Three Things {Little Leaves are Falling, Echo Singing & Vocal Exploration}

Hi all!  I'm excited to be linking up with Aileen Miracle at Mrs. Miracle's Music room for this week's "Three Things".  It's actually two things I did last week and one from this week since I forgot to record it last week, lol!

First, my second graders have been prepping "la" and it will be presented this week. I only see them every 5th day so I need to choose song literature that has the current element that I'm teaching but also things I can bring back in the future.  This little round that I learned from Tanya LeJeune is great because we can isolate "la" in the first couple phrases but bring it back for reading "do" later this year.  This class was able to perform it as a two part round, yesterday's class was able to sing it as a 4 part round!

Second, I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE Call-response songs for warm-ups.  Not only does it give them a chance for active listening it also gives me a chance for a really fast and quick vocal assessment.  I sometimes will have them respond as a class or sometimes in small groups and often times as solos.  This little guy asked if he could be the leader!  So, why not?!

Finally, this was a fun vocal exploration that we did with both kinder and 1st grade.  I used my pig popper, she looks like this (and her name is Petunia, lol!):

One of the students pops the ball and the rest track the ball with their fingers and follow it with their voices.

Last week I also got to go on my daughter's kindergarten field trip to the Pumpkin Patch. Here's a selfie of us with her two buddies that were in our group:

And here's my little peanut on the wagon and in the pumpkin patch:

This is one of my favorite times of year: first, all things pumpkin are yummy but also the song literature and vocal exploration is so rich!  I can't wait to share some October fun things we're doing in my music class in the weeks to come!

Thanks so much to Aileen for hosting the linky party! Make sure to check out all the other fun posts that are linked on her blog post!

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Primary Beat Strips

In January I made some beat strips and blogged about them.  You can read that post by clicking here. I started thinking about the activities that I do with preparing my little ones in rhythm and thought that a primer version of this for kinder, 1st and maybe even 2nd would be worthwhile.  So, I made a packet that includes 27 different icons (cats, dogs, frogs, horses, flowers, trains, see saws, jingle bells, pumpkins, etc.) as well as 46 songs that go with the icons in the packet.  Here's a little preview:

 This page includes 3 beat strips (with 4 beats per strip, cut along the horizontal lines):

 This page is for 8 beat patterns:

 This page includes 3 beat strips with 3 beats per strip (again, cut along the horizontal lines):

 And this page has two sets of the 3 meter cards, with 6 beats per strip (these are flipped on their sides as to save paper):

This is a  2/4 chart, intended for PRACTICE, once ta ti-ti & rest are learned.

 This beat strip is for 8 beat patterns:

Here are the 3/4 meter cards (labeled for meter practice):

 And the 6 beat strip:

 Here's a sample of the cards.
These are for preparing ta:

 These are for preparing ti-ti:

 And they are also in black and white:

And here is a sample of one of the songs you could use with the apple icons:

Additionally, the ta and ti-ti cards are included, written in both stick notation and with note heads:

 These are available now at my Teachers Pay Teachers Store.  Blogger is not being my friend right now, so I apologize for all the errors!  They will be corrected tomorrow.

I hope you all have a GREAT Tuesday!

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Poison Game and a New Messenger Game

Wow, this has been a weird week.  We have Monday off for Presidents' Day and then I woke up on Tuesday to a sick two-year old.  Luckily, my husband had an in-service day so he didn't need to write cub plans, but I was home on Wednesday and Thursday with her.  She slept A LOT so during that time I worked on a project that I've been meaning to tackle for a while: my electronic Poison games.  These are all structures like my St. Patty's Day Poison Games, but are non-holiday/theme specific (except I did use pirate clip art, I thought it was fun!):

You can read the directions on some of the ways to play poison by clicking here.

Each of the files contains a PowerPoint version of the game, that has slides like these:

I also included JPEG images of all the slides and directions on how to make more PowerPoint versions of the game, using different patterns.

There are also printable slides to play the game with flashcards, here are a couple examples:

And then I have some Pireat cards, these are to use to keep the kiddos that get out engaged and participating.  When they hear a pattern that is NOT the poison pattern they hold their card up.  If they hear the poison pattern, they put their card down.

