Snowflake Half Note Lesson

This one is so much fun!

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A post shared by Aimee Pfitzner 🎶 (@aimee_ofortunaorff)

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! 

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. 

Pop It Music Game

 On Wednesdays we have a special schedule and with my first and second graders I have been doing a lot of centers and rotations.  As explained by a classroom teacher, a Center is an activity or station where students choose to go and choose how long they spend at that place.  A Rotation is where all students experience the same things for the same amount of time and rotate through the various activities. 

Once introduced, these games and activities are perfect to leave for a sub! 

If you are on a mobile device, scroll all the way to the bottom and click, "View Web Version" and on the right you will see all the posts that are tagged with "Centers" and "Rotations".

One of my new favorites is this pop it game with dice.

Someone posted this on instagram last year and it has become a new favorite.  Use foam dice from Dollar Tree and write your rhythms on all sides.  For me, this is a Leveled Game with Level One using quarter notes, eighth notes, and quarter rest.  Level Two adds half note and Level Three adds sixteenth notes and eighth, sixteenth note combinations.  

On the game itself, sit in front of the TV one night and use a Sharpie to draw quarter notes, eighth notes, and quarter rests on each "pop".  I keep the dice, games, and directions in a 2-gallon ziploc bag with my other rotations and centers.  

Here are the direction cards:

Enjoy! 

Favorite Fingerplays

I love fingerplays, do you? There are so many different ones and the text is typically rhythmic and short, perfect for working on steady beat, rhythmic division, and expressive elements like dynamics and the four voices. They are also perfect to use with older students to develop ostinato (short, repeating patterns that create harmonic texture) and for improvisation. For the full slide set, click here. Here are some of the slides in the set:

Hope you enjoy!

Hike by Pete Oswald

 Hike by Pete Oswald (of The Good Egg and The Bad Seed fame) is a beautiful (almost) wordless picture book. 

Follow a Dad and son into the mountains as they witness the magic of the wilderness, overcome challenges, and plant a tree to give back to the forest. This beautiful book is full of possibilities for movement and vocal and barred instrument exploration (images that move down or up, small and large trees, mountain peaks, hills and of course those beautiful winding trails).  Or, have small groups create movement tableaus for different pages or create 2-beat building bricks about what the father and son are doing or seeing.  

Perfect for back to school talks about summer trips or for Earth Day.  

This would work well with Trees 'Round the Earth from my new book, Singing Waters, Dancing Flames published by Beatin Path Publications.

For a clearer image of the song, click here to download.

Another great tie in would be the beautiful canon, This Pretty Planet.

Or use Seeds of Love by Gemini

Another extension idea using the book Planting a Rainbow by Lois Ehlert, post click here

To see a video of Planting a Rainbow and the Seeds song by Gemini, click here. 

What is your favorite song or activity about nature? Drop a comment below. 

Enjoy!

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!