Snowflake Half Note Lesson

This one is so much fun!

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Aimee Pfitzner 🎶 (@aimee_ofortunaorff)

Spring is Here

 I love spring!  All the flowers, the new leaves budding, and green; so much green!!! 

I have been playing with some older lessons I created years ago and have had so much fun using Spring is Here by Will Hillenbrand with my students. This is a Bear and Mole story and is so cute - kids love the ending! 

It is a nice introduction into half note, too!  Check out the lesson below. Click on this link which will take you to the full Google slide complete with a 6-minute video lesson that will talk you through how to teach the lesson as well as give you the 2-beat building bricks.  Like everything else you see and want more lessons like this?  Come and join our Patreon community for exclusive content, monthly mini workshops and mentorship opportunities. All for about the cost of a cup of coffee per month! 

Enjoy!

Ready, Set, Go!

 Hi everyone! I have been singing a lot of Hamilton lately and the one that seems to be stuck for me (perpetually) is "The World is Upside Down". I FEEL this so strongly right now. 

Can you relate? I also feel like we are playing the strangest game of Hide and Seek - Ready or not, here it comes!  The craziest school year we will probably ever experience. Masked, shielded, and distanced, high-risk teachers like me streaming from my music room into grade level classrooms half the time and the other half standing behind a large Plexiglas barrier with mask, face shield, and air purifiers sucking potential virus droplets from the air. Students in cohorts and assigned seats for contact tracing teams for WHEN, not if, a student or teacher contract Covid. *sigh* *Bigger Sigh* *BIGGEST SIGH EVAH*

On Singing

Let's be careful, folks, how we approach the concept of "singing" with our students. The very first class we will be having a conversation with students about how singing will look and feel differently for now, but this too shall pass. We will be singing in our "Heads, Hearts, Hands, maybe a little Humming, and at HOME!" The worst thing we can do to our students is intertwine the words "singing" and "dangerous" in a sentence- our children and impressionable, and we do NOT want to leave the impression that singing is dangerous. Words have great impact, and we all know it can be long-lasting.

Ok, off my soapbox! :)

We've got this, though!  We CAN get through this but only by leaning on one another for support, encouragement, and a million ideas! Here are a few things to get you started this year:  

1. Non-Verbal Cards for Remote/Digital Learning

Right click on these to save, print, and enjoy!  There are two volume buttons included as some platforms use a mic image like below, and some others use the mic in the 2nd picture. My friend, Michael printed each of these on one color and glued the bottom of each card to a popsicle stick to hold up and show onscreen. Great for letting students know to write a response in the chat, or that you have you "eyes" on them, or for when to mute or unmute. 

3. Greet and PASS

This is a year unlike any other and many of our students are going to want to return from 4-5 months of not being around friends and bear hug everyone in sight.  I am not crazy about the term, "Socially Distanced" but prefer the friendlier "Physically Distanced" way to express keeping ourselves apart from our neighbors and friends. I taught this to all my teachers this week and they have posted the words in their classrooms and are adding it to their morning meetings the first month of school as a fun and playful reminder of how to greet their friends and teachers each day.

Hope you have fun using these! 

Stay safe, stay smiling, and 

STAY MUSICAL!

Bucket Drum Piece to Mozart's Turkish March - REMIX!

Over the past several weeks on my fb page -@o for tuna orff, I have been posting several live videos of the teaching process I have been using for a bucket drum piece to a piece of music my daughter found on youtube. She often listens to music while drawing (her favorite thing to do and she is an amazing young artist).  It is a remix of Mozart's Turkish March and is SO awesome!  I knew I needed to create a bucket drum piece for my top grade to perform at our Winter Concert and maybe a few other performances as well. Click here to see the final video performance on the o for tuna fb page.
Here is the score:

The pdf of the learning slides can be found here: Bucket Drum Mozart Turkish March Remix
They look like this:

The music can be found here:

Enjoy!

Musical Twister Game!

April Showers Bring May Flowers

I am a gardener at heart  - love to dig in some dirt and make something grow!  I have about 200 perennial plants- at least. I really love irises- they are one of my favorites and work for my no-fuss gardening style- if I have to mess with a plant in order to make it grow, I am not supposed to have it.  This year my irises went a little crazy- I have about 15 different colors and need to divide and give some away. If you live in NC give me a holler!
I have always loved this rhyme - here's a little twist! Hope you enjoy!

Games to Play Outside (Or In) FUN!!!

Singing games are so much fun and there are so many fun games that work inside as well as out!
Here are a few of my favorite:

One, Two, Three O'Leary/One, Two, Three a Learie

This song is often cited as Irish, although it was first collected in California as an Anglo-American playground game, see Sail Away book, page 24.
There are several versions and ways to play.  My favorite way to play is version 2 (see songs below) and can be found here:

 Here is a different view:

Hope you enjoy all of these and get outside (or stay in and have some fun)!

Spring is Here Book and a Song

Holiday Treats Song

Monday, 11/17 UPDATE.. cookie rhythms added!  A quick post today with a song for the holidays that is "safe" for schools; doesn't mention Christmas or Hanukkah or Kwanzaa.  Great to add to a holiday program whether you are allowed to mention the holidays or not.   There's even a visual for the cookie rhythms color coded for unpitched percussion! 
Enjoy!

 

 

Music Math Cards

Well... back to school after spring break.. sort of. I've been out for 3 months, back for 2 weeks just half days and surgery again next Thursday- hopefully a minor one, this time! What a crazy school year! As promised, here are some of the center ideas I've been working on... These are a set of cards you can download, print, cut out and use to work on "musical math" or create a game where students work in groups and time themselves to see how quickly they can figure out the correct answer! Could also be used as a whole class competition; divide class in half and see how quickly students can get the correct answer. Play using "hangman" and see which group wins. Let me know how you use it!