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.

First Grade: Thanksgiving Rhythms

I wasn't planning on doing much with my 1st grade class today because they had gotten ahead of the other classes and it was their Thanksgiving Feast, so I figured they would be wound up.  But, then I realized it was my gifted class and I thought showing a video would be more work than just doing a lesson with them, so spur of the moment this is what I decided to do.

I had seen this worksheet pinned (it's a free download from Teacher's Pay Teacher's):

I like this worksheet a lot but I hadn't planned this out, so I didn't have copies and didn't have time to download it.  Plus, this may have been a bit over my 1st graders heads.  So, instead of 2 beat rhythms, we simplified to words that matched Ta and a column of words that matched ti-ti.  

I was impressed with the words they came up with, especially Mayflower.  It took a bit of prompting but they discovered that it combined the two note values.  Now, this was my Gifted 1st grade group, so I'm not sure this would have worked quite as well with my other classes.  

Once we had our lists, we used white boards and in pairs created 8 beat rhythm patterns.  They could use any of the words they wanted but they had to make sure and practice clapping their rhythm.  After about 6 minutes of writing and clapping, we performed our rhythm patterns for each other.  

Afterwards, I recorded a few of the groups performing their patterns.  What was great is some of them were already trying to use ta and ti-ti instead of the words to read the patterns.  

Take a look at the first pattern in the video.  These girls used Mayflower and figured out on their own that it would take up two beats.  I thought that was pretty spectacular for 1st graders!

Pease Porridge: 1st Grade

There are a few of those poems and songs that I use across grade levels and Pease Porridge is one of them.  I have posted a 3rd grade Pease Porridge lesson and this lesson is one I did recently with 1st grade.

We reviewed the poem from Kindergarten while keeping the steady beat.  I told them we were going to be detectives and decode the rhythm of the poem.  (EXCITING!)  They helped me keep the beat while I notated ta on the board.  Once I had notated the beat for all 3 phrases it was time to decode.

I have got to remember to write things lower!  I'm a little dense and keep doing it, so I bought a little green stool so that my poor little ones can reach.  You would think that after 6 years I would have figured it out.  BTW...is that not the cutest little bow!

We started by finding the silent beats and replacing ta with a rest.  Once that was complete we moved onto beats with two sounds.  Finally we played the rhythm of the whole thing using the words of the poem and ta's and ti-ti's.  They loved this and it didn't take long to do.  I'm sure you could extend this activity with instruments and in other ways but for this lesson it was enough.

1st Grade: Spooky Rhythms

I happened across a post on The Sweetest Melody and it inspired me to do some Spooky rhythm patterns during my 1st grade lesson this rotation.  We've been working on reviewing ta and rest from the end of kindergarten and experiencing eighth notes.  After singing a song that had eighth note patterns that we moved to, we looked at our Ghost rhythms.

I asked my kids to tell me how these rhythms looked different than the rhythms we read during our last class.  They said "Some of the beats have 2 ghosts".  So I asked them what they thought would happen and their response was exactly what I wanted "there will be two sounds".

So, we played our spooky rhythms saying ghost for one sound on a beat and spooky where there were two sounds.  Oh my goodness did they love this!  Afterwards I gave them an opportunity to compose their own spooky rhythm.  I kept it to 4 beats since this was our first composing experience this year.

I didn't have any Halloween themed manipulatives but these worked.  I had some cardstock that was cut into 8ths and some button shapes that had been donated.  I separated them into baggies, each bag had 4 pieces of cardstock and 8 buttons.  The cardstock is to represent the beat and the buttons the notes.  These are nice because I can use them throughout the year.  I think I will give each group 8 beats next time for a longer composing experience.

Hear is some video of my kids working on their rhythms.  Sorry my voice is so loud, you can't really hear it in the video but the class was kind of loud as they worked in their groups so I had to speak up so my little ones could hear me.  Unfortunately, my cell phone picked my voice up more than anything else because I was so close to it.

First Grade Lesson: Up and Down

I don't feel that this lesson is earth shattering or innovative but it worked.  The kids were successful, it was a great review and it was a lot of fun.

1.  Hello Song (3 min.)
 - We do this at the beginning of every class with steady beat movements.  I will probably continue it through the first quarter before picking a new hello song, just to keep things fresh.

2.  Sing Me Your Name  (7 min.)
- I demonstrate how my voice can move up and down by singing a simple SM phrase "Sing Me Your Name".  What's very cute is how all of the kids kind of move their head up and down slightly with me. Then we practice the answer together "My Name is ______" and everyone fills in the blank.  After we practice I go around the room and each student gets to sing solo into the magic microphone.

