Jingle Bells Dance

Confession time: I'm sometimes a Sunday night planner.  Okay, a lot of times I end up planning on a Sunday night.  Now, I have my year, trimester and month plans scoped out of what I want to teach.  What I find myself on Friday nights doing is putting down how I'm going to teach it and the song literature and activities that go with that.

My first are practicing ta & ti-ti and of course "Jingle Bells" a good song for isolating ti-ti ta ti-ti ta on the "jingle bells, jingle bells" part.  Now, pardon my rush but the only version of Jingle Bells on my computer is in augmentation of how I sing it and have my kids read it:

We're going to be doing some reading work of ta ti-ti in the high concentration portion of the lesson and deriving the ti-ti ta ti-ti ta on "jingle bells, jingle bells" is going to be my transition into the "change of pace" portion of the lesson, which will be a dance that goes to Jingle Bells.  

There are two ways that I do this dance.  The easier version uses a parachute and the more advanced version has concentric circles with partners.

Here's the parachute dance directions:

Formation: circle, everyone holding on to the parachute.

Action:

Verse (32 beats total)

Beats 1-4: heel-toe-heel-toe with the right foot (dashing through the snow)

Beats 5-8: four slide steps to the right- like a side-ways gallop (in a one horse open sleigh)

Beats 9-12: heel-toe-heel-toe with the left foot (o'er the fields we go)

Beats 13-16: four slide steps to the left. (laughing all the way)

Beats 17-32: repeat the first 16 beats

Chorus (32 beats total)

Beats 1-2: with parachute in hands, three pats on feet to the rhythm (jin-gle bells)

Beats 3-4: three pats on knees, to the rhythm (jin-gle bells)

Beats 5-8: four pats at waist, to the beat

Beats 9-16: lift the parachute over the head.  I call a color and those students with that color let go of the parachute, turn around in place and re-grab parachute.  Now, if your students are really careful those students on the colors called can run under the parachute to another spot of that same color.  This is the FUN way to play! ;)

Beats 17-32: repeat the first 16 beats.

When I do this with older kiddos we do it in a concentric circles.  

Formation: concentric circles, facing partners (one in the outside circle, one in the inside circle)

Action:

Verse (32 beats total)

Beats 1-4: heel-toe-heel-toe with the foot that leads in the counter-clockwise direction.  This is the right foot for the outside circle and the left foot for the inside circle (dashing through the snow)

Beats 5-8: four slide steps counterclockwise- like a side-ways gallop (in a one horse open sleigh)

Beats 9-12: heel-toe-heel-toe with foot that leads in the clockwise direction (o'er the fields we go)

Beats 13-16: four slide steps clockwise. (laughing all the way)

Beats 17-32: repeat the first 16 beats

Chorus (32 beats total)

Beats 1-2: with right hands, partners pat each other's hands three times to the rhythm (jin-gle bells)

Beats 3-4: with left hands, partners pat each other's hands three times, to the rhythm (jin-gle bells)

Beats 5-6: with both hands, pat three times as in the first two steps.  **This will NOT match the rhythm

Beats 7-8: clap own hands three times.  **Again, this will NOT match the rhythm

Beats 9-16: join hands with partner and do a full circle turn

Beats 17-32: repeat the first 16 beats, with the exception that in the last step, after the full circle turn everyone takes an extra step to the left and then has a new partner.  This has a really nice flow and even the older kids enjoy it!

Have a great day!

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Santa's Lost His Jingle Bell Stick-to-Staff Activity

I recently posted some Polar Express melody files and in those I included a sets of flashcards that have jingle bells and a set that Santas on them.  My second graders are preparing do but we're also still practicing and reinforcing re, especially in the s-l-m turns and m-l intervals.  When I was creating the file it dawned on me that it would be fun to do a stick to staff matching game.  This week we used them during whole group instruction with the goal of doing it again in small groups.  

Now, I know that reading stick notation is easier than staff notation but since we're in late practice of la, I wanted to drill some staff reading.  So, first the classes sang through the flashcards written on the staff.

Next, I showed them a stick notation flashcard.  Now, at our staff meeting this week we talked about wait time. I'm HORRIBLE at wait time.  With such a limited time of seeing the kids I feel a constant pressure to squeeze as much as I can into each and every second of a lesson.  But when I do this I rob my students of processing time.  So, this is what I tried with this activity: instead of raising their hands when they saw the matching staff card, I had them point to the card on the floor.  I was able to get a rough idea of which card they were pointing and it gave them ALL time to think, process and check their work.  And really, it didn't take all that much longer!

Here's a sample of what it looks like to match the stick to staff cards:

Here's one of my 2nd grade friends matching the card.  After each match we did a "thumbs up/thumbs down" signal to check our work.

I love how my buddy in the blue is helping his friend:

The whole matching activity, from start to finish of reading the flashcards and matching the card to each other took about 5 minutes, perfect for a 2nd grader's attention span and they felt so accomplished.

Have a GREAT Weekend everyone!

