Books and Music for Ramadan

Ramadan is a holiday celebrated by Muslims around the world. It begins at sundown April 2 and ends May 1 this year. Through fasting, Muslims believe  their relationship with God will be strengthened, as it makes up one of the Five Pillars of Islam.

This 3-minute video shows children sharing information about Ramadan:

This book is the story of Najma, a girl who rises each morning of Ramadan to the drum beat of her neighborhood's musaharati. He wakes each family for the pre-dawn meal before the day of fasting. Najma wants be a musaharati herself one day, but the job has never been one for girls.  This is a lovely story of resilience, determination, and courage.

This is a great read aloud of the book:

Lisa Zargarpur wrote a beautiful article for the American Center for Elemental Music and Movement (ACEMM) with a song for Ramadan.  Check it out here! 

Hena Khan is one of my favorite authors!  

I fell in love with Crescent Moons and Pointed Minarets a few years ago and wrote an activity I put in my Painted Music book.  

Here is a link to the pdf with the above images and the 2-beat building bricks.

Hena Khan has several other books I love! 

Ramadan Mubarak

Enjoy!

Manipulatives - The Why and The What

Manipulatives are objects students or teachers use within a lesson to teach or reinforce a concept. 

Manipulatives are engaging and playful.  They make abstract musical concepts visual and concrete. 

Digital manipulatives made to be dragged/dropped, etc. do not engage the brain in the same way and do not impact fine motor skills.  Digital manipulatives are also not typically used in small groups and do encourage social interaction among peers.  There is a time and place for tech.  Using hands-on manipulatives, students develop and practice communication skills with small group composition or partner play.  Kinesthetic learners need the tactile experiences hands-on manipulatives provide. The best reason to use them is simple - they are inexpensive, and FUN!  

Learning Sequence

 This gives students  a variety of experiences and provides structure and familiarity while working in small groups, then partners, before individuals use manipulatives alone.

Pulse/Rhythm

When using manipulatives with rhythm I begin with imitation - students recreate the rhythms displayed. For example, students will recreate a displayed rhythm with popsicle sticks.  Then we explore rhythms using building bricks, later we would write rhythms with dry erase boards and eventually we would use pencil and paper after many experiences with imitating, exploring, and creating with manipulatives. 

Beat strips - four hearts on one side, three on the other.  This way you can work in triple and duple meters!

Popsicle sticks for rhythm dictation and composition - I prefer just the large colored ones from Dollar Tree. Some people prefer small and large ones, but I really like to KISS - Keep It Simple Sweetie! 

Foam hearts - perfect to find at Dollar Tree or your favorite craft store!  Write various rhythms on each one. 

Pipe cleaners to create notes and Noteman (thanks to Shari and Ashley for this idea).

Two- beat building bricks.  I have so many sets of these for various activities and content areas available in my Patreon community.  Print, cut, and give to students! 

Rhythm Dice; these can be created from purchased wooden dice or foam - Dollar Tree has carried these in the past. Draw notes on each side with sharpie.  Make sets of these with quarter, eighth, and quarter rest, another set which includes two single eighth notes, and another set which includes sixteenth notes.  Each side of the die is a single pulse/beat.

Group together and put into a plastic baggie - get the good heavy freezer bags and punch a hole in the top so when students put them back in and close them the air escapes and they lay flat.  Four inch (or so) piece of string in the bag to show tied notes. 

Mini erasers - These are great to use for notating the number of sounds on beat strips. Also, they are just SO cute! 

 

Melody

Staff boards                                                                                                                                                   

These are commercially available from your favorite music retailer but can be pricey.

I particularly like these staff boards made out of dollar store cookie sheets and electrical tape (also from dollar store).  Original idea from Elizabeth at Organized Chaos. On the back you could make a 2-line or 3-line staff or 4-beat rhythm blocks (the bottom shown here is 8-beats). 

