If You Find a Leaf

This is such a beautiful book by Aimee Sicuro! The slides are available (FREE!) here!

Great Big House in New Orleans

 I love this song at this time of year as there is SO much that can be done with it- add an ostinato with pie flavors, perform the dance, talk about dance styles, create a new dance, student created B Section, and a game from the wonderful Mrsmainsmusicians on insta! 

Grab the full google slides here. Please note this will force a copy. 

For the game, I glued my pies to paper plates.  This helps them to slide easier as most inexpensive paper plates have a wax coating on them.  This also makes them round and pie shaped! 

Here are a few slides from the set.

Enjoy!

The House Around the Corner

 I am always looking for songs that help my recorder students with specific areas - and often end up writing my own pieces to fit their needs. Since switching the starting pitches from BAG to GE I have been delighted that beginning with G and E opens up so much bitonic and tritonic (SM and SLM) songs and once we add low D we have access to some wonderful pentatonic material!  

We are working on some pre-improvisational ideas and so The House Around the Corner was born this week!  My students needed more practice with low E, and they were clamoring for something scary and spooky.  This song can go in various directions - spooky or with a more autumnal/wintry theme. 

I sang this song to them while playing the accompaniment.

Then I displayed these four 4-beat rhythm cards.

As we have been working on something we call the Wizard's Challenge using In the Hall of the Mountain King, I tell the students this rhythm might be familiar. Then I sing it using the word "dude" (which is what we "whisper" when playing recorder) and their little minds are blown that this is the rhythm of the melody repeated over and over.  Then we play the first card (top left) only using "E". Then play through each subsequent card using "E."  Play the top two cards, then the bottom two, then the full 16-beat phrase. 

I change the bordun to quarter notes  E B C B, which sounds very spooky, and we play the full phrase using E. 

Next, change the quarter notes to G. Play full phrase.

Finally, change the 3rd card (four 8th note pairs) to B and have students work on the transition from third card to final card (transitioning from B to E) and then we play the full phrase.

Perform as A (song), B (recorder melody), A again. Students could also play the melody as it is a simple La Do Re Mi song. If you have Carol King's Recorder Routes you could combine this with Who Has Seen the Wind, another LDRM song. 

The students loved it and felt so successful! The next time we will work on improvising beats 2 and 4 of   the third measure and will add zombie movement (as they requested), whistling tubes, flexatone, black scarves, and spring drums. They also want to add gongs, cymbals, and other things so it is sure to be a piece we will record to send home to families. 

Enjoy!

Pass the Pumpkin *Updated!

 Pass the Pumpkin is a fall favorite and I have remade the slides in google slides with some small tweaks to the visuals and the directions. 

Click this link for the google slides - please know this will force you to make a copy. 

Enjoy!

Jack O'Lantern Song

 I needed a new song for sixteenth notes for this season, so this morning I wrote one. Enjoy! The game is similar to others and will be a quick and easy way for my students to work on playing octaves and sixteenth notes!  Click this link for the google slide.

Enjoy,

Monster Trouble/ In the Hall of the Mountain King

 Monsters, Monsters, how much do I love thee?

Younger Children

I love using In the Hall of the Mountain King but with little ones I do this activity. It is a fun activity using locomotor movement and a modified melody. 

Older Students

 If you have the book, In the Hall of the Mountain King, I start this lesson by reading the book.

Decode the rhythm. 

See previous posts for additional ideas.

Create Music "Trolls" or "Troll Kings" or "Monsters":

Here is my example:

Step by step directions:

Some of my students creations:

Next, we learn this speech piece and perform it by opening the monster (high), closing it (low), turning around for "monster everywhere" and moving it side to side quickly for "fast" and slow for "slow", then running in place for "go go go". 

Then we perform the speech piece with the book, Monster Trouble, every 3-4 pages. SO MUCH FUN!

Enjoy!

Musical Monster Fun!

 I enjoy the costumes, trick or treating, and the silly, playful fun of Halloween. I have leaned more towards monsters in the past several years as they aren't really Halloween and can be use any time of year. 

