Thanksgiving Music Dinner, Family Style!

So, we have one week until Thanksgiving break- with the Turkey Trot run all day next Thursday and a work day on Friday.  Because of this tomorrow I will be starting my last rotation with my Kinder-3rd graders as they are on a 4 day rotation.

My first graders have just learned ta & ti-ti and this morning I hustled to get those cards of my Thanksgiving Dinner Beat Strips printed out, laminated and cut.  Seeing as how I had tone-chimes this morning and took the half-day kinders during my lunch and plan times this was quite a feat and as a result I didn't have time to group the cards into baggies like I normally do. 

Then it hit me: this is Music Thanksgiving Dinner and we're going family style!!!  So, I pulled out some paper plates that I had in my cabinets.  I decided that since I have 30 kids in a class I would have them work in 6 groups of five each.  Each group would get three plates: one with "corn" (ta cards), one with "turkey" (ti-ti cards) and one with "gravy" (ti-ti).  

I explained to the students that we were having Thanksgiving dinner, music room style.  In their groups, one person was going to come up and get their "food" from the counter (I had all three plates stacked on top of each other so there was a total of three plates in each of the six piles) and one person from their group would come get their individual plates (their beat strips) and "set their table."  (a.k.a. pass out the beat strips to their group.)  They were to remember that they were at a family style dinner so if they needed a turkey card (for instance) they would have to ask someone "at their table" to pass the turkey.

The result was so much fun!!!  Here's a sample of one group starting their dinner (the little red head on the left is my son!):

Here's another group that had filled their plates.  Once they're plates were full, they were to have a dinner conversation with the people sitting at their "table."  That is, they were to read the pattern that they wrote to the rest of the students in their group or to the person sitting next to them:

Here's another one of my son finishing up his dinner plate:

This group had a lot of fun and added their own extensions.  They first decided that they would put their two plates together and read all 8 beats that their two plates created. Then they decided that the whole table should read all of the cards without stopping.

This turned out to be so much fun, especially since  my time was limited to get their individual packets together and I had the idea to go "family style."  I'll definitely do it this way in the future and I might even adapt my other beat card activities to have they same manipulative distribution! :)

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To Use Next Year. . . .

Okay, this is a "day late and a dollar" short.  Or you could call it reactive teaching.  Regardless of what I call it I hope I remember to do it next October.

So, it was last Thursday, Halloween, and my first graders show up.  Have I mentioned that I have my first graders the VERY last 45 minutes of the day?  Have I told you that I dismiss them from music?  Have I told you just how much fun this is?  (Insert sarcasm).  Sadly, I'm the one that did the master schedule.  If you've ever done a master schedule you know that there are a million variables that contribute into making it.  Well, lesson learned: regardless of the variables do not have first grade or kinder last.  

Sorry, to get back to Halloween day.  My first graders show up with all their stuff, including their lovely Halloween Rings that their teacher JUST handed them.  Thanks.  

Well, when life hands you lemons you. . . .try to make lemonade.  So, after "Pumpkin, Pumpkin", our opener/mixer, I quickly grabbed my beat strips and put the kids into groups of four.  Lucky me that the rings were "bats" and "spiders".  Hmmm. . .  "bats" and "spi-ders".  We're working on ta & ti-ti prep.  (2/5 of my first graders came in with NO music experience so it's been a QUICK teaching/review of comparatives).  At any rate, in their groups of four they had to put their rings on the beat chart and say their pattern using "bat" and "spider".  After that they had to change the "bat" to long and the "spi-der" to "short-short"

Here's one: 

"bat, bat, spi-der bat" which then became "long, long, short-short, long."

After they composed with that group they had 7 seconds to move to a different beat chart (these were placed around the room.  The only rule being that there could only be four people at a chart and it was "first come, first serve".

So, here's another pattern:
"spid-er, bat, spi-der, bat" or "short-short, long, short-short, long":

After a few rotations we moved to their seats on the risers and used the rings to, as a group, compose a pattern that became an ostinato for "Halloween, Halloween."

Here's a couple more patterns:
"spi-der, spi-der, spi-der, bat" (short-short, short-short, short-short, long):

"spi-der, bat, bat, bat" or "short-short, long, long, long":

I just posted some new Thanksgiving Files called "Free the Birds" that reinforce and practice various melodic elements.  (And yes, the title is a shameless play on the title of the new Thanksgiving family movie coming out that my two and I have been DYING to see since we saw the preview this summer!) I'll blog about that later, but you can check them out on my Teachers Pay Teachers store.

I hope you all had a restful weekend!