You don't have to use the purchased magnets (they can be pricey); you could use foam (available in craft packs from Dollar Tree) and cut out circles to glue googly eyes on and then glue small round magnets (dollar stores and craft stores carry these).

Draw a 2-line, 3-line, or full staff on a white piece of paper, draw four boxes on the back for a 4-beat rhythm area and place the page inside these page protectors (click on photo to go to Amazon link).  Use dry erase marker or your favorite mini-erasers, transparent bingo chips, or other manipulatives.

Popsicle Stick Texting Sticks

I love these as they make solfege ladders become more personal and interactive. Click on the picture to see Ms. Manguso's tutorial and free downloadable images.  Use a glue stick or Modge Podge to stick the printed letters on. 

Felt staff with notes. Sew a zigzag stitch or use fabric paint to create lines on rectangles of felt, cut black circles from black felt for the notes or use Bingo chips. 

Skittles and M & M's 

S printed on Skittles and M printed on M and M's - give a variety of each to students to dictate a 4-beat solfege phrase for So and Mi, notate a SM song, or have students create their own!

Mini Erasers

Great for kinesthetic learners (and everyone) and fun for students to manipulate. Target has these in the Dollar Spot often and are seasonally themed. 

Pipe Cleaners/Chenille Stems

Children love the fuzzy texture and bright colors and most of them have not used them before! They are the most flexible (pun intended), highly underrated, and undervalued.  They are also wonderful for fine motor control!  You can roll and bend them into notation shapes, use horizontally to demonstrate so and mi/high and low, and bend them to show vocal exploration or movement pathways!  SO much fun in something so very small.  

Yarn for students to create vocal exploration (and movement) pathways

Cotton Balls for vocal exploration and melodies on a sky blue paper background.

Form

Cups - I like the Mini "Solo" Cups Dollar Tree has - they always have the red ones and at Christmas time they also carry green. You could also use any other cups in two or three colors to create elemental forms of ABAB, ABBA, AABB, etc. 

Construction paper or foam shapes cut into 4" squares, circles, triangles - one color per shape and one letter per shape - A, B, and C

I hope these give you some ideas. There are so many other favorite manipulatives - what are some of yours?

Enjoy,

Teaching Melody and Melodic Contour

On a recent poll, music teachers were asked what they struggle the most with and melody and melodic contour was the top answer. So, I spent my morning while home sick with Covid, yup, it has finally arrived - gave it my best shot - 3 in fact, but it hit my family this week and you know me, I can't sit still. I have been working on this for a while and this is a Patreon exclusive.  This is a 24-page mini-book available for less than the cost of Starbucks. You also get access to everything already posted there and I continue to add new material weekly. There are monthly mini-workshops and opportunities to work with me 1:1 to delve deeper into organization, lesson planning, behavior management, or anything else you might be interested in. 

So, this mini-book includes lessons, activities, and ideas about teaching Melody and Melodic Contour. There are twelve children's books listed with several lessons from my Playful Possibilities and Painted Music books. Ideas on using manipulatives, songs, games, and instruments and many other things are part of the mini-book.

Check it out today, click here.

Here is a sampling:

Enjoy,

Dragons Love Tacos

Today I am sharing "Dragons Love Tacos". For the full pdf, send an email to musicquilt@hotmail.com.

Make and Take Workshop

Recently I organized and hosted a workshop for our local Orff Chapter.  It wasn't my typical workshop of singing, speaking, moving, creating, and playing, but a Make and Take. The workshop was inspired by the St. Louis, MO chapter who hosted one last school year. 

A Make and Take workshop is where participants come to make manipulatives for the classroom, explore how to use them, and take them home.

 Our local chapter has been struggling for a few years and I was hoping this would bring our chapter together and boost membership.  It did- we had 37 teachers sign up and many new members!  

