Stretchy Band Activities

Oh Stretchy Band, oh Stretchy Band, what to do with thee?

It is funny how different things influence our teaching and blogging (not to mention personal lives).  A short while ago the AOSA FB page, someone asked what to do with their stretchy band. I had already begun to write about how to use the stretchy band in the music room and with Christmas and Chinese New Year (see post below) I am finally getting around to finishing this post!
Many teachers I know have a stretchy band and wonder what to do with them. If you don't have one or find the ones with big tubing inside uncomfortable, make one.. or if you're like me, make several!  Get ready- pantyhose time!
Here's a video tutorial I made on how to make stretchy bands.  Best as a summertime project. :)
Update 8.27.17:
Order a box of pantyhose seconds to make bands with here:
You can get defective hose in bulk from:
Nancy Terry
HANESbrands INC.
1904 Clark Road
Clarksville, Arkansas 72830
(P) 479-979-3492 (F) 479-754-5597
nancy.terry@hanes.com
 couple of my bands:

2.22.17 Update! Another fabulous idea from Rob Amchin -

Stretchy Band Song

This simple and cute song includes "bounce to the beat", "up, down", in, out" and is very simple for your younger players. I love the cute accents of the children singing!

Rob Amchin - Color Pitch Matching Game

Perfect pitch matching activity! If you have a band like mine (not colorblocked) have students tie or wrap on colored scarves in front of where they are sitting.

Stretchy with Nutcracker March

Artie Almeida.  Not much more needs to be said. :)

Les Saluts Dance

While not typically a "stretchy band" dance, simple folk dances like this are perfect for stretchy bands.  This is a lovely folk dance, perfect for younger grades and I love the fermata point as it creates a wonderfully magical moment for students to listen keenly to when the music begins again.

 

The Waves - Lynn Kleiner

My kindies and first graders LOVE this song and the fermata again makes this SO much fun. Using the stretchy in a circle, the waves go rolling all about - lift and lower one hand at a time to create waves.  The waves  go up, the waves go down, in and out (pull as far back as you can and walk backwards slooowly). SO fun! This is from Lynn's book, "Sounds of the Sea".  The song is below- different activity, but you'll hear how lovely it is!

 

Classroom Divider

I often use the band as a visual separator in the classroom. When I put instruments out on the floor for an activity (and I want them to stay in a particular setup) I place the band on the floor to separate this space from the “regular classroom”.  Especially effective with younger musicians, this helps them to know when it is appropriate to play (when teacher instructs them to “cross the line” (although I always have them go around).

Illustrating Tritonic SLM Melodies OR Show Melodic Direction

• Holding the band in a circle, T. calls out 4 beat melody using SLM, students echo and show Sol by holding stretchy at chest level, La overhead, and Mi in front of belly button.
• Using a known song, students visually demonstrate melodic direction.

Stretchy Band Assessment

This post from a while ago has some ideas for how to assess students using stretchy bands.

Hope you found some new ideas or revisited some old ones.  Happy January! Stay warm.





Give Light

Our Holiday Concerts (I have 3 of them) this year are all a play on our school theme of "Reach for the Stars".  My older students concerts are called, "Songs of Night, Songs of Light".  In addition to a couple songs I wrote, and songs about candles, stars, and moons, we are also singing "Silver Moon Boat", "Oh Watch the Stars" and "This Little Light of Mine".  As I was completing the concert line up I found a very special song called "Give Light". You know how you find those songs you know are going to resonate in a very deep way with your kiddos?  I LOVE this song, it is probably my new favorite. Especially for this moment in time.