The following files are available at my Teachers Pay Teachers Store:

1. ta ti-ti
2. ta rest
3. half note
4. tika-tika
5. ti-tika
6. tika-ti
7. syncopa
8. tom-ti
9. ti-tom
10. tim-ka
11. rhythm bundle
12. so-mi
13. la
14. do
15. re
16. low la
17. low so
18. fa

high do and ti will be posted soon, as well as a melodic bundle.

A while ago I posted about the Messenger and Mailbox game.  You can read that post by clicking here.  I've had some requests for this game in 3/4 meter (and I know I need to do a better job at not neglecting that meter), so I was able to work on that this week too.  It's now up on my Teachers Pay Teachers store.  Here's a little preview:

There's a key to all the rhythm sets:

And then all of the sets are written in both stick notation and with note heads.  They are also numbered for easy sorting.

Next I'll be tackling a melodic version of this game.  It should be ready soon! 

And we're entering one of my favorite times of year, spring!!!  I love all the manipulatives that you can make from the Easter goodies, so I will have some posts up about that and things to watch for in your local stores!! :)

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Bluebells, Cockleshells

When I was little, my mom taught me many skipping rope songs.  This is one of them, you probably know it:

Now, growing up, we would sing "Bluebells, cockle shells, eevy, ivy, overhead" while two people were swinging the rope side to side.  On the word "overhead" the twirlers would make the rope go over and we would keep jumping while chanting:

"Here comes the teacher with a big fat stick,

Better get ready for 'rithmetic.

One plus one is two;

Two plus two is four;

Four plus four is eight;

Eight & eight is sixteen;"

etc., as high as we could count or until we "messed up" with the jumping.

Now days, teachers don't carry around "big fat sticks," do we, lol?!

Some kids growing up would follow the sung part with this instead:

"My mother said that I was born in January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December."  With this one, you would run out from jumping on your birth month.

And then there's the way I do it in my classroom (learned from Jo Kirk):

Once upon a time there was a little girl who went to visit her grandparents in the mountains, she stopped at her uncle’s cabin.  They would often sit out on the porch and drink hot chocolate.  They enjoyed looking at the beautiful wildflowers right in the front yard. 

A gentle breeze sometimes would come by and cause the flowers to move back and forth.  Sing the song slow and move arms slightly back and forth.

Then the wind got stronger.  Sing a second time, this time faster and move arms back and forth even more.

The wind was really picking up now!  Sing again, faster, and move arms back and forth even more.

Now a storm has arrived!  Sing again, and move arms back and forth so fast that you spin around.

Pair students up.

Game:

1. Children in groups of two should be facing their partners holding hands.

2. Swing hands to the steady beat.

3. When the wind is gentle, gently move hands back and forth.

4. As the wind picks up and the song gets faster, move hands back and forth

    faster and higher.

5. When the storm comes, students “wring the dishrag” on “overhead.”  

Heres' the PowerPoint that I made to go with it and from which you can teach different rhythmic an melodic elements:

Here's a lyric slide:

A beat slide:

An iconic rhythm preparation slide:

A symbolic/traditional notation slide for practicing rhythm:

Now, there are a few melodic slides. This song can be used for presenting and practicing so-mi but it's also great for introducing and practicing the mi-la interval.

Here are the so-mi preparation slides:

Here's the so-mi presentation slides:

Now, Sr. Lorna Zemke has a whole story that goes along with the solfége house.  In fact, you can order darling Solfége houses from Silver Lake College or West Music.    And my friend Tanya LeJeune has a cute, elaborate story for the houses.  I'll admit that I don't have that great of a story.  It's basically summarized on the slides below, but you can make up whatever you want.  The most important thing is that you "sell it" to your students:

And here are the preparation slides for la.  Now, I use these after they already have learned la in the so-la-so-mi turn so I don't use these slides but skip down to the practice slides:

 Here's where I start in the la slides.  When we use this for reading we're now working on the so-mi-la-so turn and the interval between mi-la:

This is available as a PDF at my Teachers Pay Teachers store.  Additionally, I have included directions on how to make the PDF into a PowerPoint.  I would post these as a PowerPoint if I didn't have such a hard time with the graphics converting correctly.  But, that's why I sell them for $1. :)

Hope you have a GREAT weekend!

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