Snowflake Half Note Lesson

This one is so much fun!

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Nutcracker March Cup Game

 

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Part 2:

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Using iconic or rhythmic notation, various voices, elemental forms, movement, non-pitched percussion, barred percussion, movement, and improvisation, this is a "kitchen sink" lesson using everything in the classroom you CHOOSE to use. You can use this with your first graders to upper elementary, varying the complexity included in the lesson. You can get the full slide set with all of the visuals on my Patreon community.  Add your favorite book about winter and voila! A lesson with no prep!

Enjoy!

Jingle Bells (INSTRUMENT, Not Song)

 I love the distinctive sound of jingle bells.  

I no longer use the song, Jingle Bells, in my classroom as it is rooted in Blackface Minstrelsy and has some sexual innuendo in the song.  Read more about that here, here, and here.

So here are my top 5 ways to use jingle bells in the music classroom - note, these are all WINTER songs and activities about sleighing or wintertime, not specific to Christmas. 

1.  Five Little Jingle Bells from Lynn Kleiner. 

This song is the PERFECT replacement for Jingle Bells and my kids LOVE it! You can also see the video here from one of my Facebook posts. 

2. Make Jingle Bell bracelets!  

Use jingle bells (Dollar Tree often carries them in the craft or holiday section this time of year) and pipe cleaners.  Each student gets 4-6 jingle bells to thread onto the pipe cleaner. Twist the ends and trim for size. The Kindergarten and First Graders are often over the moon with their special bracelets.  This is also great fine motor control work and counting (I let them make two, one for each arm, so they have to get 10 bells, then cut them in half; 5 bells for each bracelet).

3. Jingle Bell Parade from Music K8.  Each student with jingle bells line up behind you and you lead them on a parade throughout the room. This works well for a concert entry or exit with littles, too.  

4.   Bucket Drumming with Jingle Bell Rock - the version of the song I use is from Music Connection from Silver Burdett Ginn, Grade 5, CD 10, track 10.  You can use other versions and adjust accordingly (most do not have the interlude which is easily omitted).

Jingle Bell Rock Bucket Drum Routine  Click for the full post including score and directions.

5.  Everybody Sing Jingle Jangle from Charissa Duncanson. Check out her post about the song here.

Play and Sing Along

Song only

Enjoy!

The House Around the Corner

 I am always looking for songs that help my recorder students with specific areas - and often end up writing my own pieces to fit their needs. Since switching the starting pitches from BAG to GE I have been delighted that beginning with G and E opens up so much bitonic and tritonic (SM and SLM) songs and once we add low D we have access to some wonderful pentatonic material!  

We are working on some pre-improvisational ideas and so The House Around the Corner was born this week!  My students needed more practice with low E, and they were clamoring for something scary and spooky.  This song can go in various directions - spooky or with a more autumnal/wintry theme. 

I sang this song to them while playing the accompaniment.

Then I displayed these four 4-beat rhythm cards.

As we have been working on something we call the Wizard's Challenge using In the Hall of the Mountain King, I tell the students this rhythm might be familiar. Then I sing it using the word "dude" (which is what we "whisper" when playing recorder) and their little minds are blown that this is the rhythm of the melody repeated over and over.  Then we play the first card (top left) only using "E". Then play through each subsequent card using "E."  Play the top two cards, then the bottom two, then the full 16-beat phrase. 

I change the bordun to quarter notes  E B C B, which sounds very spooky, and we play the full phrase using E. 

Next, change the quarter notes to G. Play full phrase.

Finally, change the 3rd card (four 8th note pairs) to B and have students work on the transition from third card to final card (transitioning from B to E) and then we play the full phrase.

Perform as A (song), B (recorder melody), A again. Students could also play the melody as it is a simple La Do Re Mi song. If you have Carol King's Recorder Routes you could combine this with Who Has Seen the Wind, another LDRM song. 

The students loved it and felt so successful! The next time we will work on improvising beats 2 and 4 of   the third measure and will add zombie movement (as they requested), whistling tubes, flexatone, black scarves, and spring drums. They also want to add gongs, cymbals, and other things so it is sure to be a piece we will record to send home to families. 

Enjoy!

Candy! Candy! Rondo

 December is a month full of holidays and is a perfect month to talk about sugar! 

This is an International Candy Rondo idea focusing on first American candies and then involving the students in an exploration of international candies. Thanks to my friend Tammy for creating this idea- she created this as a Project-Based Learning activity with her students so you could easily have your students research a cultures candy and/or treats. 