Our country is broken, divided, hurting.  Some would say we are having "growing pains" and others would describe it as birthing pains.  Any way we can describe it, yesterday, 11.9, felt oddly similar to 9.11.  Whatever your thoughts, feelings, and political affiliations, we can all certainly admit how fractured our country feels.    I recently posted this on my facebook account:
I. Can. Choose. I can choose to be offended by others who have different beliefs, opinions, political parties, and values. I choose faith, even when my faith in my fellow Americans, and in humanity, is at an all time low. I choose love, kindness, and the strength to speak out against bigotry, hatred, and devaluation. I choose to get on my knees and pray for all of us; red, blue, green and all in between. I choose to advocate for the millions of orphans in the world who are lonely and in need of families. I choose to celebrate our freedoms and not live in fear. I choose God, and the one nation under it. I choose to stand up and speak out. I choose. Do you?

You may agree, you may disagree. It's OK, we can agree to disagree and to move forward.  The song, Give Light, calls us to come together, to love one another, to teach peace and to give light to one another so "people will find the way". It has become a powerful illustration of just what can happen with a little light overcoming a whole lot of darkness.   It is not political, but the words were inspired by a fellow North Carolina freedom fighter named Ella Baker. 

When I found the song, I decided to send an email to the group that had recorded it (found them on youtube).  They were incredibly kind and told me story after story about how the song had been used by individuals all over the world fighting for personal and political freedoms.  The song here is presented with permission, c. 1996, words and music by Greg Artzner & Terry Leonino.
The final verse we changed after Greg shared a story with me about a widow wanting to use the song at her husbands funeral.  He was an organ donor, and so the final verse is "give life".
 We are singing it a capella to begin, then adding guitar.  We also added motions for each verse.
My students BEG to sing this and it will be a song I will use often, especially in the darkness, when a little light is needed.
If you would like a better copy, please email me at musicquilt@hotmail.com




And here is a group of fourth grade students singing Give Light. 

Books to Sing, Songs as Books

Picture it:  Inside a _______ bookstore (insert your favorite bookseller), deep in the children's literature section. Soft pitter patter of feet, moms reading quietly to children when suddenly a loud joyous laugh breaks through the (almost) silence.  Yup, that'd be me finding a new song/book book/song.  I love finding these little gems and there have been more and more published in the last decade or so!  Yeeeha!! 
Of course being a musician and music teacher I love songs, especially those "magical" ones that are timeless treasures, and I also love children's books and have a bit of an obsession with them- this is my bookshelf at school with *some* of my picture books.

 I am trying to keep the top shelf as songs which are books or, depending how you look at it, books that are songs.

Good news for me is they keep spilling over. Last year I finally changed how I was organizing them and now have them alphabetically. Phew- I used to have them by author and genre, but that just didn't work for me.
Second shelf has books that I have found or created music lessons to accompany them, with third bookshelf holding seasonal activities and books I have yet to create music for but have ideas. 


Aileen Miracle over at Mrs. Miracle's Music Room has a great post about ten of her favorites, which inspired me to make my own list of favorites. 

1.  I Got Two Dogs available here from Amazon.com. This song is addictive!  I ordered it a couple weeks ago and just played the song with my daughter on the ride home last week and it is hysterical!  "AGAIN, AGAIN", I kept hearing from the back seat! It is highly infectious and another gem from the amazing John Lithgow but I have to say, it's probably my favorite one he has written!

2.  Twenty Four Robbers by Audrey Wood, available here. 

OK, technically not a song with a melody (although I do know one to go with it), this skipping rhyme has a wonderful sing-song cadence to it and the illustrations are fabulous!









3.  Sing, available here.

Oh, where do I start?! "Sing! Sing a song. Sing out loud, sing out strong."
The song was first made popular on Sesame Street, then interpreted by a WIDE variety of musicians, from Gloria Estefan to the Dixie Chicks to R.E.M., as well as famous personalities such as Conan O'Brien, Katie Couric, Nathan Lane, and Liam Neeson!  Lively, happy illustrations accompany the book as well as a CD with the music.



4.  I Ain't Gonna Paint No More, available here.

Oh, this is such naughty fun!  My students love to combine this with "Johnny Works with One Hammer", eventually changing the lyrics to "Johnny paints with one paintbrush, etc.", reading/singing the book- oh they love the little mischief maker, then we play Trepak from the Nutcracker while pretending to throw and smear paint.  Finally, we make classroom statues while singing a song about statues and I visit the "museum" where various statues move, giggle, and snicker and "scare" me, while I pretend to be scared of the moving ones. Such wonderful fun!!



