When I first began teaching 23 years ago (yikes!) I didn't keep track of song repertoire the way I do now. I also often felt pressed to sin...
When I first began teaching 23 years ago (yikes!) I didn't keep track of song repertoire the way I do now. I also often felt pressed to sin...
I've seen several posts on FB pages about what to do at the end of the year. If you've been here before you know I started a tradition a few years ago singing camp songs. Picture on bottom is kids reaction when we get ready to start camp songs! They are the PERFECT finish *ta da* at the end of the year. It keeps the kids singing, clapping, and they are just plain FUN!! This is a previous post I had that has several including tons of variations to "A Sailor Went to Sea" that my kids can't get enough of! This is the expression I usually see when I tell them it's time for Camp Songs! In addition to these my students also love: "Highland Gates" from the Amidons book Down in the Valley- get the book.. you won't regret it!! http://www.dancingmasters.com/store/books-cds-dvds/down-in-the-valley I use this with First Grade on up through about third. Jump Jim Joe https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1m-DIa5QTA GREAT for littles- PreK/ Kinder/First Grade And I see this from the older kids when we are doing camp songs: Sashay the Donut also from the Amidons book of the same name (grades 3 and up) They LOVE this one!! These are some of the youtube videos I watched to learn how to sing/perform the songs and chants and then personalized them. I don't use these with the kids. We actually put a crackling fire on the screen to watch and turn the lights out so we have a campfire atmosphere. Wisconsin Milk is here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Mr0ccX7RCc Mac n Cheese: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xV46eduDyTY Go Bananas: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFXitbTQ0-E Ricky Ticky Toomba: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCmvCJU6v6E&list=PL9738E2086220EEBA&index=4 Tarzan: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7w1aREkMnwY&list=PL9738E2086220EEBA&index=8 Herman the Worm: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCgwV-iI80E&list=PL9738E2086220EEBA&index=9 Singing in the Rain also called Chili Bop: (LOVE this one!) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5bbHVrtx0Ow Pizza Hut: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ctjeZD0c0A Humpty Dumpty: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYY7JHl_nFw HYSTERICAL! instead of the pelvic thrust on "huh" I have the kids clap and jump as high as they can go. Found a Peanut: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOh6tnceO3Q Froggy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VoLaQV8aE8 Baby Shark: MUST DO!!! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=da2IgWbkvI0 Start at 1:15 And a couple more: Have fun and keep the music going until the bitter (or sweet) end!
Hello, this is Lindsay Jervis, from Pursuit of Joyfulness and Lindsay's Kodaly Inspired Classroom (on facebook). “The most important thing is to actualize the instinctive love of the child for singing and playing, to realize the changing of his moods through the songs, his feelings, his experiences. . . in other words, to bring about the miracle of music.” (Adám, in The Kodály Concept, 1966, p. 2) But HOW do we keep them singing as they get older? I really do believe that the love of music and singing must be something that is instilled from a very young age (most likely before they even enter our classrooms) because of the exposure to music and their musical experience in the home, but that being said, I do believe what we do once them come to elementary school can have a profound impact on what they think of music and music class and whether they WANT to continue in music as they go on through schooling and life. With the little ones, I have always felt this comes easy. Song, stories, and play are so much a part of what they love to do. With the old grades (I'm thinking 3rd-5th), you have to carefully select music, games, and activities that have just the right amount of challenge to peak their interest, keep them engaged, and meet their skill level without becoming too difficult that they give up and become frustrated. In my psychology of Music Ed class last semester we talked about the inverted U - as the challenge goes up, the performance and enjoyment of the students goes up until they reach their skill peak. After that peak, students feel stress, anxiety and give up on the task or "think it's stupid". This is where it is really important to know where your kids are at and select appropriate songs for them. The songs cannot be too babyish (even if the students really are beginners and need to practice things like steady beat and basic rhythm or tonal patterns). I still really consider my older students to be older