Name Games Repost

Hello everyone! I hope you have all had a great summer! Mine was a mix of yin and yang with an amazing trip to Japan and coming home to learn our sweet dog, Mo (Mozart) had passed away. He was my baby and I loved him so very much. It has been a time of so much sadness while also processing this amazing trip to such an incredible place on the other side of the world. School begins next Thursday and today was our first day back with meetings. I am ggetting ready for the first couple of weeks with lots of name games. Here is a post with a bunch of name games and songs. Enjoy!

Bounce High, Bounce Low

 This is one of those games that is played many ways and has a myriad of concepts to focus on.  I love using this in Kindergarten as a beat game, then later in the year as a rhythm game, and then spiraling it up into first grade as an introduction into La.  

For the full slides, please click here and note this will force a copy. 

Korean Children's Book and Ocean Songs

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.

Here are several links and song images.

Songs of the Haenyeo divers

Video Documentary of 12 year old novice diver

Korean Dragonfly Song

Ganggangsullae, Korean dance music of the full moon

Enjoy!!!

 

Your Name is a Song

Updated 9.24.2020

Names are SO important! I fell in love with this new book, Your Name is a Song, by Jamilah Thompkins-Bigelow. This is a VERY new book and was just released July 2020!  Here is a video of the author pronouncing the names included in the book: 

Dreamer of Names

You can choose to speak the created rhyme or sing, or sing and perform with Orff instruments.  If choosing virtual, students will be able to play the melody but not the score as written with most virtual instruments as they would need a 2-octave set but you can modify as needed.  The Chrome add on Xylophone is excellent! Many thanks to my friend, Jody, for introducing it to me! You can search on google for xylo playsprout and you can also use the internet-based version.

Names and Movement

Many thanks to Casey Goryeb for this BEAUTIFUL idea: 

• Research meanings of students names.
• Develop movement to represent meaning while saying the name. Names could be for all family members, pets, relatives, etc. If no meaning to be found, students choose a meaning to represent their name.
• Eventually pass the name movement silently from one student to another in the room. 

Extensions:

• Create a chart of one, two, three sound names with everyone in class. Put names together into a 4-beat phrase, use body percussion to play, transfer to instruments.  
• Name games like Ickety Tickety and Jump In, Jump Out. There are MANY here on this previous post! 
• Use Chrome Music Lab Song Maker and have students create a song to go with their name. Customize instruments, percussion, number of beats in measure, notes (settings to create pentatonic scales), etc. 

• Chrome Music Lab Kandinsky - use this one to have students draw their names and turn it into music!  Such fun! 

Here are some free printables to go with the book:

Happy Days in First Grade

Stories by Storie

Worksheet by Jody Petter

 

Happy back to school!