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A Collection of Songs, PDFs and Activities & Assessments for Teaching so-mi

Hi everyone!  Boy, this has been a long, rough couple of weeks.  My daughter and I have both has a respiratory "thing" that has just lingered.  

I have a bunch of ideas for blog topics so I'll share some of those with you soon. In the meantime, I have made a collection of songs, PDFs and activities & assessments for teaching so-mi.

Just like my ta & ti-ti file, I'm not giving you a concept plan.  I really believe that you need to take a Kodály level and have the reasoning and education behind them.  I also feel that you need to make a concept plan that is specific to you, your song literature, your kids and your teaching situation.  That being said, if you're in Colorado, sign up for level I!!!  My dear friend Tanya LeJeune is teaching it again at Colorado State and she's amazing!!!   I'm so honored that I get to teach level II this summer, along side her!

Back to the so-mi bundle:

There are eight PDFs that each have preparation, presentation and practice slides.

There are assessments:

Mystery songs:

There's also a disappearing song activity; iconic, stick and staff flashcards and 26 songs, most of which have an activity that is included.

You can read more details by clicking here.

If you purchase this packet between now and May 2013 I will make you a disappearing song file to the song of your choice!  It will then go up on my TpT store for others to purchase but will be free to you.  Simply purchase my so-mi bundle, rate it and then email me (amy.j.abbott@gmail.com) with the song that you would like to have made into a disappearing song file.  Give me a few days to get it made and I'll email it to you! :)

It's finally NOT snowing in Colorado so I'm headed outside to my garden. Have a GREAT weekend!

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A Collection of Ta & Ti-Ti Songs, PDF's and Worksheets

So, I've created my first concept specific packet for Teachers Pay Teachers.  This is something that I have been debating to do.  I want to make products that are accessible and usable for teachers, regardless of their training, experience or background. But I'll be honest that my products are created with the Kodály metholodogy and sequence in mind.  That being said, I also don't want to undermine or sell products that you really need to create on your own when taking a Kodály level.  I know, sounds kind of mean and selfish.  Let me explain.  I did my levels at Portland State (four years worth) and then two more (level II & III) at Colorado State University and I'm going to be teaching level II this summer at CSU.  At Portland State I learned pedagogy from the brilliant, amazing Susan Brumfield.  Then at CSU I had Sue Liethold-Bowcock and Ann Eisen, who, too were amazing and wonderful.  Each of these teachers presented things in a different way.  Some of the things that they taught me are amazing and I use them each and every year.  There are other ideas that I pull out from time to time (you know what I mean.  You go back to your notes or you go to a workshop and you recall something from levels and you say to yourself "oh yeah!  I forgot about that activity or song!!")  And other ideas flopped because either I was so overwhelmed with everything going in my brain that I forgot how to do the activity or I wasn't sold on it and in turn my kids didn't "buy it."

Each of us are going to develop our own style and ways to prepare, present and practice melodic and rhythmic concepts.  You get all these tools and ideas in levels, from your teacher and from your peers.  Some are going to work beautifully and some need to be adapted and tweaked to meet the needs of your kids.  When I started thinking about creating concept specific files I didn't want to give away my concept plans or some of my specific preparation and practice activities because I know that the plans HAVE to be specific to you and that some of the things I do you have to see in action because they are too complex or complicated to explain.  You have to choose your song literature, you have to choose the activities that you like to teach (because face it, you won't sell it to your students if you don't like it).  And with the activities, it's back to the old saying that there's more than one way to skin a cat.  There are a gazillion ways to prepare and practice each concept.  Each are wonderful and amazing and quite frankly creating and selling a file of things that I do that are concept specific overwhelmed me because of how vast of a task that would be!! 

So, I decided to go to the bare bones of ways that each of us prepare and practice elements and make things that really exam at the critical attributes of that element.  So, the meat of this file is 10 PDF files (that you can run like a PowerPoint, the instructions are included or that you can convert into a PDF) that are adaptable so you can use them for either preparing, presenting or practicing Ta & Ti-Ti:

There is notation for 15 songs and chants and games, if applicable.  And I included my ta & ti-ti flashcards.

Here are the songs that are included (I know, three of the songs are in the Bee Bundle, and these are similar but made specific for ta & ti-ti):

There are also worksheets (I'll show you a couple more down below):

Here's an example of one of the PDFs, they are all set up exactly like this, so you can choose what to use out of the file.

