One Dragon

 Most of you know my family is Chinese American- my daughter was born in China and adopted into our family when she was 18 months.  We celebrate Lunar New Year and love this special and festive time of year.  

This year is the year of the dragon!  My amazing friend, Melanie Kang, recently published her book, Lions, Lanterns, and Ribbons with Beatin' Path Publications.  It is a delightful book and makes Chinese and Mandarin-language songs accessible, playful, and purposeful.  I was honored to be her editor on the project.  Click on the picture to check out the book - available in print or as a download-able e-book!  

Melanie and I created this song based on the traditional Three Frogs children song.  

Click here to get the google slides and note this will force a copy! 

Enjoy!  

Lead Through That Sugar and Tea

 This is a favorite dance and I love using it to introduce syncopation!  There are (at least) 2 versions although I think Version 2 is probably more historically accurate.  The song and dance is a play party.  Here is more information about this song and more here from the University of Arkansas with a field recording from 1953.  The speech at the beginning of Version 1 is something I created with my students. 

Click here for the Google Slides. 

Bounce High, Bounce Low

 This is one of those games that is played many ways and has a myriad of concepts to focus on.  I love using this in Kindergarten as a beat game, then later in the year as a rhythm game, and then spiraling it up into first grade as an introduction into La.  

For the full slides, please click here and note this will force a copy. 

Pop It Music Game

 On Wednesdays we have a special schedule and with my first and second graders I have been doing a lot of centers and rotations.  As explained by a classroom teacher, a Center is an activity or station where students choose to go and choose how long they spend at that place.  A Rotation is where all students experience the same things for the same amount of time and rotate through the various activities. 

Once introduced, these games and activities are perfect to leave for a sub! 

If you are on a mobile device, scroll all the way to the bottom and click, "View Web Version" and on the right you will see all the posts that are tagged with "Centers" and "Rotations".

One of my new favorites is this pop it game with dice.

Someone posted this on instagram last year and it has become a new favorite.  Use foam dice from Dollar Tree and write your rhythms on all sides.  For me, this is a Leveled Game with Level One using quarter notes, eighth notes, and quarter rest.  Level Two adds half note and Level Three adds sixteenth notes and eighth, sixteenth note combinations.  

On the game itself, sit in front of the TV one night and use a Sharpie to draw quarter notes, eighth notes, and quarter rests on each "pop".  I keep the dice, games, and directions in a 2-gallon ziploc bag with my other rotations and centers.  

Here are the direction cards:

Enjoy!