Creepy Carrots

I struggle with all the Halloween themed things I used to do and no longer include as I have students who do not celebrate Halloween. I love spooky season and incorporate spiders, monsters, and other "Halloween-adjacent" activities into this time of year but always with a curricular focus. And if I don't have it, I make it. My third graders learn recorder every year and this year's group is just a wee bit behind other years, for whatever reason. Wonderful singers, and wonderful musicians, just not picking up on recorder as quickly as some other groups. So, I needed a quick piece to put together and have always loved the book, Creepy Carrots! Get the full slide set, with the animated book, here (free!). I wrote this yesterday and did the activity with two classes, who walked out the door singing the tune- love when that happens! Easy, accessible, and diversified for students who need to work on EG or BAG passages, or they can play everything, BAGE! 

Enjoy!

If You Find a Leaf

This is such a beautiful book by Aimee Sicuro! The slides are available (FREE!) here!

Five Eggs

Spring is one of my favorite times of year - each morning on my walk I hear birds singing and see rabbits hopping on fresh sprigs of green grass.  And the flowers! Well, if you know me at all, you know how much I love flowers and especially irises.  I have so many flowers planted around my house and particularly love the 20-something varieties of iris I currently have!  

This is a perfect rhyme and fingerplay for spring.  

Fingerplays are so underrated! Teach them to younger students as a fingerplay but bring them back to teach or reinforce rhythmic elements in first grade and as a canon experience for second grade, or add a So Mi or So La Mi melody, eventually adding in an ostinato or two.  Transfer the rhyme and ostinati to non-pitched percussion, add timbre changes for each line and allow the students to decide how to perform it.  For older students, use these as a basis for melodic improvisation or to walk the beat while clapping the rhythm or add a B Section with the names of egg layers - birds, fish, insects, turtles, platypus, echidna, reptiles, and lizards.  Or have small groups of students create a movement story of one type of animal and perform for other groups to guess the animal.  So many possibilities!

For a better image, click here. 

Enjoy! 

Lead Through That Sugar and Tea

 This is a favorite dance and I love using it to introduce syncopation!  There are (at least) 2 versions although I think Version 2 is probably more historically accurate.  The song and dance is a play party.  Here is more information about this song and more here from the University of Arkansas with a field recording from 1953.  The speech at the beginning of Version 1 is something I created with my students. 

Click here for the Google Slides. 

Pass the Pumpkin *Updated!

 Pass the Pumpkin is a fall favorite and I have remade the slides in google slides with some small tweaks to the visuals and the directions. 

Click this link for the google slides - please know this will force you to make a copy. 

Enjoy!

Alien Q and A

Improvisation is essentially spontaneous composition. The art and act of creating an expressive musical statement in real time adhering to some kind of structure.

 Question and Answer is a common improvisation technique in music.  In the world of Orff Schulwerk we begin with imitation and exploration of an idea or concept. Then we add label and improvise using that idea and concept. 

When students are ready to improvise, where do we begin? 

I like to begin with this:

Teach song and step the beat in place.

Sing and walk the beat. 

While singing, walk to face a partner.

Show 8 fingers and do a "countdown" demonstrating rhythmic alien language. 

Something like this:

With partner, decide who is going first (rock, paper, scissors to determine "winner"). Show fingers again, first partner improvises over the 8 beats using alien language. Second partner answers them with their 8 beats. Don't worry if they are not truly performing question and answer yet - it will come. 

Repeat several times before defining question and answer technique. 

Repeat game with question and answer technique.

Repeat activity with body percussion. Consider transferring to non-pitched percussion.

Hope you enjoy!

Monster Trouble/ In the Hall of the Mountain King

 Monsters, Monsters, how much do I love thee?

Younger Children

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.

Decode the rhythm. 

See previous posts for additional ideas.

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!

Enjoy!

My Heart is Like a Zoo

 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! 

The full google slide is here.

Enjoy! 

Dim Sum For Everyone

 My daughter and I went to New York City for our first girls week during the summer of 2019. It was an amazing week and while we did not plan to arrive on the day of the largest PRIDE parade in Manhattan, it was a fabulous week!  My daughter is Chinese, and loves everything about her birth culture. We stayed in Midtown Manhattan but she wanted to spend every waking moment in Chinatown. One of my sweet music teacher blogger friends, Elizabeth from Organized Chaos lives in Connecticut and so we met up for lunch one day at the Golden Unicorn in Chinatown (HIGHLY recommend!).

Elizabeth grew up in Japan and has only lived in the US for a few years so we decided to meet up for Dim Sum, which Caiya had never experienced. Elizabeth and I were the only white faces in the restaurant, and very little English was spoken. I LOVE experiences where I am out of my element. It forces growth and a window into another culture in a unique and interesting way. The food comes around in little bamboo steamers or plates which are rolled on carts. You point to the ones you want and they write on a card the quantity and item chosen. Then the next cart comes and point and choose again. The process continues and you end up with lots of little steamers and plates on your table. My favorite were the cute piggy dumplings (shaped like pigs) and filled with a sweet potato filling. I also love Shu Mai and Sticky Rice which has dried shrimp and veggies along with the rice and are wrapped in leaves. YUM!  

Many thanks to my friend Marcia B for her inspiration! 

Hope you enjoy Dim Sum For Everyone and if you get a chance to enjoy Dim Sum, eat up! 

For the full google slide, click on the link and make a copy Dim Sum For Everyone