On my Patreon site there are SEVERAL posts using children's lit, songs, games, speech pieces, solo singing activities, etc. This is one recent massive post, with 3 embedded videos!  Here is a pic of some of the things from that one post: 

Past Posts:

Monsters Love Underpants

Sing Me a Monster

Hope you enjoy!

Diwali!

 Hello, friends - first, an exciting announcement! I have a new community full of music educators who are trying to simplify their planning and grow professionally. I welcome you to come join for exclusive video lessons, activities, organization ideas, children's literature lessons, workshops, and one on one mentoring opportunities. We are going to have so much fun learning and growing with each other! 

Join here!! 

Diwali is coming soon- November 4. Diwali (or Deepavali as it’s sometimes called) means “row of lights” in Sanskrit. During this festival, people decorate their homes with lights and oil lamps, called diyas.  The lights and lamps are said to help the Hindu goddess of wealth, Lakshmi, find her way into peoples’ homes, bringing prosperity in the year to come. It is also a celebration of good triumphing evil.Diwali is a religious holiday and festival originating in India. People often think of Diwali as a Hindu festival, but it is also celebrated by Sikhs and Jains. The celebration lasts for five days and marks the start of the Hindu New Year. The exact dates change each year and are determined by the position of the moon but usually fall between October and November. 

Check out the Nat Geo page for more interesting facts. 

Last year was the first year I incorporated Diwali more fully.  I began by talking with some of my families who are Indian. I had some wonderful moms come in and teach me some Dandiya (stick) dances and we created a very simple one for our young students. There is some footwork involved in Dandiya dances but we focus more on performing with the sticks.  I also talked with a few of my students  who are Indian privately, asking if they wanted to speak or tell us during class about how they celebrated, or if any of them were performing classical Indian dance or song (I have a first grader who takes classical Indian singing lessons!) and invited them to perform. 

Book to Begin

This is a lovely book and a perfect introduction to the customs and celebrations.  This year I am recording two sisters who are Indian reading the book to show to all my classes. 

Diwali, Diwali Song

Then we learned Manju Durairaj's Diwali, Diwali song and sang the chorus together. 

Dandiya (Stick) Dance

We created a simple Dandiya dance on the chorus of the song.  All movements are to the beat. Facing a partner tap right sticks together, tap left sticks together, tap own sticks to the right, tap own sticks to the left. Step back with one foot and tap sticks behind back, step same foot forward and both stick face right (like windshield wipers) and tap both partners sticks making a # hashtag, then trade places while turning around in a circle. Of course this can be modified but this is what the Moms at school and I came up with.

I would highly recommend wooden sticks - aluminum ones are available from Amazon but my experience is they break far too easily. Rhythm Sticks or dowels could also be used as long as they are the longer ones (12" or so).

Here is a video of Dandiya Dancing.

And an excellent teaching video to show you the footwork and sticking. The first one is just right for beginners and children.

Concert with Indian Instruments, Songs

This is an excellent 30 minute concert made for children from Lincoln Center featuring Grammy nominated artist Falu. I like beginning at 7:47 and end at 15:00 if I am pressed for time as they talk about traditional solfege, then Indian solfege, then sing a song incorporating the solfege.

Sitar and Tabla - played by KIDS!

A fun little video about sitar made for children:

Garba Dancing

My students love to see both the women and the men dancing here - and they love the music!

More Books Featuring India and Indian Characters

The Many Colors of Harpreet Singh - this is a google slide presentation featuring a video of the book, rhythms created from colors, along with discussion points for students about tone color. The end features several Bhangra dance videos.

The Wheels on the Tuk Tuk is sung to the tune of The Wheels on the Bus and is a great introduction to India.

Festival of Colors is just one of the most beautiful books and is about the Indian festival of Holi.

A Gift for Amma follows a girl as she goes through the vibrant rainbow colors of the market trying to find a gift for her mother.

10 Gulab Jamuns is the story of two brothers discovering a sweet treat from India.

Hope you enjoy all of these and Happy Diwali (in November)!