Click here to make a copy of the google slides. 

Enjoy!

I Can't Wait for the Snow to Fall

This is a beloved folk song I learned long ago at a workshop and have loved ever since. The original folk song's words are, "I dont care if the rain comes down, I'm gonna dance all day". Needing a song for our holiday concert with a winter theme, I played around with this one and my students helped develop an easy orchestration and form we have loved using.

Sing the song as written, each time students sing the word, "dance" they strike a dance pose.
Clap "hey, hey" and patsch "carry me away".
For alternating sections, students came up with the idea of continuing the orchestration and humming the tune while doing dance moves.  Here's how it worked out:

A:  Song with orchestration
B:  Hum melody, orchestration continues; perform Macarena movements (this works out perfectly with the song and the dance can be performed twice).
A:  Song with orchestration
C: Hum melody, orchestration continues; perform the Floss (YUP.. what they voted for!).
A: Song with orchestration
D:  Hum melody, orchestration continues; freestyle- students perform movement of their choosing.
A:  Song with orchestration, end with "I'm gonna dance all day" 3 times followed by a final glockenspiel, "plink".

This was SO fun and really had my students moving and grooving. Good for any winter fun!

Hope you enjoy this one now or later!

Snowman

This is the season of snow for many of us in the US, although I get substantially less here in NC than my friends and family get in my home state of Maine!  I always loved snow forts, sledding, and making snow creatures growing up, so here is a fun song and activity to reinforce eighth and quarter notes, perfect for your first or second graders. The Orff accompaniment is really intended for the teacher as chord changes are not something I do until about third grade. You could also just accompany the kids with ukulele, too - simple enough with C and G7 chords.
Once students have made a snow sculpture, I tell them a magical snow sculptor came to town and blew the snow into bigger shapes (this is when they start creating with 2 people, then 3, etc.).  See below for more info and check out the facebook video I posted this morning @o for tuna orff and also on instagram - @Aimee_ofortunaorff.
As always, if you would like the pdf, simply shoot me an email - musicquilt@hotmail.com.
Enjoy!

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!

Frosty Weather and book, The Bear Snores On

First- if you haven't checked out my O For Tuna Orff Schulwerk Music page on facebook, I just posted a video about a lesson using "The Chubby Little Snowman" and googly eyeball finger puppets you can get right now at Dollar Tree in the Valentines Day section!  I will be posting extra teaching ideas and lessons there, so go check it out and follow! 

While on the American Orff Schulwerk Association (AOSA) facebook page recently I stumbled across a great lesson using the song, "Frosty Weather" and the book, "The Bear Snores On".  I absolutely love this book.  My daughter loved it, too, when she was little. I can still hear her making the funny bear noises! If you would like the pdf with all the pages below, send a request to musicquilt@Hotmail.com

 

Stretchy bands are available here - these are fabulous!!  I have also made MANY in the past out of white pantyhose - here is a video tutorial!

 Bjornen Sover is available here and the sheet music and several videos of children singing the song in the original Norwegian are available here from Mama Lisa.

On With The Show AKA Winter Break is Over Lesson

Hope everyone had a wonderful Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, and a Merry Christmas!  Hard to believe how fast the winter break goes!  I have been out of school for a week already, much of which I was sick, then my daughter got very sick with a stomach something (still not sure what is going on) and we ended up with a very memorable Christmas spending 6 hours in the ER Christmas Eve until 1:30 AM Christmas morning. She was feeling well enough to unwrap her presents yesterday morning but halfway through she was experiencing stomach pain again and was very sick the rest of the day. As I write, she is next to me on the couch with a heating pad around her belly and we are watching Hotel Transylvania.  Such is the way with the holiday season.  It goes far too quickly and then all of a sudden we are on the countdown back to school again. 
Having all this time off, sometimes it is hard to have students jump right back in and be able to follow rules and classroom structure as we all know how quickly they lose their sense of structure being at home for extended times. 
I wanted a new lesson for students to revisit rules, although I did not want to directly revisit the rules,(boring) so this lesson uses proverbs! If you want the pdf, please send a request to musicquilt@Hotmail.com.

 There are two versions - one with a spoken A Section and another with an A Section in C pentatonic with an easy Orff orchestration. As always, accommodate for your students; if they are not ready for a crossover bordun, use a broken bordun, if they are not ready for a broken bordun, add a closed bordun but perhaps make it the same rhythm; use the words, "Here we go again" (ta, ta, titi ta). 
Hope you enjoy!