Once There was a Snowman

I'm so excited: CMEA (Colorado Music Educators Association)'s conference is this week.  I haven't been since I was pregnant with my daughter AND I'm presenting two sessions this year (nervous and excited about that.)  But, also, I'm really excited because Mary Alice Amidon it will be presenting this year too!  I LOVE the resources that the Amidon's have produced.  They are high quality and a must for every music teacher's library:

This year they came out with a new resource and one of Mary Amidon's sessions will be on this book:

There are a lot of high quality songs for your little ones in this book, including this gem:

My kinders sang this song this week, it's totally cute!  For the first half (Once there was a snowman, snowman, snowman. Once there was a snowman, tall, tall, tall.) they start in a curled up position on the floor and SLOWLY rise so they are standing tall at the end of that phrase.  Then for the second half of the song they SLOWLY descend, back into the curled up position.

In the book, they state that you can have your students make up new versions:  ie. "once there was a snow fort," "once there was a snow girl," etc.

I will be using this song in my Manipulative Mania session on Friday, sponsored by ROCKE (The Regional Organization of Colorado Kodály Educators).  Here's a little preview at what we'll be doing with it AND will be available for purchase at ROCKE's Make-n-Take session on Saturday.  (There will be a couple other ideas presented on how to use the snowmen die cuts, as well).

With snowmen die-cuts, I made beat charts for my kinders.  Essentially, with a beat chart, they keep a steady beat while tracking the beat.  This reinforces the literacy fluency skills that they are working on in their classrooms (your kinder teachers will love that!) and is a pre-music reading activity.

Here's the beat chart (notice I gave the snowman on the left a black hat.  This helps these little ones know where to start. .. some of them still struggle with right and left. .. ):

And here are some of my kinders singing the song while tracking the beat (I made enough for all of them to have a chart to use.  You can also do this with half a classroom set and them sharing with a partner):

See that little kinder in the white shirt in the picture below?  That's my all time favorite kindergartner (I can say that, I'm his mom!!!):

If you're going to CMEA, I'm presenting two sessions: one on Thursday, January 24 at 10:20 called "Upping the Ante" and the "Manipulative Mania" session on Friday, January 25 at 1:50.

Don't forget to attend Tanya LeJeune's sessions:

Thursday, January 24, SMART board assessments at 3:00

Friday, January 25, Electronic Engagement at 8:00 with a repeat session at 11:30

The ROCKE Make-n-Take is on Saturday, January 26 from 10:30-12:30

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El Reloj de la Calavera

This is a REALLY fun chant to do with your older kiddos for Halloween.  Someone recently posted a question on the Kodály facebook page about songs to use with Dia de los Muertos and you could easily use this in conjunction with that holiday.  I learned this from Carol Brown during my fourth level of Kodály at Portland State University.  

Here's the chant:

1.         Cuando el reloj marca la una                       When the clock strikes one

            La calavera sale de su tumba.                      The skeleton comes out of his tomb.

            Tumba, tatumba, tumba, tumba, tumba            Tumba, tatumba, tumba, tumba, tumba

2.         Cuando el reloj marca las dos                      When the clock strikes two

            a la calavera le pega la tos                           the skeleton gets a cough

3.         Cuando el reloj marca las tres                     When the clock strikes three

            La calavera busca a Andrés                         The skeleton looks for Andrew

4.         Cuando el reloj marca  las cuatro                When the clock strikes four

            La calavera mira su retrato                          The skeleton looks at his picture

5.         Cuando el reloj marca  las cinco                  When the clock strikes five

            La calavera echa cinco brincos                    The skeleton jumps five times

6.         Cuando el reloj marca  las sies                    When the clock strikes six

            La calavera juega al beis                              The skeleton plays baseball

7.         Cuando el reloj marca  las siete                   When the clock strikes seven

            La calavera cuenta sus billetes                    The skeleton counts his currency

8.         Cuando el reloj marca  las ocho                   When the clock strikes eight

            La calavera busca a Pinocho                        The skeleton looks for Pinocchio

9.         Cuando el reloj marca  las nueve                When the clock strikes nine

            La calavera come su nieve                           The skeleton eats his ice cream

10.       Cuando el reloj marca  las diez                    When the clock strikes ten

            La calavera se mete­ otro vez                        The skeleton goes back again.

Game:  the players form a circle, lying on the floor.  They get up and begin to say the verses.  When they say “tumba, tatumba. ..  .”  the students do the action that is indicated for each hour.  At the end the players lay down on the floor.

This is a GREAT chant for ti-tika.  My older students (4th and 5th) love to revisit this every year so we use it to practice ti-tika and with my 3rd graders I use it to prep ti-tika and then we bring it back for practice.  This year at Target Tanya found some awesome erasers.  She picked some up for me, but being the manipulative hoarder that I am, I had to make a trip to buy more.  Every student will have a set of 12 and a beat chart on which they will derive the rhythm of the chorus, tumba, ta tumba, tumba, tumba, tumba.  Here's how they work on the beat chart:

We will replace the erasers with rhythm cards of "what we know" to make it look like this :

Other activities we do with this include using the rhythm of the refrain as an ostinato through out the chant, having specific students act out different verses, having a "clock" that chimes, etc.  The possibilities are endless!

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