September 2014Sweet Sounds : September 2014

Saturday, September 27, 2014

Kindergarten Magic: Make-Believe in the Music Room

I remember my first day having a classroom of Kindergarteners all to myself. We sang! We danced! We moved to the music! We read a story! We got out the instruments and played! And then I looked at the clock and only 15 minutes had gone by!! Wow!!!

It really was like herding cats that first year - playing game after game, singing song after song and not really diving deeply into anything.

Over ten years later, my Kindergarten classes look completely different (post-Kodaly of course!) but there is still that electric energy at the beginning of the year. Now, I love teaching Kinders and hopefully they love being in my class!

Getting the Year Started Out Right

For most of the first grading period, we are learning new repertoire, practicing procedures and developing relationships with each other!

We have to learn how/when to go to the bathroom, how to get out/put away the instruments, how to raise our hands before asking a question or telling a story. Practice this phrase: "Tell me later."

And that's when most music teachers (myself included) go over types of voices to get the year started right. Then it's off to the races and we run through the concepts like there's no tomorrow! Loud/Soft! Steady beat! High/Low! Fast/Slow! Rhythm/Beat!

And all the while interweaving topics like: Instrument Families! Music from around the world! Listening! Classroom Instruments! Patterns! Audience Behavior! Not picking your nose or putting your shoelaces in your mouth! (gross!)

What makes it all work together like magic?

Make-believe!

Entering the room:

From the minute the step into my class, we pretend. We take a train ride to music land by marching to "Engine, Engine" as we enter the room and our train makes a circle. It only works as well as you buy into it.

Before they enter my room on the very first day of school, I meet them in the hall and say, "We're going to stay in line and make a big circle in the room. Everyone put your arms like this. Stay in line and follow me!"

As we enter the room, I say, "Stay on the train!" and "Can you make this sound?" as I ch-ch-ch and march into the room at a pretty fast clip. (arms in "marching" position of course!)

When we've made a circle-ish shape, I say, "Freeze! Who froze?" and look around for movers. Then I say, "Go!" and ch-ch-ch some more. We freeze/go 4-5 times before I say, "Now like this" and slow the tempo down to a comfortable tempo for Engine, Engine.

Eventually, they will sing with me, but on the first day of school, I let them make 4 slow "chh" sounds and then I begin singing Engine, Engine to our beat. Some will continue to make the "chh" sounds (part-work!) and some will just listen. Either is fine with me.

Pro-Tip: As we go through the year, the marching turns to stomping, so I like to say, "Oh, I just love how you are lifting your knees!" - it really helps turn it into a nice march plus it helps keep it on the beat.

Solo Singing / Singing Voice:

A million years ago when I was teaching band and elementary music (K-12 baby!), I heard a TMEA presenter speak about having a puppet or stuffed animal for the kids to sing to. Even the shy kids would sing to a puppet, or make the puppet sing. It worked so well that I still do this!

Meet Melody! She loves to sing so she hangs out in the music room all day singing with the boys and girls. Occasionally she goes on vacation and comes back with shades or a cute new ribbon. Just enough to freshen it up.

We read a story about elephants by Jerry Smath...

{You could choose any elephant book you like, but this is one I grew up with so it has a special place in my heart. :-) It also has a nice demonstration of "calling" or "shouting" voice.}

...and sing Melody's favorite song, Elephants Have Wrinkles from Movement Songs Children Love - you could also use another elephant song like "Elephants All Over the World."

And then get down to business!

I say, "Melody will do whatever you ask her, if you use your singing voice. Like this. Melody, do a flip! (I toss her high in the air) Melody, give me a hug! (hugs) Melody, do a cartwheel! (spoken voice) Oh no! Why won't Melody do a cartwheel?!"

One kid will always speak up and say, "You didn't use your singing voice!"

Then we take turns around the room (volunteers, not everyone) and they get a chance to make Melody do whatever they want: spray them with water, jump on my head, blow me a kiss, turn off the lights. They come up with the best ideas!

And if they don't use their singing voice, Melody doesn't do it. I usually prompt and say, "Oh! Can you use your singing voice?" If they try again and can't, I simply say, "Sing it with me," and then Melody will act.

Thanks Denise Gagne for this sweet activity I've held onto over the years!

Inner Hearing:

I used to have a huge parrot puppet with a gigantic mouth. It was perfect for practicing inner hearing. "Whenever Sam's mouth is open he sings for all to hear, but when his mouth is closed up tight, he's using his inner ear."

Now I have a sweet puppy dog puppet that does the same thing. He helps the boys and girls know when to sing inside their heads. What do you use for inner hearing?

Transitions & Repetition:

Make-believe is PERFECT for creating smooth transitions in your Kindergarten lessons. I can be in the middle of a sentence and I stop and look at Melody (the elephant) and say, "What? You want to go see your friend Dog E. Dog?" And off we go singing Doggie, Doggie.

