One, Two, Three O'Leary

Yes, I have not fallen off the face of the earth, lol!  I hope you all had a wonderful December!  Things are back in full swing in Erie but I wanted to share a song that my 5th graders started before winter break.  They're reading songs with ti now.  I'm so excited!  I've not gotten this far in the Kodály sequence before!  The school I was at before was a "bilingual" school (I've blogged about this before) and there was such a gap that we could never "get to it."  With this being my 3rd year at Red Hawk I've been able to "catch-up" my students and get them where I'd like them to be in the sequence.  With them reading ti at this point in the school year I'm hoping that we can start to get into altered tones before the end of the year!

Okay, I took a tangent, but here's a song that my mom actually told me about that can be found in "Singing Games and Rhymes for Middle Years", which is published by the National Youth Choirs of Scotland.  I can't find nor do I have a primary source for the song

I can't find nor do I have a primary source for the song.  But, I'm using it with my kids regardless because it contains ti  in a pattern that they haven't practiced as much.

Here the song:

The game is super fun and the kids LOVE it:

Formation: lines of 6-7 students, all facing "forward" in the line.

Action:  The first person of each line has a playground ball.  On the first beat of the song they bounce the ball.  On the second beat they catch the ball.  On beats 3-4 they pass it over their head to the person standing behind them.  That student takes the ball and repeats the pattern of bounce-catch-over head (2 beats for this action).  This repeats through the end of the song, for a total of 4 times through the pattern for the entire song.  The student who has the ball at the end of the song runs to the end of the line.  All the students in their line spread their legs and the student with the ball rolls the ball through the legs of their teammates.  The first team who rolls their ball through all their team members' legs "wins."

I have added that between rounds of play they have 10 seconds to shuffle their line.  If you don't do this, only the first 4 people in line get to bounce the ball and only the back people get to roll the ball.

Here are some pictures from one of my 5th grade classes playing the game:

First person is bouncing and catching the ball:

The ball is passed overhead

The second person bounced and caught the ball and is now passing it over head:

The last person (the 5th in line) got the ball at the end of the song, ran to the back and rolled the ball up between their team members' legs:

On my to-do list is to create a PowerPoint for them to practice reading this song.  It's quickly become a class favorite!

I wanted to let you all know about a collaborative Kodály blog that I'm taking part in!!!  Aileen Miracle, Lindsay Jervis and I started talking about it around Thanksgiving and are now getting it up and running (in huge part to Aileen's work, thanks Aileen!!!)  It's called Kodály Corner and will consist of blog posts from 8 different Kodály teachers from across the nation.  

Aileen has started us off with our first post and will be posting again this weekend.  There will be two blog posts weekly in which we will take turns sharing different teaching ideas and strategies.  Please head over to Kodály Corner to check it out!!

I hope you all have a GREAT week!!!