Heel, Toe, On the Line

This is a popular Valentine's Day song, that I learned a long time ago (so sorry I don't remember the specific source.)  I do know that I've seen it presented at CMEA (Colorado Music Educator's Association Conference) and one person that presented it was Jill Trinka.  I've done this with kindergarten, first and second graders and each grade level loves it

Here's the song:

Here are the dance directions:

Formation: single circle, with partners facing each other

Action:

Phrase 1:  Holding hands with your partner, tap your heel on the word “heel,” using the foot that’s closest to the center of the circle.  On the word “toe,” using the same foot, tap your toe.  On the text “on the line,” take three steps in place, starting with the foot closest to the center.

Phrase 2: holding your partner’s hands, trade places with your partner.

Phrase 3: same actions as phrase 1.

Phrase 4: point your finger at your partner, shaking it to the rhythm, on the text, “maybe “yah” or maybe.”  Then, on the word “Nien,” turn away from your partner (180˚, so that you’re facing a new partner) and cross your arms in front of you.

Play repeats and continues.

And, here's a PowerPoint that I made to go with it (there is a title slide before this slide):

There's a beat slide:

A rhythm preparation slide  (if you're kinders are working on beat vs. "the way the words go" this is good for that representation.  I know I'm not quite there with my kinders. . . give me a couple months!):

A rhythm reading slide (this is also written out in stick notation with note heads):

Iconic representation of pitch (for the whole song, this is a sample slide):

And iconic representation on the staff with the text (again, for the whole song, this is just a sample slide):

Now, pedagogically, this is not a re preparation or practice song (in my opinion).  Songs that I use to prepare re have re in ascending or descending patterns with mi and do.  That is, I'm preparing re in patterns that have mi-re-do or do-re-mi.  By the time my kids are reading re in the way it is in this song they have already been presented with re.  In my opinion, this song is a good opportunity to teach about re in other patterns than mi-re-do or do-re-mi.  In this specific song, we'll be looking at re and it's intervallic relationship to so.  Practicing intervallic relationships is as equally important as teaching patterns and is too often over looked.  So, this PowerPoint doesn't have a re preparation slide.  Instead it starts with laying out the solfége used in this song.  I will use this slide to do some intervallic practice before we read the solfa on the following slides:

After solfa warm-up, we'll read the solfa, represented spatially on the slides (here's a sample, see that re-so interval that I was talking about?):

And then we'll read it solfa on the staff:

Then with "real" notes:

And with my 3rd graders we'll use the absolute pitch slides as a "mystery song" from last year:

Because I'm using this song for intervallic practice, I made some solfa ladders.  I will print out enough for each of my students to have one (making sure to laminate it so it lasts for years) and then they will start with echo singing.  I will sing a pattern on solfa and they will sing it back.  Then we'll move to me singing patterns on "loo" and them singing them back on solfa, all the while they point to the solfége that they are singing.  The time in which you transition from echoing solfa-to-solfa to "loo"-to-solfa depends on how much practice and experience your kiddos have with this prior to this activity.

This PowerPoint can be found in PDF form on my Teacher Pay Teachers store.  (PDFs very easy to convert into a PowerPoint, if you ever have any problems please let me know!)  Speaking of my Teachers Pay Teachers store, I'm throwing a sale currently that lasts until tomorrow night.  You can buy anything for 28% off the normal price.  Many other teachers are participating, be sure to search around, there are some amazing things that other teachers have posted!!

Have a great rest of your weekend!

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Turkey Gobbler

This has become one of my ALL-TIME favorite songs for Thanksgiving.  It's great for right before break because the kids LOVE the game but it's also great for do-re-mi-so intervallic practice.  In my Portland State University Kodály levels and in some of the SWOKE (Southern Washington and Oregon Kodály Educators) workshops we browsed each others collections and exchanged songs.  So, this in one of the gems that I got from Melissa Roth (who's now teaching in Texas).