Interested in having a Make and Take Workshop?  Here is what I did:

1. It's All in the Details

Date of workshop, time (I would recommend 4 hours), and place.  You will need a space large enough for tables, chairs, and materials.  We used our library and it was a perfect space as there were auxiliary areas we could use for specific projects that needed hot glue.  We charged for materials only but wouldn't know the specific cost per person until everyone registered. There was a cut-off date for registration and we had several people inquire after the cut-off date.  I did not charge a fee for hosting or presenting so it truly was a "materials only" fee.  I let everyone know the cost would be no more than $40.00 per person and chose projects and materials accordingly. 

2. Project Choice

 I wanted a variety of projects that I use frequently and that students enjoy; some rhythmic, some melodic, games, instrument recognition, etc.  I also wanted some material heavy projects and some paper projects.  The participants needed to be able to take the items home immediately, so nothing that needed significant dry time (paint, wet glue, etc.).

I narrowed down my initial list to six projects with an "extra goodie" of some apple erasers:

• Top left corner - Bundles of Joy (activity from Artie Almeida) and Noteman (activity from local chapter members Shari and Ashley)

Materials:  150 pipe cleaners per person to make a class set of 25 Bundles, scissors, one large baggie.

• Top right corner - Music Memory/Concentration Game

Materials:  Cardstock and 2 sets of (color) printed sheets of game pieces, glue stick, scissors, one small baggie.

Game pieces available with and without names of instruments:

http://katietraxler.com/centersandgames/

• Middle Right - Apple Erasers to use with song, "Apple Tree"

Materials: Apple erasers purchased from Target Dollar Spot, one small baggie.

• Bottom Right - Rhythm Dice and Roll & Create Rhythm Worksheets (not pictured) 

Materials:  Foam Counting Dice - one pack per participant

 FREE download of Worksheets , Sharpies and small baggies.

• Bottom Middle and Bottom Left - Rhythm and Melodic Monster Magnets

Original idea here from Elizabeth at Organized Chaos.

Materials:  Tin Cookie Sheet, 1/8" Grid Tape  , Magnet Circles, (Or Pom Poms), Googly Eyes, Hot Glue (we used Gorilla Glue hot glue sticks).  Everyone made 8 cookie sheets with 64 magnets.  Each cookie sheet needed an accompanying baggie with 8 "monster magnets"; 3 eighth notes (2 small googly eyes on each), 3 quarter notes (1 big googly eye on each), and 2 rests (no googly eyes), scissors, hot glue guns.

• Middle Left - Solfege Texting Sticks

Materials:  25 Large Craft Sticks per person, 2.5 pages of printed solfege papers, scissors, glue sticks, one small baggie.

• Middle -  Kaboom Game

Original idea:  https://ofortunaorff.blogspot.com/search/label/centers

Materials:  One plastic cup per person, 25 regular colored craft sticks per person, ball point pens (sharpies bleed on the wooden craft sticks), one large baggie.

 3. Order Materials, Determine Costs Per Person.  I ordered everything myself as our chapter is struggling, then I communicated costs to all who had signed up and asked for payment.  Our costs came to $29.76 per person!  

4.  Helpers!

Get everything ready and try to separate as much as possible - I put the 64 magnets each in a big baggie and had helpers at the workshop an hour before to get everything laid out and separated so materials would be easy to pick up and count out.  I also put signs above each material to let people know what they would need and a visual of what the finished project should look like.

 5.  Participants Arrive

Once everyone was present, I quickly went over where materials were (scissors, glue, and pens/Sharpies were on a separate table, hot glue station was in a different room, etc.), showed the visuals, reviewed the projects and let them know we would spend the last 30 minutes going over materials and how they would be used. This 30 minute time at the end was when I went over the Apple Tree game with the apple erasers, demonstrated how they could also turn these into magnets by gluing mini magnets on the back and use the cookie sheet boards to show the melody. 

I also had a QR code to scan as participants came in which had a pdf of all directions, links to projects, visuals, and many extras to use to make more manipulatives at home.  This was helpful as several used this document throughout the workshop to make sure they understood the project directions and final product. 