beginners. I started at my school three years ago and my kids had NO method of reading rhythms or pitches when I got there, so that coupled with my maternity leave my 2nd year there, and they are still not quite up to speed, but that is ok. It is better to go at the pace of the students and do developmentally appropriate literature than push ahead for the sake of staying "on grade level". Here are some songs and games that I have done with my students. In some of these cases, we have used them to isolate rhythm or melodic concepts, but some we have used purely for the joy they bring students while participating. If you find a song that students can't wait to sing/play again- it's a GEM! Hang onto it! You know this one is a gem when I have 5th graders still request it every time they earn a free day. The game is very simple. Students are seated in a circle with their hands behind their back. One student is "it". I call it the "detective" with the older kids and for some reason that is cooler than "it". The first time we play I go around the outside of the circle with a key hidden in my hand. I hide the key in someone's hands. Once I have made it around the circle once, I stop and the detective gets three guesses to try to figure out where the key is. This song is great for older beginners because of the easy rhythms, it is also great for teaching re. With my older beginners I started melody with mi re do instead of sol-mi. Pre-made visuals for this song available here. This song is great for teaching sixteenth notes and the game is a lot of fun. Set up students in a double circle. Inside circle will move clockwise, outside circle will move counterclockwise during the song. Select two chicken farmers. They stand facing away from the circle on opposite sides of the circle. All students in the circles join hands and teacher selects one "window" in each circle. On the last word of the song (I only use verse 1 when playing the game), the selected partners hold their arms up to create a window. The two farmers must race, only going through the "open windows" to get to the middle. I usually borrow a rubber chicken from my PE teacher to throw in the middle. The kids think it is hilarious. This play party is played in longways sets with two lines facing each other (typically one line of boys and one line of girls). Verse 1, the first girl skips around both lines and back to her place. Verse 2, "pretty little Susie skips around set and boys line follows until all are back in their places. Verse 3, cast off, or "peel the banana", head couple forms an arch at the bottom of the set and everyone goes under the arch and the song starts over with a new head couple. Use when preparing and practicing tiri-tiri. If you would like visuals and assessment tools like the one below for this song, you can find some here. I use this song when preparing and practicing tiri-ti. I have one person travel around the circle with two envelopes. Ones says "Ida Red" the other says "Ida Blue". Inside each envelope is an action like crawl, skip, gallop, twirl, crabwalk, hop on one foot, etc. On the last word of the song, the person with the envelopes stops between the two closest people and hands an envelope to each. They take out one card then when I say go, they race around the circle performing that action. If I feel one has an unfair advantage (like crab walk vs. run), I can make one go around twice. The winner gets to be "it" and the game resumes. This one is great for low la! The following two songs were a lot of fun for my fifth grades to create an arrangement of for our Fall Program last year. We used these plus "Who Has Seen the Wind" and added ostinato patterns and added Orff instruments. Each class was responsible for arranging how they wanted to perform the song. They might have chosen to singing sing just the ostinato, then add the melody, then sing and play on barred instruments, and then sing a capella as they traded spots with the next class who was moving onto the barred instruments. It was different for each class and it allowed for them to take something that we were working on in class, take ownership and polish it so that it was something we could present to parents. I used Mamalama strictly for the joy of it last year. It was a great "ice breaker" game for back to school time. My kids loved the challenge of learning the words. I had one girl nail it the first week, which was really cool. You could use this in prepping for fa but it is probably not one that I would use to present fa. This is another one that was played for the joy of it. My kids aren't to low ti yet and the syncopated rhythms are a bit above my kids, but they still need to sing and play this hand clapping game because it is fun. Here's a video of the hand clapping game:
The Yellow Brick Road Blog is a website dedicated to providing music teachers with fun education resources for serious music literacy.
