Up, Down, and Around

I am a gardener. Like many of my ancestors, I enjoy growing things. My grandmother had an amazing garden and she and I were often side by side in the summer picking wild blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, and even strawberries. I grew up on my parents dairy farm, which was handed down from my Dad's father - I never knew Grampie well as he died when I was 5, but Gram, oh yes, and she was lively and fun and loved her 16 grandchildren fiercely!  Gram loved to make homemade bread (I still use her recipe and her bread bowl) and also loved to make and give homemade jam and jelly to everyone at Christmas. So we picked a LOT of berries. I often think of her with her paper towel folded and pinned to her forehead so the sweat wouldn't run in her eyes.
I love to grow flowers, especially irises, which are blooming like crazy right now here in NC! I must have 200 blooms in my yard this year!

 I also have a small raised bed in which I grow lettuce, spinach, radishes, yard long green beans, tomatoes, basil, and cukes!
Speaking of growing...
This book is so cute, and the text fits so nicely into a 6/8 rhythm. I just did a Facebook video yesterday on how I use this book - check it out @o for tuna orff

The text of the book is all about how vegetables grow - "corn grows up, carrots grow down, cucumbers twine around and around...". I begin by using a slide whistle and isolate body parts- "Move only your arm" or, "Move only your leg" and play the slide whistle moving it up and down in various ways. Students respond by moving arm, leg, head, upper body, etc. Then I ask about vegetables students like to eat and the responses are always interesting!  I ask how various veggies grow- up, or down, and what things twine around and that is where students usually get stumped. I explain what that means, and show examples from the book. Then we discuss various ways of moving our bodies, "around and around". It might be moving our arms in a circle, or turning bodies around in a circle, or it might mean moving hands around one another in front of bodies.  Then I read the book and sing this song after every "around and around" in the book. Students respond by moving up, down, or around.  When I first wrote the song, I used it with a rhythm activity with first and second grade, but I usually use this with K/Grade 1 now.

Then we break out the glockenspiels.  I cut out a little tree canopy (leaves) and use masking tape to adhere these by the small bars. I use one for each glockenspiel we will be using.

This was shared on a facebook group one time and I LOVE how this connection helps students to understand up and down.  I demonstrate holding the glockenspiel like a tree with the leaves on the top and then I sing the song again but add pauses after up and down to play glissandi up or down. For "round and round.." in the song I ask students how I can play that part and they always have good suggestions (usually moving up and down quickly).  Then it is students turn and so we read the book again and during the song we add the glockenspiel part.

Another song I use with this farm theme is "That's the Life of a Farmer" by Lynn Kleiner. It is from her farm book - so fun for exploring unpitched percussion timbres!

Another similar activity can be paired with Up Up Down by Robert Munsch.

And then use Mortimer with first graders -