What a crazy past 5 weeks; our family moved Halloween weekend and we are still unpacking and trying to get everything out of our storage unit and we are almost done! Hurray!!! Moving is NOT fun and moving from a house to an apartment and then building a house and moving into it and then moving everything from the storage to the house has been a loooong, strange adventure! It has been fun to figure out furniture placement, holiday decorating, and projects around the new house and we look forward to the day when one of our neighbor cows gets loose in our front yard! Haha... I grew up on a dairy farm and love my mooey neighbors!
Concert season is upon us all! I have already had one big one right before Thanksgiving and have another one next week and then the Big One with 240 kids on the 17th! Whew! It's always a tricky balance, finding or writing songs that honor students beliefs and the seasonal expressions of joy, peace, gift giving, etc. I wrote the piece below for my 2nd grade students as I wasn't going to see them very much due to schedules and I needed something we could put together quickly. They have enjoyed the song and we have a good laugh when they accidentally switch the words "candles lighting everywhere, they're melting on my tongue"... haha, giggle, snort.. OOPS!
Enjoy! Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays! Aimee
I love the book Leaf Man by Lois Ehlert. Available from Amazon here.
Wonderful text and beautiful illustrations. I have used it many ways, including a simple lesson using "Rustle of Spring" by Sinding. The music is here.
I was browsing around today and what to my wondering eyes did appear but another beautiful lesson using this book by the fabulous Marjie Van Gunten! It is available here from Teaching With Orff blog. Go!! Seriously.. wonderful lesson!!!! Oh. wait.. more..
I have used the book with this lesson:
·Assign small groups
of students parts in the book (there are 12 parts, divide accordingly):Chickens, ducks and geese, pumpkins and
winter squash, turkey, cabbages, meadows, cows, breeze, river, butterflies
going south, birds.
·Give each student a
small handful of fall colored square pieces of construction paper (or faux leaves from Dollar Tree). Demonstrate
how they will throw them in the air on their special part (cabbage, chickens,
etc.). Once their pieces are on the floor, they create a shape that shows how leaves look. Spiky, curled at the edges, in a line, curve, etc.
·Play “Rustle of
Spring” by Sinding while reading and dramatizing
I am linking up with Elizabeth at Organized Chaos for Fermata Fridays linky party!
Oh my goodness, had my first graders this morning and needed a quick rhythm review. I've had these foam ghosts and pumpkins, some have glitter, some don't for a couple years now. I think I got them in the craft section of Wal-Mart or maybe at Dollar Tree. They were cheap, regardless. I used them last year for rhythms (pumpkin= eighth notes, ghost= quarter note) and it was perfect review today! They had to decode the rhythm I laid out in pumpkins or ghosts, sat in two teams and oh, did we have fun! They were PUMPED!!! Hilarious, and great rhythm writing practice!!! I gave them the choice of using notation with heads or without (stick notation). What a blast! See below pictures for explanation!!! You could do this same game with any seasonal foam manipulatives, snowflakes, stars, etc. that fit quarter note/eighth note notation!
Fall is my favorite season.. well, that and spring. But, I really love the "seasonings" of fall; cinnamon, pumpkin, nutmeg, cloves; sugar and spice and everything nice!
On a recent Facebook post on the American Orff Schulwerk Association (AOSA) page, someone had asked about favorite fall/Halloween/pumpkin activities and I thought, "Ooooo... a great blog post!". So, here it goes with ones my wee ones and not-so-wee ones LOVE!
I blogged earlier about my favorite Fall Activities here.
Most of these come from many places, a couple years ago I made a binder with 2 sections: Fall/Halloween. I copied everything I had and put it in the binder and made a TOC in the front with song titles and added page numbers. SO glad I did this... it really helps this time of year to have everything in one place! WORTH the EFFORT!!
1. Randy DeLelles and Jeff Kriske's activity from Grade 2 in Gameplan, page 28. I can't give the specifics, but it has to do with a certain story of trick-or-treating and getting scared. Pairs perfectly with Hungarian Dance #3, Brahms. They LOVE acting out the story!
2. Pass the Pumpkin... check out the activity I use here. For those folks who can't use Halloween themed treats, this one will work for you! Change "spooky" to "minor" if you can't use that word.
3. Creepy Crawly Spiders.. another good one for folks who cannot use Halloween themes. The full blog post with pictures is here.
4. Story of trolls inside a mountain to go along with "In the Hall of the Mountain King". I also display the rhythm of the theme: titi titi titi ta with a repeat sign after it then we act out the story. FUN!!!! Another one for those who cannot use anything "Halloween-y". Is that a word.. *sigh* I love words! :) A lot of info here: http://www.classicsforkids.com/activitysheets/October2009.pdf
There is also a book to go along with the music
Order the book from Amazon here. The story is perfectly told and you can listen to the music and tell the story. Book also comes with a CD that has 5 pieces including the title piece.
5. We Are Scary Skeletons
This is one of those wonderful songs the kids LOVE to act out! From Jeff Kriske/Randy DeLelles (I love these guys and was so incredibly blessed to have them for levels courses!). From page 9 of "Highlighting the Holidays" available from West Music here. We practice walking like "scary skeletons" first, then change the words to "We are silly skeletons" then I ask the students for suggestions.. clowns, ladies in high heels, clown feet, horse skeletons, dog skeletons (pick your favorite animal skeleton, etc.) HYSTERICAL!!!
6. Danse Macabre
I love this music!! This video is old school but works beautifully!
7. Halloween Rhythms
I have two of these, one with quarters/eighths and the other with sixteenths/quarter/eighths. They look like this:
8. Sing Me a Monster and the book, "If You're a Monster and You Know It"
I am late.. linking up with Organized Chaos for a linky party called "Fermata Fridays".
This is one of my favorite activities for assessment!! I blogged about it here a couple years ago and it is still one of my all-time favorites!!!
Here are a few pictures of the pdf. You can email me at musicquilt@Hotmail.com for the pdf. I also have one with similar graphics that uses sixteenth, quarter, and eighth note rhythms for your older students. There are so many ways to use this one! ENjoy!