Tomorrow is the big day! KIDDOS!!! HAHAHA!!! I don't tremble.. ok, maybe a little.. not out of fear, but excitement, for sure!! I have seen a few posts on facebook about teachers who are fearful, sad, and lacking in the excitement of the year and that frankly makes me sad. I truly hope it is because of the situation/school/environment and not because of the fact they are teaching children and nervous about that. After all, we are one of the few, the chosen, the incredibly blessed/lucky who are privileged enough to teach BOTH sides of the amazing brain; the creative and the analytical. How cool is that??!!! First day of school I use my Drums Rule/Drum Rules post (see below for previous post) with older kiddos. Younger ones I use a Welcome to the Music Room song a friend wrote years ago and the poem "Ickity Tickity Bumblebee, can you say your name for me" while patsching and clapping, then they say their name and do an action (grades 1-2) which everyone has to copy. It's hilarious, silly, but also informs me quickly whether the students have a good grasp of beat. I also use this one every now and again and put it into a new format for y'all. Have fun and welcome to another year!!
This awesome folk song has multiple uses. Its pentatonic range of low la up to la (la, do re mi so la) allows teachers to use it with multiple grade levels. The syncopated rhythms and dotted quarter note and eighth note rhythms make it engaging for upper elementary as well. The call and response format
I love this time of year in my classroom because it signals the beginning of a delightful string of holidays: Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas! The music of Halloween is especially fun̷…
As the end of the school year is in sight, why not take your students on a few "vacations"! Musical ones, of course! First up is the beac...
Books Part 2 Wonderful book with great illustrations of the varied ways vegetables grow.. up, down, and around. Explore various ways to move arms, legs, whole body, etc., then teach song: Begin with exploring moving up and down; play slide whistle and have students move up and down, vary playing slowly, quickly, legato, staccato, etc. Then ask them to move one arm ONLY, then elbow only (very funny), hand only, thumb only. It's an interesting thing to observe! Teach song; every time students sing "up" they will move higher, "down", lower, and they can choose HOW to move "'round and round". Perform movements and song with book, then divide into small groups to create rhythms in 6/8 based on words like: seeds, grow, plant, flowers, sunshine, and various names of veggies. Develop first as a class and display. One rhythm possibility: Eat your veggies.. ta, ti, ta, ti. Play around with creating these ostinato, transfer to UPP (unpitched percussion) and add as a "B" section to song. Perform again with book. I LOVE this book!! The pop up version is the best.. truly! I used this to teach and label rest with kindergarteners last year and it worked so very well! My lovely friend and fellow music teacher, Noreen Hofmann wrote this song to Mortimer.. it is my favorite of the many "Mortimer" songs I've heard. Divide class in half once orchestration is learned; half will play/act the characters from the book, other half will play orchestration, switch. Spring Is Here is a cutie patootie book your kids are sure to LOVE! A great lesson from fellow teacher and blogger, Thom Borden! Recorder lesson, too!
I learned this song from my KTIP mentor, Alicia Franklin, during my first year teaching. I introduce this song in kindergarten and we sing it everyday when we line up. I sing the first note as a fermata and hold it until every student is joining in and doing their job to line up. There are hand motions to accompany the song. On the first word "my", we raise our hands in the air (this makes it easy to see who is actually paying attention in line and ready to sing the song). Then, we do what the song says. Phrase 1: place hands back Phrase 2: exaggerate good posture Phrase 3: take 2 fingers, point at eyes then straight ahead Phrase 4: hands return behind back Phrase 5: zip lips, pretend to put in pocket, hands return behind back, mouth is closed When the kids get to 1st grade, the song only makes guest appearances when we need help remembering how to line up or when I want to see if they can apply the musical concept we just learned. Using the Song For Assessment Assess Tempo If we learned about tempo that day, we may choose a tempo (largo, moderato, allegro) and sing our song accordingly. They may also get to line up to a tempo. I may ask them to show me allegro feet, largo feet, or moderato feet to line up. Depending on how much time is left in class, I may do this individually or in small groups. If I do it individually, I usually take notes in my grade book for a performance assessment. Older students can watch the conductor and respond to accelerandos and ritardandos. Assess Dynamics If we learned about dynamics that day, we may choose a dynamic level for