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!!!

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Rhythm Wars

My kiddos are in the middle of the state standardized testing. . . F.U.N.   No, actually it's called TCAP. But I wanted to get some good practice in so I created a set of flashcards that are essentially a movie.  They're based on Star Wars. . . so of course we broke out my pool noodle light sabers.

Here's a little sample of what the Movie looks like (the basic idea is that they will clap the rhythms AFTER they hear the clicks.  The clicks set a tempo.  I did leave a little bit longer in the "answer" time to accommodate for errors):

Here are my 5th graders, recorded this morning, reading from one of the movies:

And here they are using the light sabers.  One person is facing the projector for the first pattern.  After they say the pattern they switch places.  Given this was the first time, I thought they did a pretty good job:

We tried the pool noodles a couple ways: one where both partners could see the show and one where one partner had their back to the show & the other could see it, with them switching halfway through.  The latter definitely worked better: I could really watch the ones who were reading and assess them better, it got them moving (which is JUST what they needed seeing as how they were testing ALL day) and it was a lot more fun!

These can be found on my Teachers Pay Teachers store in the following versions, with each rhythm file containing the movie in both stick notation and with noteheads:

1. ta ti-ti
2. rest (which contains ta and ti-ti)
3. half note
4. tika-tika
5. ti-tika
6. tika-ti
7. syncopa
8. tom-ti
9. ti-tom
10. tim-ka
11. ti-kam
12. BUNDLED SET!!!

I'm starting to work on poison games that will go with these files.  I can't wait to try those out next week with my classes! :)

Hope you've had a great week!  

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Beat Strips

Double blog post today, because that's the kind of day I'm having, lol!!  I made two batches of muffins for my kids (blueberry and chocolate), bought two new outfits, so things are coming in twos!!

This is an idea that I got from two of my friends who teach in my district (Jenna O. & Cathy K.).  These are beat strips and are great for rhythmic dictation and notation.  They were a little time consuming to make, but I hope to give you some tips to make it go faster and easier!

Here's the general idea.  Every student gets a beat strip, like this:

This is Jenna's original template, I have redone them, using a different font to look more like a time signature.

From there, I have rhythms that are prepackaged according to grade level (this will vary for everyone, depending on your sequence).  Here's a picture of the beat strip with my first grade "pouch" of rhythms:

Here's the way they look on the chart:

After first grade, students will have more then one "pouch."  So, when my second graders use half note they get the second grade pouch with half note in addition to the first grade pouch with ta, ti-ti and ta rest.  **  Note: I don't call them "first grade pouch" so the kids don't have a misconception if they are behind in the sequence.  I refer to the rhythms in them with the students.  Then, when they put them away, they must return them to the correct baggie, kind of like sorting out legos when you're done building!

 Here's a couple pictures of the first grade pouch with the third grade rhythm baggie:

And here's a couple shots of my fourth grade pouch:

Now, I mentioned I re-did Jenna's file.  Here's the four beat dictation board that I showed above:

What you would do is print these out on card stock, laminate them (so they'll last a long time) and then cut them into the strips that you saw above.  

I started thinking about the Common Core Standards and wanting my kids to do longer dictation/compositions so I created an 8 beat board (below):

 I also wanted my students to write in 3/4 meter, so here's a 3/4 board (3 beat dictation/composition):

And here's a 3/4 meter board that's 6 beat dictation/composition:

 I also made all of the rhythms in both stick notation and notation with note-heads.  You print these out on card stock first, then laminate and cut along the dotted lines (for a class of 30 you print 10 pages of each rhythm):

With the rhythmic elements that last longer than one beat I made light gray lines to show the beats (it's a nice reminder to the students that a dotted half note gets three beats, or a half note gets two beats or syn-co-pa is three sound over two beats). It's important when cutting these cards to NOT cut along the gray lines!! :)

Here are the time saving tips: 

• Print them on card stock, they'll last longer
• Color code them, if possible, according to rhythmic element- this will make assessing them much quicker- you can do a quick glance for color, major time saver during class!
• For a class of 30, you'll need 10 pages of each concept
• Cut them out on the paper cutter AFTER you laminate them
• Look at your curriculum and print the ones you need.  Or print as you go.  Start with the 1st grade set one year and gradually print more
• Recruite some 5th graders to sort them- it's a great reinforcement for them too :)

If you're interested in these cards, they can be found at my Teachers Pay Teachers store.  And there you have it, the double post for the day!!!  Have a GREAT Martin Luther King Jr. Day tomorrow!!!

