Little Sally Water - add shapes!

Many of you know the folk song "Little Sally Water."  It's in the good old 150 American Folk Songs (orange book), and I've used it for years.

It's wonderful for teaching so-mi-la - and especially for isolating so-mi on the "turn to the east" part.  I've used this with my kinders for high/low and then labeled the solfa in 1st grade.  Great, great song.  The original game is also fun for my kids:

The children stand in a circle, joining hands.  One child stands in the middle as "Sally," covering his or her eyes as the rest sing the song.  "Sally" imitates the song throughout, pointing at another player at the end of the song, still covering their eyes so the choice is accidental.  The chosen player becomes "Sally," goes to the center, and the game starts again.

Fine.  Simple game, and the kids do enjoy it, but do get bored easily.  So, I've been trying to think of different ways to do this, as I do love the song and it is great for teaching so many things.  And then it came to me - movement!

As I've been going through my Orff levels (I completed Level 2 this past summer) I've really been trying to incorporate a lot more movement in my classroom.  I love using Kodaly approaches to music literacy and beautiful singing, but the Orff improvisation and movement really speak to me as well.  I feel that really, you can tie both approaches together, and your students end up better musicians.  Anyway, one thing we worked on a lot in my Orff classes was creative movement, and creating different kinds of shapes with our bodies.  The Laban Movement Analyses words for the 4 basic kinds of shapes are ball, pin, screw, and wall.  Here are some pictures of my adorable daughter demonstrating these types of shapes:

Ball shapes are rounded shapes.  

Pin shapes have sharp angles.

  

Screw shapes are twisted. 

Wall shapes are large and flat.

So, as a class, we decided that "Sally" was going to find a shape he/she liked.  Students sang the song and walked around "Sally," as regular, but on the words "east," "west," and "best/next," they created different statues.  "Sally" would then walk around, find a statue he/she liked, and copy that shape.  The student whose shape was copied would then become the next "Sally."

I loved this, because the kids were improvising/arranging what they already knew.  They were practicing making different types of shapes, and we were labeling them with new vocabulary!  I also loved that it really eliminated any kind of talking we had going on before - because their statues had to stay still (including no talking!)

How else would you improvise on this?

I've also created an analysis file you can use to present ta/ti-ti or so mi la to your kids on Teachers Pay Teachers here.

Pizza!

Who doesn't love a good pizza?  Many of you probably know this song:

My kids absolutely love this song!  I have used it successfully with my younger and my older students.  The melodic structure is very easy - uses just the pitches so, mi and la, but in a way that if you use this with older kids they won't think it's too "baby-ish."

I also find that my older kids just get really nervous singing in front of others.  However, if you give them a really fun call-and-response song like this, they don't really notice that they're singing a solo, and it gives you a chance to individually assess them in a non-threatening environment.

Last year, I was looking around on Pinterest, and I found a blog post about this song with some fantastic improvisation ideas:  Pizza, Pizza, Daddy-o improvisation.  The authors of this blog, Janet and Laura, came up with a great improvisation worksheet that I have used countless times.  My kids love it too - plus it incorporates a little bit of that "writing" technique that many of us now have to use with the Common Core stuff....  (printable version of this worksheet on their blog)

After the kids come up with their different movements, each student leads the class in what they came up with.  Side note - as a proud music teacher, I love that the group above used "compose it."  Made my day :)

Anyway, another extension idea I found was on Teachers Pay Teachers.  A new seller, Megan Bracciano, came up with these adorable pizza composition worksheets.  You cut out red circles for the "pepperoni" (my school has a die cut machine that is perfect for these) and the kids can glue them on.  It helps them practice writing music left to right, placing notes on lines or in spaces, etc.  She has 3 versions of these worksheets you can download for FREE!

One is with "high/low" - you can use this with your kiddos who haven't labeled "so-mi" yet:

Another version is with just "sol/mi":

And finally, this is the version I will be using with my 2nd graders, as we have just labeled "do":

After they glue on the pepperoni (or just color them on if you want to go that route), you can have them color the rest of the pizza with other toppings, or whatever you want to do.

So cute, right?!?!?!

Going back to the "Pizza, Pizza, Daddy-o!" song, I made some files for Teachers Pay Teachers (you can find it here) for my kids to practice the melodic patterns found in the song, both on and off the staff.

Off the staff:

On the staff, where do is in a space:

On the staff, where do is on a line:

I also made some printable tone ladders, both in color and black and white:

And I even added a steady beat chart, though I don't use this song for rhythm as it contains some complicated syncopation:

Improvisation slide:

Game/dance instructions:

A couple of other great places to find extension ideas on this song:

Beth's Music Notes

State of Utah music games

I also found another really cute song called "Rico's Pizza Restaurant" on Beth's blog that would be great for practicing "re" and using some improvisation!

Rico's Pizza Restaurant

Have lots and lots of fun with this song!  My kids LOVE it!

Just for funsies for you music teachers - love this clip by Brian Regan!  :)