the entire song (piano, mezzopiano, mezzoforte, forte) or watch the conductor to see how the dynamic levels change throughout the song. Older students can usually remember a pattern to assign different dynamic levels to each phrase. Similar to the game discussed above, sometimes we can line up with piano feet (tiptoeing) or forte feet (stomping). Again, depending on the time remaining in class, this is either done individually or in small groups and is sometimes used as a performance assessment. Assess Melody If we learned about melodic direction that day, we may use our hand levels to show the melodic contour. (That's why I like the simple shape of this melody going upward then downward.) If we discussed pitch, we may sing it in a high key or a low key. Assess Harmony If we learned about minor harmony (Halloween), we may choose to change the song to minor and make it sound spooky. (All the kids LOVE this!) Assess Timbre If we discussed different types of voices (speaking, whisper, calling, singing), we may choose to use different voices to use throughout the entire song, or we may change our voices for each phrase. I also have voice cards that I can hold up and show the students what to change to. (View the next post for printable voice cards.) Assess Rhythm If we discussed rhythm (long and short sounds), we may sing the song exaggerating note lengths in tenuto or staccato style. If we discussed a fermata, we may choose one or two words to have a fermata and sing those words really long. Coda These are just a few examples of how I use our line up song for assessment. Sometimes, instead of telling them how to sing it, I let the kids pick a variation to sing. Again, I only sing it every time with kindergarten; and they never get tired of singing it. It only appears occasionally with older grades. It appears sometimes as a warning to those not ready for the hall: "Do we HAVE to revisit kindergarten and sing the line-up song?" Their behavior is quickly corrected. Many older students LOVE the line up song, as it brings nostalgia from kindergarten. Even if you have a line-up song already in place, you could probably use these assessment strategies with your song as well. I would love to hear other ideas to use line-up songs as assessment tools. If you have some more ideas, please comment below.
To Stop The Train is an easy round for children to learn. It can be found on page 280 of Arvida Steen's "Exploring Orff: A Teacher's Guide." Arvida suggests adding movement to visually enhance the round, although she doesn't describe any specific gestures. Dr. Robert Amchin, head of the music education department at the University of Louisville, has often included this round in his classes and workshops. In the video below, you can see Dr. Amchin first teaching the movements of the round then adding the words one phrase at a time. Last, he introduces the pitches. To create harmony, he allows the class to become the first group while he sneaks in as the second part of the round. He gradually adds people to group 2 until both groups are equal. This year, my fellow music teachers and I decided to have our students perform this simple round in our Central Area Music Festival. But, we knew we had to make the round longer and more interesting. First, we started in unison with movements only and no voices. We added one phrase at a time until we sang the entire song in unison. Then, we sang the song one time through in a 4-part round starting 4 beats apart. Last, we sang the song one time through in an 8-part round starting 2 beats apart. Here is the video of our performance. These are the elementary choir students from 3 neighboring schools. All of the students really enjoyed this round; it quickly became a favorite! For weeks, I would walk through the hallways or lunchroom and hear someone singing or humming it. Whether you are just performing it in class or you are polishing it for a performance, I hope you and your students enjoy this round.
Song Index
A quick post today with a song you can use for upper grades. Add a body percussion pattern (patsch, clap) and raise fisted hand on "Hey" and add T (teacher) clapping/students echoing body percussion patterns (in the score). Create an additional section to create a rondo: C Section: T. plays 4 beat pattern on drum, students choose an adjective to describe themselves that is the same letter/sound as their name: I used Fabulous Pfitzner for myself, I had "Interesting Isaac", "Amazing Allison", etc. Four students, one at a time, say their adjective and name over 4 beats, next student says theirs over the next four beats, etc. My fourth graders LOVED this!
GO HOME, THIS WEEK! YOU'RE DRUNK!
I have posted before about the end of the school year and how I sing camp songs with my kiddos. They love it and can't wait for the end of ...
Song Index
You'll love singing along to the Primary song Nephi's Courage as you teach the lyrics using your choose of one of these Nephi's Courage Flip Chart and lyric helps below that make it easy to
