Creating a Movement Rondo

1. Ask students about their favorite sports; what kind of activities are involved with each one. Make a list on the board. It might look like this: Basketball Horseback Riding Dribbling Canter Passing Jump Shooting Gallop Running Walk Hook Shot Prance Jumping Side Step 2. Reviewing theme and contrast (AB, ABA). Explain rondo form and demonstrate using sport theme. For the demonstration, have the class do each theme or section for 8-16 beats. 3. Divide class into groups, each group works together to develop their own rondo. 4. Each group performs their rondo without telling other students what their “theme” was, students try to identify the theme and evaluate their use of rondo form. To give signals for changing from one section to another within the rondo, try using three different instruments (A=temple blocks, B=drum, C= triangle) playing a steady beat for a specified number of beats (8-16).

Extension: Viennese Musical Clock from the Hary Janos Suite 1. Prepare students by marching to a drum beat. Once comfortable, ask them to change directions when they hear a change in the drum sound (use bongos or small to medium tubanos, hand drums, etc.). Experiment with different styles of marching (high, low, marching in mud, rain, sun, marching through jello or chocolate, marching when tired, happy, sad, excited, frustrated, angry, etc). 2. Listen to the music and identify the marching beat, ask students to use marching arms as they sit and identify the numbers of A (marching) sections (4). 3. Outline the form or use a diagram you have created or found. Ask: How can you tell when the sections change? What instruments are used? (This is part of a bigger piece of music (composition) written for an orchestra, but this particular movement has no strings.) Does the music sound like a mechanical clock? Why or why not? 4. Divide class into groups labeled B, C, or D. Students create movement with scarves or ribbon sticks or ??? for these sections. Everyone moves on the A section with other groups performing their movement for the B, C, and D sections. Further Extension Listen to other musical clock pieces: Syncopated Clock by Leroy Anderson Other mechanical instrument pieces: Add On Machine from Contrast and Continuum, Vol. I, by Eric Chappelle

Music for Hannukkah

I love this time of year- I love Christmas music and I love snow.. well... snow that GOES- which is one of the reasons I left Maine for NC! I like it here for a ocuple days then gone! I have a huge holiday concert with my kiddos at school with 300 kids! Whoopee! I have a very dear music teacher friend who is Jewish and I'm always asking for advice on Hannukkah music. I have never performed "Oh Dreidl" nor do I wish to.. it's just one of those things.. not my favorite! I try to perform a Hebrew folk song with the children singing in Hebrew every year instead of performing a "Hannukkah" song that has been manufactured/manipulated for this very special holiday. I also believe my students benefit from learning "Bim Bom" or "Shalom Chaverim" or "Hasuka MaYafa". Other favorites are "Hine Ma Tov", "Dodi Li", "Burn Little Candle" among others. I also love to teach some Hebrew dances and the kids love them! Try Haida! Enjoy this video!

Ribbon Choreography Made Easy

For some people, using ribbons with classes is great fun and exciting; for others it is painful; what to do with these things? To create easy and fun ribbon choreography, use these cards (I actually have about 10 pages of these.. use your imagination to create new patterns). First, determine the form of your piece, have students listen and brainstorm the mood of the piece and use a word wall or create a list of movements that reflect each section of the music. Perform with movements. Show ribbon choreography cards and have students determine how to move ribbons that reflect the mood of each section. Display cards in order of performance and then get ready! It often works well (particularly if you have a piece in rondo form) to have different groups of children move during specific sections of music- one group moves for "A", another for "B", and so on. Play the music and move and groove. This makes coming up with ways to move the ribbons easy peasy and the kiddos love creating! Have fun with them!

Ribbons and Ribbons and Russia...

Well, Russian composer anyway! I love using music from the Nutcracker this time of year! Especially the March and Trepak! See the bucket drum routine below to Trepak. My 2nd graders are performing this in a week and a half and my fourth graders are performing a different one to the Duke Ellington arrangement of the Overture.. listen to it sometime soon- rich with possiblities! Here's another activity with ribbons posted by Mrs. Shredder- soo stinkin' cute with these 2nd graders of hers! Enjoy!

Finally.. spoon matching game.. CHECK!

I've been wanting to get this one done for a while. Thanks to pinterest- someone had the brilliant idea to use clear spoons and white (or colored) ones to work on lower case and upper case letter matching. For us music folks, the idea was easily adapted to notes and note values. I got some done today and I think it will work well as a center! My school is in the process of buying ipads for me and the art teacher to share- FIVE! Woot Woot!! So.. am going to incorporate some centers starting in January. One of these will include the spoons. Once students have determined the correct rhythm value, they could use one of the rhythm grids I've seen on Mrs King Rocks' blog- check her out- awesome ideas (!), then they could compose and perform rhythms. Another one done... CHECK!

Craaaaazzzzy 8th's Game

I don't remember where I learned this from and my process probably differs a little or a lot from the original but my students love this game and it's been so fun for a "brain break" when we are in the middle of some serious work on instruments to just say, "Crazy 8th's" and watch 'em run to get drums and tambourines (my fourth graders are such great kiddos!!). I'll start by keeping a rhythm on a djembe or the bongos and then, once i've established the steady beat, they'll start to count to 8 and march around the room. Each pattern of 8 you put an accent on one number; the first time it's going to be ONE, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, then 1, TWO, 3, 4, 5,6, 7, 8, then 1,2, THREE,, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, etc. They only play on the accented beats; march each beat. The first time will go slow- they'll need to simply march and count to 8 several times, marching on each beat; then stop the class and say, OK, let's emphasize the number 1 and still march on every beat, then stop the class, demonstrate the accent on beat 2, then beat 3, etc. It helps to project or write the numbers 1 through 8 then you can point to the next accented beat as the students progress through. Once the students can do this up to 8 smoothly,(which takes a little while), go backwards.. yikes! Fun!!! Once they get comfy with this, continue to only play the accented beats but change the marching (locomotor) to standing (non-locomotor). in other words, step and play ONLY on the accented beats. Much trickier! Have fun with this!

Winter Snowflakes Song with Orff Arrangement and Improvisation

This is an Orff arrangement I wrote a few days ago. You could make the accompaniment simpler by using a closed bordun and not adding the additional percussion. For those of you unfamiliar with Orff process; teach using body percussion first; patsch the BX/BM rhythm, add snaps for glockenspiel part. Clap the rhythm of the song then transfer to instruments set up in C pentatonic to create a contrasting "B" Section. Have fun and let me know how you used it/changed it.