5.  If it's Snowy and You Know It, Clap Your Paws, available here.

Yup, "If You're Happy and You Know It" with polar bears, seals, beluga whales and other artic animals!  Sure to delight your kiddos and wonderful to leave with a sub!






6.  Day is Done, available here.

I happened to be wandering through Big Lots one day and found this for $3.00!!

This is Peter Yarrow's beautiful song, “Day Is Done."  As night falls, animal parents tenderly tuck their little raccoons, rabbits, field mice, deer, and child into bed.  Far more than a lullaby, though, this is a wonderful song (and book) to share for Earth Day; "you shall inherit what humankind has done, but all will be well when the day is done (as I am here)".

7.  Conejito, available here.

 

 

This is a folktale from Panama written by Margaret Read MacDonald.  In the back of the book you will find the song that will be sung each time Conejito  goes dancing and leaping (bailando y saltando).  This is a wonderful trickster tale and a few years ago I included a loose interpretation of the story as a program.  Here is the orchestration my students performed:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  8.  Catalina Magdalena Hoopensteiner Wallendiner Hogan Logan Bogan Was Her Name. Whew!  What a name!  Available here.

 

If you've seen my blog before, you know how much I love camp songs, especially for the last month of school!  This is one camp song that is also a book! Score!!! Outrageously funny, undeniably one of my students favorites. Ever.

 

  

9.  Take Me Home Country Roads, available here.

 

Really, I love all the John Denver songs that have been made into picture books, including "Sunshine on My Shoulders" available here, and "Grandma's Feather Bed", available here.  Country Roads is probably the one that my kids know best, and they love to croon along with the melody!! A great book to have on hand when you have those 5 minute moments of "I need something else here". All the books come with CD's, bonus!!

 

 

 

10.  Over in the Meadow, Over in the Jungle, Over in the Ocean, Over in the Grasslands, available here.

 I love these as they can all be sung to "Five Little Ducks" and children quickly sing along with the numbers (up to 10). We often break out some instruments and play the numbers.  I really like how the illustrations were created with Over in the Jungle and Over in the Ocean; the artist used polymer clay to create the entire image; incredibly impressive! 

Brand new in September 2016 is Over in the Grasslands: On an African Savanna!

 

Hope you have enjoyed the book tour and have found some new things to buy/ask for/have parents donate to your music rooms! Happy (almost) Friday tomorrow!!!

Sing Me A Monster

I love Halloween songs and music, but I'm always looking for ways to encourage solo singing. Some groups of children are amazing, and others, well.. *sigh*... it's a struggle to get them to use their singing voices as a solo; sound great together, but then there are those groups or children who LOVE to talk but are shy about their singing voices, particularly as a solo instrument. I encourage and we do a lot of solo singing and was so excited earlier today when I had my first graders who LOVED singing a monster! I am a digital scrapbooker and, as such, have quite a large collection of digital graphics and images. You can find lots of VERY cute monster images on google by doing a search for "cute monster images" or "monster cartoon image". These were the ones I printed, laminated, and cut: Here are a few to get you started: First I showed the students a monster card and I talked about the details, then using "Sol and Mi" I sang a short song about the details. Do this a few times with more monster cards, then give each child a monster and ask them to notice the details; how many eyes, hands, what color, big, small, dots, smiles, etc. I let them show their monster to a neighbor but ONLY 1 neighbor, otherwise, keep your monster "classified, top secret". Use the toy microphone (thank you Dollar Tree!) and the teacher sings, "Sing Me a Monster" on "Sol Mi Mi Sol Mi" and the student sings back details about their monster. If a child is too shy, ask them what details we could sing about, then the teacher sings and the whole class echoes the teacher. After each child sings about their monster they show it to the "world".. giggles, snorts, and whoops and hollers! Have fun!