Snow Snow No Snow

 

 

 

I am originally from Maine, an original "Mainah".  As much as I love my home state, and miss many parts of it, I am much happier weather wise here in North Carolina, especially now.. they were just hit with a massive storm and my parents have 2.5 FEET of snow in their yard and are set for more snow this weekend.  My kiddos here at school are wanting just a few inches of the white stuff, and I would love to go out and play in the yard with my daughter and enjoy some snowy moments!  Not to mention having a Snow Day. 

Here is a song for younger grades, Snowflakes Falling Down.  We used it as a B section to the Snowflakes song from Gameplan, Grade K.  After playing a few times, we let our mallets "dance" (alternate hands quickly) to play high sounds after "dancing high" and low sounds after "dancing low".  Great fun..  Add some finger cymbals, whirling tubes (wind sounds) and chimes and you'll have a blustery blizzard of musical fun.  Oh, and white feathers.. got to have them to blow around, too.. Cheers!!

 

 

New Year.. New _____

New Year.  Every 365, sometimes 366, it rolls around like a mirrored ball on speed and suddenly, whamo, it's here! 
Resolutions:
Mine are short and simple:
Personal:
I began a Whole 30 Jan. 1 (very stict whole, clean eating plan) and am so very thankful for the Facebook group of First Timers who have been so helpful with recipes, support, and encouragement!  I am trying to lose the 20 pounds that crept back on while I was in the middle of moving, Thanksgiving, and Christmas!  Yikes!!!  Need to stick to Paleo- it has worked for me but the minute I go off I gain!!  I have also gone back to working out 4-5 days per week. Amazing how much better I feel when I do.

Professional: 
This has been an awesome school year!! The last two school years were not so hot as I had 4 surgeries during those two and was out a total of almost 6 months of school!!!  So glad to be healthy again.
Edit, edit, edit!  I am in the midst of a book and my publisher and I will begin edits soon- I've already started editing and I am so excited about the book.. and leery of all the work during editing!  The book has clapping songs and games from around the world!  It's been so fun chatting with people in Johannesburg, South Africa, Indonesia, Scotland, and all around the globe.  So thankful for email; this project would have taken years otherwise.

Now to the goody, well, I hope it's a goody: 

 

Happy 2015!

December Favorite Activities

December is CRAZY, isn't it?  So much going on, so little time.. etc.  I have two concerts that turn into four as the little kiddos come to watch the bigger ones and vice versa, then the concerts for the parents.  We call them "Holiday Concerts" but I am very careful to be inclusive and not exclusive about singing songs from various perspective.  Tricky, tricky! So, December is always extra busy with these concerts and sometimes, like this year, our final concert is the day before the Holiday Break, so I don't have too much time for other activities.  But I try to sneak in a few between rehearsing music.
Of course, I love the Nutcracker, so it goes without saying that it is a piece of music I love to have students get into.  Sometimes we watch segments of the Nutcracker "The Motion Picture" version (sets designed by Maurice Sendak of "Where the Wild Things Are" fame).  I almost always have students perform Trepak in a variety of ways, either using the Bucket Drum Activity:   http://ofortunaorff.blogspot.com/search/label/bucket%20drum or using Artie Almeida's excellent resource, "Parachutes and Ribbons and Scarves, Oh My!".  There is an AWESOME parachute activity my fourth graders BEG to do again and again in there on page 47 that goes with Trepak!  Artie also has a ribbon wand activity to Trepak in the book.
In the same book there is a paper plate activity (great for the littler musicians) to the Nutcracker March as well as a candy cane dance and a stretchy band activity to the same piece.
An easily accessible song about Snowflakes with Orff accompaniment (very simple) is here:
http://ofortunaorff.blogspot.com/2012/11/winter-snowflakes-song-with-orff.html (original post).  Here is the song:

Another activity we use is the Elf on the Shelf piece I wrote last year.. dreamed it, actually.. original post here:

http://ofortunaorff.blogspot.com/2013/12/elf-on-shelf-speech-piece-with-ostinati.html

Whatever you choose to do this season, keep 'em singing and keep 'em moving!  :)
Blessings and Merry Christmas!

Pass Me the Turkey song with cup game composition

This one I found yesterday on the AOSA (American Orff Schulwerk Association) Music Teacher Facebook page.  MANY thanks to composers Trilby Jordan and F. Thomas Simpson for sharing and allowing me to share here!  I LOVE this song and added a cup game composition using word chains of disliked Thanksgiving foods.  Students performed them for their teachers when they came to pick up the class.  LOVED it!  Definitely going into my "keep" file for years to come!

Turkey Trouble Blues

This is a really fun song I found recently on Pinterest and happens to be composed by one of my favorites, Grace Nash, and another composer, Janice Ripley. My focus today was really to work on steady beat as my third graders are rushing everything like MAD and so this was the perfect lesson for their music classes today. I opted to use only the Bass Xy and Glockenspiel part instead of the full orchestration; for my purposes it worked beautifully and we had a hilarious time squawking and gobbling!
Here are the slides I put together with it for students.  It was really fun! 

Holiday Treats Song

Monday, 11/17 UPDATE.. cookie rhythms added!  A quick post today with a song for the holidays that is "safe" for schools; doesn't mention Christmas or Hanukkah or Kwanzaa.  Great to add to a holiday program whether you are allowed to mention the holidays or not.   There's even a visual for the cookie rhythms color coded for unpitched percussion! 
Enjoy!

 

 

Off to National AOSA Conference.. wheee!

I am so excited to be headed to the National Orff Conference (American Orff Schulwerk Association) in Nashville in a couple days!  Can't wait to get new ideas, meet and network ideas with other music teachers and just reconnect with music peeps from around the US.  Hopefully my voice will return... durn cold everyone has passed on to me!  :)