Santa's Lost His Jingle Bell Stick-to-Staff Activity

I recently posted some Polar Express melody files and in those I included a sets of flashcards that have jingle bells and a set that Santas on them.  My second graders are preparing do but we're also still practicing and reinforcing re, especially in the s-l-m turns and m-l intervals.  When I was creating the file it dawned on me that it would be fun to do a stick to staff matching game.  This week we used them during whole group instruction with the goal of doing it again in small groups.  

Now, I know that reading stick notation is easier than staff notation but since we're in late practice of la, I wanted to drill some staff reading.  So, first the classes sang through the flashcards written on the staff.

Next, I showed them a stick notation flashcard.  Now, at our staff meeting this week we talked about wait time. I'm HORRIBLE at wait time.  With such a limited time of seeing the kids I feel a constant pressure to squeeze as much as I can into each and every second of a lesson.  But when I do this I rob my students of processing time.  So, this is what I tried with this activity: instead of raising their hands when they saw the matching staff card, I had them point to the card on the floor.  I was able to get a rough idea of which card they were pointing and it gave them ALL time to think, process and check their work.  And really, it didn't take all that much longer!

Here's a sample of what it looks like to match the stick to staff cards:

Here's one of my 2nd grade friends matching the card.  After each match we did a "thumbs up/thumbs down" signal to check our work.

I love how my buddy in the blue is helping his friend:

The whole matching activity, from start to finish of reading the flashcards and matching the card to each other took about 5 minutes, perfect for a 2nd grader's attention span and they felt so accomplished.

Have a GREAT Weekend everyone!

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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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