It's summer break, but anyone who's a teacher will tell you that school's always on the mind in one way or another, so I've decided to try to post a few times over break as ideas/inspiration come to me.
We just got back from a FABULOUS vacation to Disneyland. During our trip my husband and I took turns taking our almost-5-year old son on rides while our two year old took a nap. The lines, or course, are a LONG wait sometimes. . . . especially for a 4 year old. So, like any parent, I was trying to come up with different ways to keep Noah interested and distracted from the fact that we had to stand in line. Being a music teacher, singing games were one of those. At one ride I started singing this:
I taught him the answer part and before long he was singing the whole song. Here's an "out of the mouths of babes moment": He says it's my turn, sings the song but changes "won't you sing your name for me?" to "won't you whisper your name for me?". HELLO!!! Thanks to my kindergartener-to-be, I now have a fun variation on an opening activity that I do every year with kindergarten and can now extend it with first grade. The phrase "will you sing your name for me?" would be substituted for a multitude of other ways for students to perform their name:
"Will you whisper your name for me?"
"Will you speak your name for me?
"Say your name really high for me."
"Say your name really low for me."
"Will you shout your name for me?"
And now I've got not only a great activity to teach about different ways to use your voice but I can also use it as an assessment to test their knowledge of sing vs. speak; high vs. low; soft vs. loud.
There are many other variations of how to use your voice with this activity, have fun!
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