Valentine, Red and Blue

This song reminds me of my first year of teaching.  I remember my mom going to Lamar Robertson's workshop in Colorado (I was teaching in Salem, OR at the time) and telling me about how great his workshop was.  This was the winter before I took level I Kodály at Portland State University.  I did a passing game with it in which the students passed a heart pillow that I had growing up and if they had it at the end of the song they took a card out of the inside of the pillow and read the rhythm.  This is a great song and my source for it is "The American Methodology" by Lamar Robertson and Ann Eisen. 

Here's the song:

This song is a great one to practice re but you can also isolate the first phrase to work on do.  I typically use this with my second graders but will be using it for an absolute pitch game with my third graders (see the end of the blog).

Here are some of the slides from my PowerPoint:

Lyric slide:

Beat practice:

 Rhythm prep (note the half note at the end):

Rhythm reading slide:

Stick notation with bar lines:

Stick solfa practice (my second graders won't be doing this as we haven't gotten to re yet):

The PowerPoint also goes through the song with text and hearts in relationship to pitch:

Then the same thing again, but with solfége (remember I tailor my PowerPoint's to my students needs):

And then it's put on the staff with words:

And it's put on the staff with solfége:

And here they'll be reading the rhythm and solfége off the staff:

And remember I told you a while ago that reading in absolute pitch was something I was trying to have my kids do more often?  Well, here are some absolute pitch reading cards.  If your kiddos are playing recorder, this could be accessible to them if you've gotten to high D:

Here's the song sort that I'm going to be using this year with my kiddos.  You could do it with first grade with the pink and blue hearts only.  You could use it with your second graders if you've gotten to re and you using the green, blue and pink hearts.  And for your third graders, you can use all the hearts.

Basically, you can use this how ever you want to.  If you gave each of your kiddos all four of the purple hearts (the absolute pitch cards), they would put the song in order.  You can extend that and have them match the solfége (the green hearts) to the purple hearts.  You can tailor it for your students needs and what ever your assessment might be.

Remember those hearts that I found at The Dollar Tree?  You could also use that with this song as an assessment- have them write out the melody on the staff paper using the Table Scatter hearts.  The possibilities are endless!!  Please share some of your ideas with me!

If you'd like this PowerPoint and Song Sort, you can find it at my Teachers Pay Teachers store.

I hope you all had a GREAT Martin Luther King Jr. Day!!

0

Big Bunch of Roses

Now, this is a song that I had sitting in my pile of "too be looked at in greater detail" pile for years.  I couldn't figure out how to "own" the song and in turn "sell it" to my students.  Then last year at Leigh Anne Garner's ROCKE workshop I learned some activities to do with it.

Here's the song:

Here's an easy Orff accompaniment that I made up (again, I have no Orff training, so all my "stuff" is quite simple):

Now, Leigh Anne presented a passing song using plush roses.  Last year I found these online:

They were quite the buy and they can in five different colors (red, pink, orange, blue, purple), which worked out nicely for the game that Leigh Anne taught us.   (I'm sad to report that the roses I found are no longer available.  But with Valentine's day around the corner keep your eye out when your shopping, you never know what you might find!)

Here are my kiddos singing and playing the passing game.  Sitting in a circle, every student had a rose and passed the roses to the right on the beat of the song (pass, pick-up, pass, pick-up, etc.)  When Leigh Anne taught is she didn't have a rose for everybody, so that's another way to play it.  When you didn't have a rose you kept the pattern going with your arms and when the rose was in front of you you passed it.

Here's a PowerPoint that I made for the song.  There's a lyric slide:

Melodic preparation slides:

Melodic prep on the staff:

Melodic practice slides (sans rhythm):

Melodic practice on the staff:

 Rhythm preparation slides, students must figure out where to add ties:

Rhythmic preparation slides, with ties:

Rhythm practice slides:

Rhythmic and melodic practice slides, with stick notation:

Rhythmic and melodic practice slides, staff notation:

Absolute pitch reading practice slides:

And a song sorting game:

Going back to the plush rose passing game, I use the colors of the roses to group my students and I have the above cards printed on matching paper.  That is, I have red cards, pink cards, orange cards, blue cards & purple cards.  Everyone with like colored roses work together to find the cards that they need to put the song in order.  If you notice, the first 4 cards match the song, the second 4 do not match the song.  This is to "up the ante" and make the game harder.  So to simplify the game, you could print out only the top four cards.  

This PowerPoint is available at my Teachers pay Teachers store for $1.00.  Please follow me on Teachers Pay Teachers, beginning in February I will be starting a monthly freebie, for followers only.

0

Tee Hee Hee/Johnny Caught a Flea

This is a fun song that I learned from Christopher Robertson that he used at a ROCKE workshop in 2003.  It's a great song for do and practicing the so-do interval.

Here's the song:

 I created a PowerPoint for it that can also be used to prepare and practice quarter rest.  Here's the lyric slide:

Here the words are compared to the beat:

Here the rhythm is represented iconically:

Here's a quarter rest preparation slide in which ta and ti-ti have replaces the text:

And here's a quarter rest practice slide:

Like I mentioned above, I use this song to practice do in the so-do interval.  Here are the melodic slides:

 The next three slides can be used if you are preparing do and you present it in the so-do interval.  (I, personally, teach do in the so-mi-do pattern but there's always more then "one way to skin a cat.")

 The next two slides are presentation slides. . . each line of text is set to animation so they appear individually and allow for the students to respond to the question before seeing the answer:

 And here's the practice slide.  I use this slide in sequential order with the other melodic slides as I use this song for practicing do (that is, I eliminate the three previous slides that prepare and present do):

I created solfa ladders that can be used in conjunction with the melodic slides of the PowerPoint or for do-mi-so-la practice:

And, finally, here's a quick assessment.  I print out these cards, cut them along the dotted lines and the students put the song in order.

 Finally, here's a slide with the lyric, rhythm and melody from which the students can practice reading either rhythm or solfége.

You can download this file at my Teacher Pay Teachers store.  Be sure to check my store tomorrow for a free file of "Auld Lang Syne"!

0