It was a very successful workshop and I enjoyed the conversations with other music teachers. We rarely get time to sit and chat with each other and many others commented on how nice it was to have time to "talk shop" while at a workshop.  I encourage you to give it a go! 

Let me know if you have questions.

Sugar Plum Fairy Play Along

Yes, I love the Nutcracker. The music, the story, the ballet. All of it. I have many students at my school who dance in the ballet every year and I love introducing this to my kiddos although most of them have heard the music or seen the ballet.

To begin this lesson, I teach/review the song and game, "We are Dancing in the Forest". My Kindergarten students learn this and play the game, then are introduced to quarter and eighth notes through iconic then actual notation.  In first grade we review the song, read the notation, and then we are ready for how this plays into ballet.
What, you say? How does that song lead into ballet?  DANCING! We sing the song and students must pretend they are in a forest dancing and by the time the song is finished they must be back in their places. We try this a few times, and then I ask them to do this again and I sing the melody of the Sugar Plum Fairy. Repeat ad nauseum.
Then I show them this through the first musical theme:

Students turn and talk to a neighbor about what they noticed.  They will stand up and start showing what they noticed - it is so cute, they can't help but try out some moves! I put the music on and they try out some of the moves with the music playing - it is so sweet to watch them imitate some of what they have seen!
We discuss the meaning of ballet, that some football players take ballet lessons to work on balance and strength, and then I ask if they would like to meet a ballerina?  Then I show them this:

I really like that the video has male and female dancers and talks about body image and accepting who you are and what you have.
After that we watch and learn about a celesta:

Next I break out the foam snowflakes and trees. The snowflakes I got at Dollar Tree one season and the trees I cut out from craft foam (also from Dollar Tree in the craft aisle). See where this is going yet?  Snowflakes have 2 sounds and will become eighth notes, trees have one sound and will become quarter notes.  I put many patterns on the floor, students clap and say, then I break out the quarter note and eighth note cards and students place these above the snowflakes and eighth notes. 

Then they are ready for this visual.  The theme is incomplete and missing a repeat sign, but my first graders haven't learned that symbol yet and the focus is quarter and eighth note reading. Once we practice saying and clapping the theme, half the class gets triangles to play the them on, the other half dances.  Perform, then switch!  Such a blast!  

Hope you enjoy this one! My kiddos sure did! Happy Holidays!

The Wide Mouth Frog book and activity

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.

And a frog puppet,

Enjoy!

Giraffe's Can't Dance - Or Can They?

I love the facebook AOSA page! I also belong to the Kodaly Teachers, and Elementary Music Teachers and several other music teacher groups.  Such a wealth of information and people sharing lessons and ideas!  Just this month I found a wonderful idea using the book,"Giraffes Can't Dance"  by Melissa Burroughs and she so very kindly gave me permission to share it with you. 

Hope you enjoy it as much as my students did!

Giraffes Can't Dance by Giles Andreae available here from Amazon.

Day 1

Explore movements on index cards (whole class first), divide into 5 groups for our "Jungle Party"--each group has 4 cards to create a unique jungle dance for their animals. 

Melissa purchased these cards at Dollar Tree recently.

All groups practices together, then time for the party! 

Each group performs by themselves (consider using "Bossa Nova" from 'Rhythmically Moving 7).

With 5 groups and 8 beats between each group (play on drum or tambourine as signal to change groups), this works perfectly.

Students share what they liked about each groups special dances.

Day 2

Explore animal names with one and two sounds (first grade) and animal names that fit into rhythmic building blocks (second).

Compose 4 beat patterns (first) and 8 beat phrases (second).

Teach song add bordun.

Perform in rondo form.

Extension:

Create story where they tell about one of their animal's adventure; where did it go?  What did it do when it got there? 

Consider use of arioso - sing the story.