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.
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!
One of the wonderful things about social media is finding wonderfully inclusive children's literature. JoJos Book Club is one of my favorite pages on instagram. I appreciate the honest and straightforward reviews and have found some really beautiful inclusive books there. A couple days ago I found The Ocean Calls which is very new- just published in August 2020. Written by Asian American Tino Cho and illustrated by Asian Canadian Jess Snow this is a beautifully told and illustrated story of a South Korean island community of haenyeo - deep-sea divers. Grandma and her fellow divers, all older women, dive without oxygen deep into the ocean to gather abalone, sea urchins, and other treasures. Granddaughter Dayeon wants to be a haenyeo like her "treasure hunting Grandma" but she’s scared. Grandma shows patience as she listens then says, “Can’t you hear what the waves are saying? They’re calling to us to come home.”
The book can be used as a jumping off point to connect culture in so many ways.
I have always loved clouds. Fascinating things. I have memories of being a kid laying on a blanket on the grass in the summer, just watching and finding shapes, animals, faces, and things in the shapes of the ever-changing clouds. Hope you enjoy these and find some ways to use them with your students.
And some wonderful books to add! These are my favorites!
This year at our school, in addition to dismantling some long-held traditions that were problematic, and engaging in a 21-week Racial Equity Challenge- which has been amazing, we are celebrating Black History Month in a way we have never done before. I am so incredibly proud of my school for embracing change and valuing Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Social Justice work year round. If you celebrate Black History Month, I hope we all realize the importance of celebrating Black, Brown, Indigenous, and Asian People of Color (BBIAPOC) music and musicians throughout the year, not only during the nationally designated, recognized, and celebrated months.
This year we are also having a door decoration contest, with each teacher celebrating one African American/Black person of influence and importance. Teachers are relating this to content within the classroom and students will have a socially-distanced gallery crawl as well as a time to hear about each person by the students via video announcements in classrooms. It is exciting, but we also need to work on our curricula, traditions, histories, and centering voices of BBIAPOC within our classrooms.
Here is my door our students decorated:
I chose Ella Fitzgerald, and students will be listening to and learning about this barrier-breaker and glass-ceiling-shatterer throughout the month as well as learning about Stevie Wonder, John Legend, Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong, and Esperanza Spalding - here is one of my favorite videos of her!
For the full slide set of the preview below, click here.
My friend Ardith is a lovely music educator with a passion for children and music education. Many thanks to her for giving me permission to share this oh-so-lovely lesson today! Perfect for Valentines Day!
Read the book and insert the pages after every three animals. This is SO adorable!
We all watched the wildfires in Australia and I don't know about you, but I have felt incredibly powerless. The people, landscape, and animals have been devastated.
In case you didn't see it, check out this visual of a map of Australia superimposed on the US and Southern Canada and this will give you an idea of the extent of the damage:
I am an animal lover - grew up on our family dairy farm and considered becoming a vet. My friend and fellow music teacher, Jody Petter and I wanted to do something that involved music and animals. We are starting a fundraiser and this one is the first of several to come!
Have you seen the book, "When the Beat Was Born, DJ Kool Herc and the Creation of Hip Hop? Click on the picture to see it on Amazon.
The fundraiser part of this is as follows; you can win a hardcover copy of the book along with a lesson from my Painted Music book (pictured above). The lesson from Painted Music goes along with the story and uses the art of Keith Haring and breakdancing! Bidding starts at $20.00 and I will match the final bid. All proceeds go to helping care for Australian animals injured or orphaned by the fires. How to bid - go to facebook -@o for tuna orff, or on instagram -@Aimee_ofortunaorff and bid there!
Good luck!!
I love this book and the beautiful illustrations. I also find this to be a purposeful way for us to make connections with our students about the often confusing messages they receive about race and hate.
Though I have used a minor pentatonic set to create a melody, you could certainly use another pitch set in which to create a melody. I have also included multiple rhythmic choices for both the words, "Peace" and "Salam".
I do love a good game! I also love singing games and clapping games, as you can see from my books on the left! Check out the newest one, Sing a Song Play a Game: Singing Games from Around the World; there are 71 singing games in the collection! Shameless plug. :)
I love the giggles and fun and I value the "work" on rhythm, beat, and singing! SO many good music skills and content to be learned with games!
These are some new favorites of my students, hope you enjoy them also.
1. Pass the Beat
In action:
2. Pass the Rhythm
You can see this one in action here:
3. Numbers Game
This is SO fun - first time after I played it the kids BEGGED to play it again- now when I see them in the halls they ask if we are going to play it again!
Hope you enjoy some of these - perfect for this crazy time of year!