There is a lyric slide:

Then a beat slide(s):

Then a rhythm prep slide with iconic representation:

Then the presentation slides.  This notation presents ta and ti-ti written both with and without note heads:

Then immediately applying this knowledge to the song:

Then reading it, this can be for immediate practice (same lesson as presentation) or later practice:

And then one more time with note-heads:

For every PDF there are two matching worksheets (which are in color and black & white):

There is one that is a rhythm chart:

To go with this, for practice after ta & ti-ti I created rhythm strips.  There are multiple rhythms.  I suggest in the file to print each set of rhythms out on different colored papers.  Cut along the lines and then I tell you how many of each rhythm pattern to have in each set that you will then put in an envelope.  This way, you can use the same set of envelopes with all 10 songs (rather than cutting all these strips and tailoring them for each song) AND the color coded strips make it REALLY easy to assess.  As you look around you class to see who has the correct rhythms all you have to do is look at the color:

There is a writing worksheet for that goes with each of the 10 songs in PDF form:

 And then I included rhythm preparation cards.  I have to say that these are one of my favorite visual ways to prepare ta & ti-ti.  (There are cards that match each of the 10 PDFs and the hearts for the chart).  The idea is that the hearts only are in the chart.  The class (or you could use this as a station) derive the way the words go.  This is an example of "Jean Jean":

 (this is my big chart, it can actually hold 16 beats:)

After your kiddos know ta & ti-ti, we then use this in early practice to go from the iconic to the symbolic representation.  As you can see, the first line has been replaced (I usually just stick the cards on top and then sort them later):

And here the whole song has been replaced:

I also use the hearts on a chart like this.  There are paperclips that I inserts into slots that I cut using an exacto knife that hold the cards in place:

Same idea, then the rhythms replace the icons:

This is available at my Teachers Pay Teachers store.

Have a GREAT weekend everyone!

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We Are Dancing In the Forest, Disappearing Song PPT

Okay, the 4th la disappearing song PowerPoint is ready and I'm going to abandon la for a little bit.  I'm starting work on a couple do PPT's.  Those might be up this week or I might actually turn off the computer and not open it for 24 hours.  (cough, cough, we'll see)

Here's the We Are Dancing in the Forest Music Memory PPT:

We review the text of the song:

We sing it on rhythm syllables:

Then on solfa:

I'm going to be using this for melody so I'd have them sing it again on solfa, just for good measure.  But, if you're practicing rhythm then you would have them repeat the song on rhythm syllables:

Now, this is a longer song so I find that in aiding with memory work and preparing them for many musical skills we're going to analyze the form.  If they learn to do this now, just think of how this will help their sight reading skills, practicing skills (how many times have you had a private student get completely overwhelmed by a "long" piece but then once you broke it down and showed them the patterns it made practicing so much easier) and of course, memorization.

Now, we're looking at the phrasic form of the rhythm and melody.   Here's my school of thought, it has to be concrete to my 1st graders.  When studying with Jill Trinka the OVERALL form of this little song would be AAvAAv- because the form of the melody is AAvAAv and the rhythm is ABAB.  Granted, those would also be written in lower case letters but to make it easier to read I wrote them in uppercase (so you could see the "v" for variant.)   My 6-7 year olds need something more concrete then that.  So, I see the phrasic form of this song as ABAB (abab, in actuality, but again, that's for another debate/conversation depending on who your levels teacher(s) are).

So, in other words, we're breaking down the form in age-appropriate, concrete terms.

Of course the first phrase is "A":

Now the text on this next slide is hard to read because they are animated so you'll only see one at a time.  Basically, is asks, using the rhythm of A as our guide, what would we call the second phrase.  The rhythm is different so it will be "B."

Again, the text is messy in the JPEG because of the animation, but they'll compare the third phrase to the first two phrases and see that it's the same as "A."

Again, sorry for the messy text (I promise, it's not that way in the PPT), but then they compare the final phrase to previous phrases.

From there they'll read one of two "Disappearing Song" sets of slides where a wolf comes out and "swipes" the rhythms away.  The first in the PPT is with out the form guides that we just created.  This will be harder as it doesn't have that visual cue (that they can reference beats not yet taken away):

The other version has the form icons.  Again, this would be an easier way for the kiddos to remember the beats as they have that cue that the 1st and 3rd lines are the same and the 2nd and 4th lines are the same:

Finally, they'll sing it again with the text and I (personally) would transition them right into the game.

This is available at my Teachers Pay Teachers store.

Yesterday I posted about Treble Clef Playing Cards.  If you looked them up and went "yikes, I won't pay that much!" I don't know how I came up with that price!  So, those are $2.50 NOT $3.99.

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