Or I say, "Last week Pup E. Dog was at Old MacDonald's farm and something was buzzing. It sounded like this: Bzzzzz! Does anyone know what could make a sound like that?"

Lamar Robertson shared tons of stories in our Kodaly training - he had a story for every song! He loved to tell a story that had the kids singing a song over and over again.

One of my favorite "repeat" stories is for Doggie, Doggie. I tell my students that Dog E. Dog is looking for his bone. I walk around the room and sing-ask each of the stuffed animals or imaginary people about his bone that is missing. Eventually he goes to the "music room" & there it is - right where he left it last week!

The most important thing is that you are engaging their hearts with a story that they can latch onto, instead of jumping from song to song. I polished the phrase: "Now, let's sing __" for YEARS until I figured out it was more fun with a story.

Tips for Make-Believe Success

1. Just go with it! It's all about the improv in the Kindergarten classroom. Whatever the kids say, take it and incorporate it into your lesson. If they're talking too much, I look at one of the stuffed animals and say, "What?! You want to give them a star but you can't give them one until they're quiet?"

Bonus: Check out my popular post on positive behavior management here!

2. Keep it going! Next week is week 6 at my school and I have a student who has said in every class, "Shh! Don't scream! It hurts Melody's big ears!" I said that the first day to help with random screaming that tends to happen when Kinders get excited - and now I don't have to say anything! Plus I have older kids who still ask about Melody and how she's doing.

3. Keep it simple! Don't try to do it all in one day. Start small and simple and just get the creative juices flowing. Before long, you'll be adding in little make-believe bits without even thinking.

Need more Kindergarten resources for your classroom?

Check out these Kindergarten resources in the Sweet Sounds shop on Teachers Pay Teachers!

How do you use "make-believe" in your classroom?

Let’s Connect!

Sunday, September 21, 2014

Children's Books in the Music Room: Swirl by Swirl and LMNO Peas

It's time for another edition of Perfect Pairings! Yay!

Books are a great way to build creativity and confidence in your students. Books are also great for connecting songs to other content areas, like science and social studies!

Swirl by Swirl: Spirals in Nature by Sidman and Krommes

"Swirl by Swirl" is a piece of artwork! My students LOVE the details of all the different spirals found in nature. This is a perfect pairing with any snail song, including my favorite, Snail, Snail.

On the 4th or 5th week of Kindergarten, we stand in our circle and connect hands. "Hold on and never let go!"

I take one end of the circle and start walking around the room like a snail would, meandering around the different areas of the music room. While we walk I sing Snail, Snail and move my feet to the beat. Almost always, the students join in with my feet. We end up back in the circle and sit down.

The next week (or later, if behavior issues prevent it) we sing the same song again and this time at the end, I spiral us back towards the center. ALWAYS spiral the kids so they are facing outwards, so there is less funny business. Can I get an amen? (Thanks Phil for that tidbit!)

I literally just keep taking steps towards the middle until the "tail" of the snail is in place. Then I stop and ask, "What shape are we in?" Most of the time they answer "a snail!" and I say, "You're right! And a snail makes a spiral shape. Everyone say 'spiral.'"

Then I let go and duck under their hands to the "tail" student, and say, "Let's unwind our spiral." And off we go, back to the circle. Then we sit and read this wonderful book, taking time to savor each picture. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.

Later we can practice tapping the beat and making a spiral with our smart board pens! It's so much fun!

LMNO Peas by Keith Baker

LMNO Peas is a fantastic alphabet book! I love it when alphabet books go beyond your normal "A is for Apple" and I love it even more when books about "community helpers/jobs" go beyond the norm as well.

And I can't forget to mention that Keith Baker has another "peas" book - of course! I can't wait to check out 1-2-3 peas and Little Green Peas.

The peas are so sweet and the illustrations are perfect!

These are my favorites:

B - bikers in a race!

C - climbers and campers and he's a circus clown!

G - gardeners, gigglers, givers and takers

K - kayakers

P - parachutists (and a whole page of unique parachutists)

Y - yogis in a pose

Z - zoologists

Talk about some great vocabulary and creative ideas for who the peas are. And at the end it asks "Who are you?" and we get to do a sweet discussion of "What do you want to be when you grow up?"

This is a great transition song from Peas Porridge Hot to another song, or you can sing it after the book.

What books do you use in your music classroom? I'm always looking for new ideas so please feel free to comment below!

Check out the first edition of Perfect Pairings here!

There's something new in the Sweet Sounds TpT shop!

Check out this Bounce High resource for prepping, presenting and practicing La. :-)

Have you used Bounce High, Bounce Low in your classroom?

Let’s Connect!