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Dinah

Surprise!!!  In my recent holiday fever I bet you thought this would be a holiday post! But it's not.  This is a post that's been a long time coming.  Back in September, my third graders learned tika-tika.  One of my favorite tika-tika songs is this one:

There are a few activities that I do with this song.  

1. Name game: we replace "Dinah" with names of students in our class.
2. Improvisation game: instead of "strumming on the old banjo,"we put other things
1. the first time, we go around the circle and sing it "Name Game" style (see #1) but I change the ending to various things.  I.e.: "playing on the Nintendo," "eating a burrito," "talking on the telephone," "listening to the radio," "dancing a funky disco," "talking to your daddy-o", etc.
2. depending on the class we might have to do it again with me modeling this.  If not, then they make up something they are doing with the only requirement being that it rhymes and they can make it fit within the beats of the song (for me, it's okay if they change the rhythm.  That's part of improvisation)
3. Listening game
1. Formation: standing circle with one student in the middle who is blindfolded.
2. Once the student in the middle is blindfolded, we silently make a hole in the circle.  This is the "door" to Dinah's house.  I elaborate through a story that Dinah has a "magically musical house" because the walls sing.  All the standing students are the walls of Dina's house.  The blindfolded student must find the door to the house by walking around the inside of the circle and listening to where there is no singing.  Once they "hear" where the door is they walk towards it until they are out of the "house."  They know when they have made it out of the house because their classmates clap for them.  This is a cue for them to stop moving so they don't run into a wall or equipment and to remove their blindfold.

This year I had a new idea for Dinah's house and that was to build a wall in Dinah's house. I sent out a notice in our school's weekly announcement that the music room was collecting EMPTY SQUARE tissue boxes.  I was able to collect a lot, to date I have collected over 100.  My goal was 80 as that would give me 5 sets of 16 boxes.  I wrapped the boxes in white butcher paper (you know, that roll paper that is in your school's work room).  I then printed out the following rhythms ta, ti-ti, ta-rest & tika-tika using MusicEd font (really, I do NOT work for them, I just LOVE their product!).  I laminated these rhythms and then using packaging tape I taped them and wrapped the boxes so that each box had one of those rhythms on each side (there is NO rhythm on the top or the bottom of the box- if there was the boxes would not stack evenly).

Once the boxes were assembled, as a class, we derived the rhythm of "Dinah's House" (a.k.a. the rhythm to the song "Dinah").  Here's a picture of what that looked like:

Like I mentioned above, I've collect just over 100 boxes and my goal was 80.  Since I had 96 boxes that gave me 6 sets of 16 boxes.  The student then got into groups of 4-5 with each group getting 16 blocks.  Their directions were to build a wall of rhythm.  I didn't care what their rhythms were but they had to be four beat across and stacked 4 high.  The only other rule (besides the etiquette required with this: i.e. do not fall on the boxes, do not punch the boxes, etc.) was that before they knocked down their wall they had to perform their wall for me.

Here are a few sample walls:

This activity ending up being more fun then I ever anticipated it AND lend itself to some AMAZING teaching opportunities.  

First of all, it introduced/reinforced direction of note-heads related to note-stems.  SO many times when dealing with rhythm we write the stems up and neglect to write rhythms with the stems down.  Here's an example where they DID put a note stem going down (you'll notice that ALL the other groups have their stems going up. . . guess what I need to teach more of. ..  stems going down!):

Secondly, it was a GREAT chance for part work.  This group did it before I even asked them too- when I came over to hear their wall, they were ready to read it for me, with the boys reading one side of the wall and the girls reading the other side, AT THE SAME TIME.  As a teacher, this was A.MAZ.ING and fun to see!:

During the second lesson I encouraged all of my classes to have their groups perform both sides of the wall at the same time:

One class took the part work so far as to put all of their block together to create four walls.  They divided themselves into four groups.  Each group practiced their wall individually and then performed their wall for everyone.  After that, they tried clapping and saying all four of the walls together.  This was pretty tricky, but after a few tries they did it, they felt very successful and had a GREAT time figuring it out:

Of course this activity did produce some things I suspected.  Some groups did patterns:

Every class had at least one group that made a wall of rests:

This one was funny, it was their spin on the wall of rest:

And this group had a good time with all those tika-tikas!

This was a great learning activity for me.  It really reminded me of how much more I need to do with small group work, improvisation and composition!

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