Miss White: a movement activity

Most of you are probably familiar with the chant "Miss White."  I love this chant and use it every October!

I found a great resource on TpT - not mine - that teaches this chant well and is a great set-up for either introducing or practicing ta ti-ti.  You can find it here.

Anyway, after I introduce the chant, I've always been at a loss as to what to do with it from there.  I've been tweaking this movement plan for a couple of years, and I finally love what I have.

First, I tell the students that my music classroom has become "haunted."  I have laminated pictures of ghosts with numbers, that have different rhythms on the botttom.  Examples:

I spread these ghosts around the floor, and the students travel around the room while saying the chant in a "ghostly" voice.  They have to stop near a ghost and clap the rhythm on it.  We do a couple of group practices ..... then ...... oh no!  Somebody called the Ghostbusters! I pull a number out of a container, and whichever students are at that ghost are eliminated!  They first must clap their rhythm as a solo or in a small group.  We continue playing until only one student or group of students is left.  Basically, it's kind of like musical chairs, but way less dangerous :)

For my eliminated students, I don't like them just sitting out doing nothing, so I send them over to the tubanos, and they play the rhythm of the chant while the others are walking around.  It keeps them engaged the whole time, and they love giving me a drumroll before I announce the next elimination. 

Small and simple, yet so fun!  My kids love this activity.  Hope you all can find a use for it.  Happy October!

Exploration!

EXPLORE!!!!!

Vocal Exploration. I'm sure many of you are doing this frequently.  It is so good for young voices! I use exploration with my younger students to discover high vs. low, smooth vs. choppy, long vs. short, and so much more.  I have some pre-made sets that I show on my white board, or have the students draw on the board with a marker.  They've even followed a leader as they wave a scarf or some object, and students will follow that with their voices.  We pick a neutral syllable, and off we go!  As simple as it sounds, the kids really do enjoy it.

Movement Exploration.  I'm Kodaly trained and have been doing vocal explorations forever.  But, I recently have been working on my Orff certification, and have been using lots and lots more movement activities in my classroom.  To clarify - I've always been moving in class, but it used to be really structured all of the time - folk dances, specific actions, etc. I still do all of that, but in Orff, a huge push is for improvisation and exploration.  This past summer, we really worked on exploring different pathways through movement - zigzag, spiral, straight, etc.  And then it dawned on me - why can't I use the same exploration activities through movement that I'm already using with voice?

So easy, and maybe I'm the only one that hadn't thought of this - but it's so much fun!  The kids love finding pathways through the music room.  Fun really happens when they use their voices and movements at the same time.

So, I uploaded this little file to Teachers Pay Teachers - free from now until Thanksgiving 2015.  You can click here to get it.

Included are some basic exploration slides, like this:

 Also, a couple of slides where the kids can create their own pathways, like this:

And, a couple of printable worksheets for your kids to draw/color, like this:

Simple and effective - just the best!

Have a Happy Thanksgiving!

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.