Here's the song:

Here's the game:
Formation:  students seated in a circle on in rows.
Action:  one student goes into the hallway and can't see into the classroom.  The teacher or a chosen student hides a "turkey" somewhere in the room.  The only condition is that part of the turkey has to be still visible to all the students in the class.  (I have a fun stuffed turkey that we hide but there have been times when that turkey has "gone missing" and I've used a die cute of a turkey.)  Once the turkey is hidden, the student comes back in the room and the turkey hunt begins.  The hunter has the class helping them, as they sing the song more quietly as the hunter gets closer to the hidden turkey and louder when the hunter moves away from the turkey.

As a warm up, I've made this turkey tone ladders.  I will sing a solfége pattern and the class (or individual, if you'd like to use it an assessment) echos back while pointed to the appropriate solfa.  Depending on the stage of practice that your student are in you can also sing patterns on neutral syllables, such as "loo" and have then echo back in solfége.

For an extension activity, I have created a stick-to-staff game.  The students work in groups of 2-3 and each group has a set of the following cards that are cut so that there is one turkey on a card.  They must match the stick notation to the staff notation and put the song in order.  Generally, they will put the turkeys with the stick notation in one row (in the order of the song) and the turkeys with the staff notation in a row below it (with the corresponding staff-notation turkey below the stick-notation turkey).

This song and many more are included in my Songs for Thanksgiving set:

I just visited my good friend, Tanya LeJeune's blog, and she too posted about this song!  It's really a gem.  For more great ideas and for a different singing game, check out her post by clicking here.

I'll be posting some more Turkey ideas this week!  In the meantime, have a GREAT Monday!

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Skin and Bones

What is October in my classroom without singing "Skin and Bones?!"  This is a gem; I sang it growing up, my students ALWAYS love it and ask for it every year.  I do hang onto it until 3rd grade as I think it's a great preparation song for la,.

Here's the song:

I always teach this song by me singing it for the students first, without them seeing anything (text, images, etc.).  The only direction I give them is to listen for patterns and often times I will turn off the lights (granted, I have beautiful natural lighting in my room so it barely changes the lighting).  I love how engaged they are listening to the song for the first time and the shrieks of delight at the word "boo!".  Now, I do have some beautiful PowerPoints that I use with this, one with lyrics and animation and one with the pedagocial "stuff" (you know, the song with solfege icons, etc.).  I would share these but I didn't create them, one of the amazing Kodály teachers in my district made them a few years ago.

As I stated above, I first use this song with 3rd grade to prep la,.  The solfege for the repeating "OOo-ooo-oo-oo" pattern is mi-re-do-la,.  Since this is preparation I have them sing what is known, mi-re-do, on solfege and hum the last note.  The students derive that the new pitch is lower then do and that it's a skip (they often will say that it sounds similar to the interval/relationship between so and mi, as it should since it's a minor 3rd.).  After the known solfa is derived and they learn that there is a new note that is lower then do, they sing the song and substitute the known solfa and hum in for the "OOO-ooo-oo-oo" pattern.

Now, I'm kind of ashamed to admit, but I'm the type of person that will see something in the store, HAVE TO BUY IT and then figure out how to use it later.  Hence, this is why I have a closet full of foam shapes, random felt, stickers and other things I haven't used yet.  This year's Halloween-Walmart find was this:

It includes 30 Ghost foam cut outs: 15 of them are plain white ghosts and 15 of them are glittery.
Lucky, it didn't take me years to figure out how I'd use these.  What I did was I made a solfa ladder out of them for the students to use, in groups of 2-3, to point to while singing the solfege of the "OOo-ooo-oo-oo" or mi-re-do-la, pattern.  Now, since this is a preparatory activity for la, I made the bottom ghost with a "?" to indicate the mystery/unknown note.  The mi, re & do ghosts are made on the plain white ghosts and the new-unknown note is written on the glittery ghost.

I know that my 4th graders will want to sing this song once their concert is over on October 25th and since I had extra glittery ghosts I made some ghosts that have la, written on them.  I will also be able to bring this back, even though it will be after Halloween, to use with my 3rd graders after la, has been presented.  At this point, they can also use them in conjuntion with the powerpoints and to solfa the entire song.  I love that I can also use these for them to decode melodic patterns using mi-re-do-la,.  I will hum or "ooo" a pattern and they sing it back to me on solfa while pointing to the solfege ghosts.

This photo is mainly to try to show the difference between the plain and glittery ghosts.

Happy "spooking!" :)

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