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Jolly Old St. Nicholas

As of tomorrow I am officially on Winter Break (a.k.a. Christmas break!!!). My choir does have a community performance tomorrow night and I'm excited for them to sing but more importantly, I'm looking forward to spending some time with my 2 year old and 5 year old!   Because of this, here's my last Christmas PowerPoint for this year.  It's a freebie on my Teachers Pay Teachers store!!!  You can download it by clicking here:  Jolly Old St. Nicholas.

Here's the tune, I'm sure you know it well:

Here are the lyric slides:

I used it with my 2nd graders for half-note practice and they read these slides:

Again, in my 2nd year at my school we're behind and my 5th graders haven't presented ti yet, but some day we'll read these slides:

And here's a worksheet that I will use next year with my 2nd graders for 2/4 meter. . .. (this was a late inspiration from my friend, Loretta):

Hope you have a GREAT week everyone!!!

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Silver and Gold

What can I say, I love this song!  Sam the Snowman sings it in the old "Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer" show and it reminds me of watching those as a young kid.  Looking back, in the movie it really has an important message about values.  Here's the song:

I put the lyrics into a PowerPoint so the students can sing and read the lyrics:

What can I say, 5th grade is in full-fledged tom-ti practice and what's nice about them reading the rhythm of this song is that it's in 3/4 meter.  While we are practicing tom-ti now, next year I might be preparing tom-ti with 4th grade by this point (my 3rd graders are just that kind of class, they pick up things really fast).  Here are a couple samples of the preparation slides:

Since we are practicing, here are a couple of the practice slides in my PowerPoint that 5th grade will read next week:

And here's what the whole song looks like with solfa added to the slides:

I mentioned in an earlier post that my friend Tanya LeJeuene posted an article on Facebook about how neglected 3/4 meter is.  This made me think and, yes, I am guilty of this.  So I thought I would make a meter sorting game to go with this song.  Triple meter will be matched with "Silver Bells" (three syllables) and duple meter will be matched with "Gold Bells (two syllables. . . so we'll talk about how 4/4 is a form of duple meter).

Students will work in pairs and each set of pairs will have one sheet that is laminated and looks like this:

They will also have the following sheet of rhythms, cut into individual rhythm patterns.  Working with their partner, they must put all the 3/4 rhythms under the "Silver Bells" and all the 2/4 & 4/4 rhythms under the "Gold Bells".

If you are interested in this file, you can find it at my Teachers Pay Teachers store.

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In The Midst of the Holiday Hustle

I don't know about you but I see my 1st and 2nd graders TWO more times before Winter Break and I see my 3rd-5th graders 3 more times.  I will probably be able to accomplish something with them during the beginning of next week but come next Thursday/Friday they will be overrun with holiday anticipation.  Our schedule is quite silly, really.  We have school on Monday Dec. 17th and Tuesday Dec. 18th and then we start break on the 19th.  A lot of families have already planned going out of town the weekend before. ..  those two days are going to be a wash. 

So, in the midst of this holiday hustle and bustle I've got to find a creative way to actually "accomplish" something music in my classes.   By accomplish I mean practice known concepts.  With two weeks off I don't want to present anything new but just reinforce what they know and make it EXTRA FUN.

So, I came up with a "Trim the Tree" competition that I have leveled so I can use it with 2nd-5th grades, using the rhythmic and melodic concepts that they KNOW and are practicing.  

Here's the general idea: the class will be divided in two.  This division varies from class to class: I have some classes that do a BEAUTIFUL job of dividing themselves into teams; some do a great job of boys vs. girls; but most times I divided them into "north" and "south"  (my kids "face east" on the risers, so it's literally the kids on the north side of the classroom vs. the kiddos on the south side of the classroom.  

We will use the following PowerPoint (directions to the game continue below the page explanations):

Each ornament is linked to a RHYTHM page.  Here's a few of the 2nd grade rhythm pages (we're practicing half note).  By the way, the jingle bell in the lower right hand corner is a hyperlink that will bring you back to the "Tree" slide (above):

 All of the Christmas lights are linked to MELODY page and these are some second grade pages.  We're practicing la but preparing do.  Again, I'm using this only for practicing so none of the 2nd grade slides have do (but you can easily edit the melody pages to better fit your needs as I have saved these as a PowerPoint.  All you have to do is move the snowflakes around, cut and copy them as needed.)

This is a "competition game."  One team, team "A," will start by choosing one number/ornament or letter/light (the teacher will click with the mouse on the chosen light/ornament and that will bring up the link).  If the team successfully performs the slide, they "receive" that light or ornament on their side of the tally board (I have made the cards below, laminated them and put magnets on the back of them so they will stick to my dry-erase easel that I use as my "game board", a.k.a. tally board).  If the team does not successfully perform the slide the other team gets one turn to try to "steal" the ornament/light that the other team was trying for.  After they try for the "steal," they chose a light/ornament.  Again, if the perform it correctly they get that card on their side of the tally board and if they don't the other team gets a chance to steal.  Play continues until all the ornaments and lights have been successfully performed and "earned" by a team.

All of my rhythm slides and melody slides have been extracted from folk music and songs we use in class.  These songs are noted in the "notes" section of the PowerPoints.  These PowerPoints can be found at my store on Teachers pay Teachers.

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