply put two lines of tape on the floor or my FlipForms and gave each group two different animal plates to compose with. This was great for reinforcing the idea of having both on lines or both on spaces. It also worked well to help them remember to space their plates out left to right, not top to bottom; a common mistake made when students first start putting notes on the staff.

Jim Along, Josie

The letter J song for the Kindergarteners this year was "Jim Along, Josie". After learning the song, we added our own actions. We jumped along, skipped along, tip-toed along, and danced along. One class got very creative and decided we should crab-walk along. I didn't join in on this one, because I had to take a picture instead. ;)

The xylophones in the middle were for reviewing the letter 'I' song/activity. We were working on Improvising on the Instruments. We talked about the proper way to hold the mallets, how to play softly and hit the bars in the correct spots. They made beautiful sounds and took their turns very seriously. Not a single student had to sit out for playing incorrectly or out of turn. In Kindergarten, that is rare!

Christmas Rhythms

Christmas break has come and gone and I didn't get any blogging done! So here I sit the first day back with a ton of posts to catch up on. Oh well!

The Kindergarteners are still working on long and short rhythm patterns. I will soon be introducing them to ta and ti-ti. To give them practice writing rhythms, I made a bunch of tree/present, elf/reindeer, hat/mitten manipulatives for them to work with. They created a 4-beat pattern and then wrote the correct rhythm underneath. I did the same activity in 1st grade, only they wrote the tas (quarter notes) and ti-tis (eighth note pairs).

Tree, present, tree, present=long, short-short, long, short-short

Mittens, hat, mittens, hat=short-short, long, short-short, long