Wednesday, September 17, 2014

Talk Like a Pirate in the Music Room

Arrrrr Mateys! Do you celebrate Talk Like a Pirate Day in your classroom? (September 19) Will you dare to speak like a pirate all day in your classroom? I won't! But I will be singing some "pirate” chanteys.

My favorite pirate resource is my "Turn the Glasses Over" set! It was one of my first products and it remains one of my favorite resources.

After learning the song and playing the game/s, we practice reading and writing and improvising our rhythms and melodies.

Review known rhythms!

Read & play new pitches!

...and a challenge with the flashcards!

Here are some of my other pirate favorites!

This game is a fantastic brain break or large group game. I use it for assemblies, substitutes, or when I have double classes because there's no subs available! It's super easy for a non-music sub, but a music teacher can use the extension activities and bring it up a notch.

My students LOVE Bobby and Lucy and Kitty - these songs are fantastic for practicing La and our known rhythms ta and tadi.

You can get Turn the Glasses Over in a bundle here or here (low so bundle) in the Sweet Sounds store on TPT.

It's not a pirate song per say ... but you can probably get away with this one, too!

Happy Talk Like a Pirate Day!

Let’s Connect!

Sunday, September 14, 2014

Children's Books in the Music Room: Caps for Sale and Star Spangled Banner

One of my favorite things to do is find good books! Books that sing! Books with beat! Books with extractable rhythms! Books that connect to songs topically!

My friends are ~~probably~~ tired of me telling what book pairs to do in their classes, so I decided to blog about it. I blogged here and here about it before I figured out I should make it a series.

When I was growing up, my mom would take me and my brother to the library all. the. time. Bless her. Each time we went, we would get a stack as high as we could carry (think Library Lil) and carry them home.

A few hours later, we would unearth from our stack of finished books, grab a fresh Dr Pepper or snack, get another pile and dig in! I remember going to the library every week, but it may have been more.

Because my mom was a reading teacher, I had access to her classroom library (think 1000+ books when she started) and our own personal library that was close to the same size. I should have bought stock in Half Price Books. Hindsight.

So suffice it to say I have had a ~~love~~ infatuation with children's books since I was little.

Now my personal and classroom libraries are starting to rival hers, thanks to a windfall from her retirement. (yesssss!!) I probably have a few hundred pins (music and non-music) over the spread of several boards on my Pinterest personal account.

So, if you want a sneak peek at what will be coming to my blog, check out my music teacher "book list" on Pinterest. I'm just starting to "pin over" from my personal boards, so if you follow that board, it will flood your feed with tons of books! Don't say I didn't warn ya. ;-)

I will try to divide each post into two parts - books with topical connections to songs and books with direct connections (as in, a song book or a book to the tune of a song). Since this is the first post, I'm not sure what will happen, so be gentle!

Here we go!

Caps for Sale by Esphyr Slobodkina

I love this simple story about a man that sells caps and gets into a sticky situation with some monkeys. It's such a sweet story and it's very short and accessible to all backgrounds.

I love the colors of the illustrations, the sneakiness of the monkeys and the resolution of his problem.

There's even a video to go along with it, but I don't use it because I like to add so-mi to his calls.

To add so-mi, use just the repeated phrase: "Caps for sale! Caps for sale! Fifty cents a ca-ap" (with a 6/8 feel: ss m ss m ss ss s-m). I can't take credit for this awesomeness - it's just the way my mom sang it to me when she read it to me!

Since I use this with Kindergarten, I don't label the solfege, I just sing it the first 2 times and encourage the class to sing it with me after that. "Can you sing it, too?"

The topic is great because you can transition from any hat song to any monkey song, or vice versa. My classes sing "My Hat it Has Three Corners," then read this story, then sing "3 Little Monkeys Swinging from the Tree." Perfect!!

The Star-Spangled Banner Illustrated by Peter Spier

This is a great way to go into detail about the Star-Spangled Banner with your 2nd and 3rd graders.

I tell the story first. (Detailed descriptions and a photo of the actual manuscript are in the back!) And when I get to, "He had to stay on the boat and watch his countrymen fight," I start with the first page and sing it.

The pictures are so helpful in explaining, "What's a rampart" and "What were they looking for?" In the first few pages I usually say, "Do you see it? That thing they are looking for? Don't say it out loud!" and keep reading.

When we get to "that our FLAG was still there!" (chills.) I make a huge deal out of it: "Why does it matter? It's just a flag, right? Why is it important that he could still see the flag in the morning after the battle?"

Sometimes they need a little prompting: "If I took over your fort and saw your flag up there, the first thing I would do is take it down and put up my flag."

Inevitably one of my kids will say, "It means we didn't lose." Ding-ding!

And we finish the book. Sometimes I'll read the whole thing, but most of the time I don't have time to do the additional verses. But the pictures are so good!

I hope you've enjoyed this installment of Perfect Pairings! I look forward to hearing your comments below!

What books do you use in the music room?

Let’s Connect!