Solos

In Kindergarten we sing solos during every music class and the fuzzy ball is one of my favorite tools for encouraging kids to sing.  After we sing our hello song, I sing the Question of the Day.  This rotation I am singing "Who is someone that you love?" using SM.  After singing the question I say think of one person and give me a thumbs up when you've got it.  (This step saves me from hearing a million answers shouted at me.)

I have these in several colors.  Oh My Gosh do they get 

excited when we use their favorite color fuzzy ball.

Once I see the majority of thumbs up, I randomly (well it's not completely random, I never start with a shy kid) toss the ball to a kid who sings their answer in a sentence.  I'm not specific about how the sentence is constructed because this gives the kids a chance to improvise.  When they are finished, they toss it back and I go on to the next kid.  The whole activity takes about 3-5 minutes.  I really love having them all sing a solo each time because I end up with more confident 1st, 2nd, ..... grade students.

I find that holding onto the ball is comforting to some kids.  They can squeeze it or stare at it to help give them a bit of extra courage.  I do have 2 little friends in Kindergarten that are Selective Mute and 3 in our school this year.  Here is a bit of the process I've gone through in working towards singing by themselves.

• Our first solo is singing our name.  For kids who are shy or are unable to sing their name, the class will sing their name.
• Usually our second solo is our favorite color.  I would have the child point to the color somewhere in the room.  Class sings the solo.
• Once we get into favorite animal, candy, etc.  They can whisper in a friends ear.  The class sings the solo.

Next time, my friends are going to whisper in my ear (fingers crossed).  I have noticed it helps if I tell them ahead of time what I would like.  It seems to give them some time to process and prepare for the experience.  What I have noticed is now they are volunteering to lead in ways that don't use their voice, which is a big step.  The key is to be patient and take baby steps.

Everybody Make An.....

You may have happened across this absolutely adorable video on Pinterest.

After watching it and thinking how stinking cute those little voices were, I decided I had to try it out with my own Kindergartners.  I always include a solo singing opportunity during my K lessons, so this week instead of doing our Question of the Day, we started playing this game.

Before we learned the song, we took a look at the letters on the board and practiced making them with our rhythm sticks.  I had already listed the letters that are possible on the board so that we would just have to practice making them.  Here are our letters and what they look like with rhythm sticks.

A, F, H

I, K, L

N, T, V

X, Z

If you try this song, you will probably want to preface this activity with a disclaimer about not having all of the parts of the letters but the basic shape.  Otherwise, you are going to here "but what about the middle line in the A", "we could use the line on the rug", "but I don't have a line in front of me!"  It could be earth shattering to a Kindergartner and, yeah, I didn't think about that one the first time through this lesson.  :)  If they really can't get past it, they can use their arm to make the other part of the letter.

After we practiced our letters, we moved, with our rhythm sticks in park, and made a circle around the rug.  Then I asked them to be my echo.  This lesson we only focused on the singing portion, next time we will add the spoken part and discuss the contrasting voices.  After echoing a few letters and making them in front of us, we went around the circle and each child got to be the leader.

They loved this!!!

We finished our lesson by creating a soundscape to go along with Chicka Chicka Boom Boom.  This is a great story to practice playing up/down, high/low sounds.

Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear

Happy New Year!  Two weeks off, holiday celebrations, and time with family really helps rejuvenate the soul.  I had an amazing start to my winter break.  At around 11:40pm, Friday Dec. 21st, the last day of school in my district, my beautiful niece was born!  We are so in love with her and are excited about being "Tia y Tio" (Aunt and Uncle) for the first time.  I hope you all had a restful winter break and are refreshed and ready to make more wonderful music with your little ones.

No matter how I prepare before a long break I always come back in a fog.  It takes me half the day before I feel like I'm back in the swing of things.  In my fog, I almost forgot to pull out my Teddy Bear masks!  The song alone is fun but teddy bear masks or masks of any kind always make things better.  :) The mask idea came from a lesson that Sandy and Gretchen shared during my Level I.

Process:
1. SM warm-up
2.  Isolate Teddy Bear
3.  Add body percussion - we ususally settle on clap-clap pat, clap-clap pat
4.  S. sing Teddy Bear w/ Body Percussion, T. sings teddy movements and demonstrates
5.  Discuss what Teddy does
6.  S. sing Teddy w/ Body Percussion and perform Teddy movements, T. sings teddy movements
7.  Discuss order of Teddy movements and lead students to discover rhyming words.
8.  S. sing and perform whole song with body percussion and movement
9.  Divide group in two and perform:  half get masks, half get unpitched percussion
10.  Switch

This lesson leads to others where we decode the melody and rhythm of the teddy bear phrase, I'll try and remember to post about them later.

In case you aren't familiar with this song, I found the notation on Beth's Music Notes.  If you haven't checked our her blog, you should.  Click here to visit her site!

These masks were a bit time consuming because I made 10 but they are very durable and so cute!  We are lucky enough to have a cut out machine at our school that I was able to use for the shape of the head.  If you don't have one of these machines, I would suggest making a template out of cardboard first.  You could find an image and trace it onto the poster/cardboard using a projector or draw it free hand.

Once I had the heads, I filled in the gaps using some colored construction paper and cut out little eye wholes.  I found sunglasses in the dollar section at Target but I imagine the dollar store would be another good place to look for them. I used hot glue to attach them to the back.  I had mine laminated at Office Max because they have really nice heavy duty lamination.  I like to use them for all my lamination and color printing needs.  They can be a bit pricey but they have teacher discounts, the staff is usually knowledgeable and the quality of the printing and lamination seems to be a bit better than the other office supply stores.

Singing in the....

During a 1st grade rhythm activity this week I had a little interruption.  We were working on labeling ti-ti and it was the meat of my lesson, the kids were just making the connection to a previous lesson when all of a sudden I heard a little voice singing.  I looked around to try and figure out who was randomly singing when I remembered I had just sent a child to the bathroom!

The bathroom is at the front of my room.

This isn't the first time this has happened.  It seems that the popularity of singing in the bathroom was something I was unaware of (at least outside the shower) and it isn't relegated to the younger grades.  I have had K-3 students singing in my bathroom, which makes me giggle every time.  :)

The Magic Microphone

What can possibly elicit a more excited response from a 5 year old than a sparkly microphone?  Well okay, maybe any sort of drum but if they aren't getting to play that instrument the magic microphone is the next best thing.

Now I know that you may have a different process but I start my K year off (after rules of course) with a chance to practice our "Four Voices".  I don't go very in depth with this process at this point just looking at the four voice posters and then some simple echoing.  I also give each child a chance to share one of their four voices using the magic microphone.

I like this portion of my first lesson because it gives each child an opportunity to perform a solo where they have a choice in how they share their voice.  I have very little resistance to this activity because my more reserved little ones can choose to use their whisper voice.  This is a great way to ease into more solo activities and to reinforce being a good listener.

You may be thinking that I end up hearing all shouting voice, and the first few students did until I got smart.  Once we use a sign I turn it around so that the next friend has to choose a different voice.  Sometimes I will have two signs turned around.  I do this throughout the activity keeping the shouting voice turned as often as possible so that my lesson doesn't turn into a screaming match.  At this point, I keep corrections to a minimum and get a feel for where my students are in understanding  how to use their different voices.