3.  Moving Up and Down (3 min.)
-This week I had my flute with me, so I played scale patterns up and down and the students responded with movement.  I really liked how this worked.  While I have done this with my students before, I really liked how playing the patterns on the flute made them listen carefully.  When I play a barred instrument or the piano they can see my hands and respond to the direction I move my hands.  Some of the students aren't truly listening.  I will have to remember this in future years.

4.  Playing Up and Down (10 min.)
-In K we learned how to play upwards and downwards glissandi on the glockenspiel.  We reviewed mallet technique and what bar to start on to play up/down.  Then we moved to the floor, seated in 6 lines.  I would say up or down and the person at the glockenspiel would play 1 up/down glissandi.

5.  Hickory Dickory Dock (Idea from Game Plan) (3 min.)
-We have used this poem during the previous 2 lessons moving our voice up and down like the mouse in the poem.  We played up/down sounds on the words in the poem during this lesson.

6.  Mortimer (Mallet Madness) (12 min.)
-If you have not checked out Artie's Mallet Madness, you definitely should!  I love this little story (it reminds me of my brother when he was 2).  For the first reading the kids sang along with me and showed a thumbs up/down for the sounds I was making with my voice.  Afterwards we played up/down sounds on the glockenspiels to help tell the story.  You can find more details in Artie's book.

Seven Blind Mice Lesson

Earlier this month I posted a request for ideas on how to use the book Seven Blind Mice by Ed Young. I guess there aren't many of you out there who have used this book before, so I had to brainstorm.  I tried out a lesson with my 1st graders today, and it was a lot of fun!  This was just a portion of my mouse themed lesson.

After reading the story (I did this in line during my last rotation in anticipation of using the book), I introduced this cute little refrain.

A Something?  A Something?
What could it be?
A Something?  A Something?
We'll go and we'll see!

After echoing to learn we discussed that "to see" doesn't always mean see with your eyes, since after all these little mice are blind.  To refresh their memories, I read the story and we spoke the refrain before each mouse said what he thought the something was.  This was a great opportunity to work on dynamic contrast.  We started the poem very softly and then crescendoed through the 3rd and 4th lines.

When we had finished the second reading.  I told my kiddos that we were going to tell the story again but that I wanted to use instruments to help.  We listed the things the mice thought the "Something" was on the board.  Then I pulled out a basket of instruments I had selected for the story:

wood block
jingle bells
maracas
conga shakers
large hand drums
guiro
triangle

I find it is easier to give 1st graders a limited number of instruments to select from.  If left it up to any instrument in the room it may take the whole class just to select sounds that represent each part of the story.

I demonstrated each instruments sound and then we discussed which instrument fit best with each item in the story.  I was actually surprised by some of their decisions.  They decided that the guiro sounded like a cliff because it makes a sound like you are climbing one step at a time up the cliff.  After assigning each instrument a part in the story, I distributed the instruments.  We sat in 6 rows and each student in the row had an instrument assigned to a part in the story.  When their part came, I cued them and then cut them off so that the story could continue.

We told the story again with the refrain and instrument sound effects.  It was truly a pleasurable experience, smiles all around!

I did this lesson in 20 minutes which is a little than less than half of my class.  Now I had read the story previously, so we were able to move a bit more quickly but if you were limited on time, you could just use this story as a way to experience dynamic contrast.  You could split it up between two classes, there are many options.

I hope you like this lesson and use this book in your classroom, it really is a cute story!  If you do decide to try out this lesson, let me know how it goes or any changes you make to fit your kids.  :)

Seven Blind Mice

I inherited a copy of the book Seven Blind Mice by Ed Young from a retiring music teacher.  This week at the end of my 1st grade lesson (which had a mouse theme) I read the book as we waited for their teachers to pick them up.  I couldn't help but notice this would be a great book for a lesson but I haven't quite figured out what I'm going to do with it yet.

Seven Blind Mice on Amazon

I would like to use this story next rotation as part of a continuation of our mouse unit so, do you use this book in your classroom?  What do you use it to teach?  Please leave comments below.


UPDATE:  I created a lesson to use with this book.  Check it out here:

Seven Blind Mice Lesson

The Sound House

I love Randy and Jeff's Game Plan curriculum and I adapted this center from a lesson in their 1st grade book.

The Sound House is an activity I introduced during a regular lesson and then used as a center during the last few weeks of school.  In "The Sound House" (which is just a tri-fold board that I covered in white butcher paper and had a student decorate) there are unpitched percussion instruments we have played throughout the year.  One student sits in the house while the rest of the group sits criss cross applesauce in the front yard.  The student in the house plays a short pattern on one of the instruments.  The students waiting in the yard raise their hands to guess which instrument it was.  If they get it correct they get to take the next turn in "The Sound House".