My most lovely friend and fellow Orff teacher, Crystal Pridmore, shared a beautiful ocean canon on the facebook group, The Singing Space. Most of you know I am originally from Maine and have a pretty serious love affair with all things ocean. When I heard this lovely canon, I loved it for it's simplicity, but also for the orchestration and minor key tonality. Beautiful! Crystal so kindly gave me permission to share the song and also the activity she sent to her students remotely on making an ocean drum.
Originally pitched in a minor, I have written it in d minor as that would work for children's voices. Hope you enjoy listening and find a way to incorporate this into lessons with students as school ends or as a beginning of the year activity or anytime next year.
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.
I have blogged about this lesson before as I LOVE this book and activity and it is perfect for spring when we start to hear and see more peepers out and about! For those who have seen it before, HOLD ON because this post has some new things! Happy Spring! Here in the South, we have green grass, budding trees, and daffodils are swaying in the wind! This time of year always reminds me of frogs, for some reason, and so I break out all my frog songs in addition to flowers, rain, chicks and bunnies. For those of you with snow still, spring IS coming!!!
You are going to need this book, get the popup version- a MUST have!
A frog puppet is another perfect accessory but not "needed" for the activity. :)
As always, if you want the full pdf of both lessons, send me an email request at musicquilt@hotmail.com.
Happy Spring!
Happy Spring! Here in the South, we have green grass, budding trees, and daffodils are swaying in the wind!
This time of year always reminds me of frogs, for some reason, and so I break out all my frog songs in addition to flowers, rain, chicks and bunnies.
This lesson uses a book, The Wide Mouthed Frog, pop up edition, and a frog puppet, which you don't need but it makes the lesson much more fun. You may also want some young children who haven't learned quarter rest yet or you want to reinforce quarter rest with them.
For this lesson, you are going to need to head over to facebook and check out the ofortunaorff page - there is a video with me going through the lesson!
You will need this book available here.
I am linking up today with Elizabeth from Organized Chaos.
We're hoping... and wishing... and dreaming of snow here in North Carolina! I am from the snowy state of Maine and living here in NC for the past 18 years I can honestly say I don't miss Maine in the winter. But, ah, the summer!!! LOVE it and miss my ocean terribly! Good thing I get to visit there almost every summer!
Here is a snowflake song for younger students. I actually planned it to use with kindergarten and re-wrote it today to use with my kindies. We use the song with snowflakes (white feathers) and ice skates (paper plates.. yup- they work GREAT).! Process:
Teach song, half the class at the glockenspiels with F's and B's (franks and beans or burgers and fries or buffalo's and flamingo's, however you say these bars) removed, practice singing and playing in the appropriate places.
Other half of class performs the skating on paper plates while singing, each holds a white feather and when the song is over students blow feathers into the air while glocks improvise (as quietly as a snowflake!) as long as the "snowflake" (feather) is in the air. Once the "snowflake" is on the ground they stop improvising. I award "snowflake kisses" (extra feathers) to each student who stops as soon as the feather touches the ground. That way they get more than one feather to blow into the air when it is their turn. It's so funny to see them try to stop at the exact moment of "touchdown"!
Switch jobs and perform again!
Enjoy!
I am originally from Maine, an original "Mainah". As much as I love my home state, and miss many parts of it, I am much happier weather wise here in North Carolina, especially now.. they were just hit with a massive storm and my parents have 2.5 FEET of snow in their yard and are set for more snow this weekend. My kiddos here at school are wanting just a few inches of the white stuff, and I would love to go out and play in the yard with my daughter and enjoy some snowy moments! Not to mention having a Snow Day.
Here is a song for younger grades, Snowflakes Falling Down. We used it as a B section to the Snowflakes song from Gameplan, Grade K. After playing a few times, we let our mallets "dance" (alternate hands quickly) to play high sounds after "dancing high" and low sounds after "dancing low". Great fun.. Add some finger cymbals, whirling tubes (wind sounds) and chimes and you'll have a blustery blizzard of musical fun. Oh, and white feathers.. got to have them to blow around, too.. Cheers!!
