Helping students find DO and count rhythms

A choral resource for you! This is an information sheet that can help singers know where DO is and how to count rhythms for melodic sight-reading.  This link allows you to download in better resolution; the google drive folder has both the PDF and an editable Word version.

Hop, Hop, Hop: Lydian Easter bunny song

Also out of season for this, but of course you could perform it without the words for your students. This is another Lydian tune I wrote to an existing chant, Hop Hop Hop. It works well as a movement activity with students hopping in different ways (for example direct and indirect pathways, on macrobeats or microbeats, or discovering the difference between hopping and jumping) around the room!

I'm a Little Snowflake

Way out of season for this one, but again I'm sharing songs I haven't posted yet! This is a lovely Lydian version of I'm a Little Snowflake, which is a chant in Jump Right In.

Mrs. Potatohead activity for finding singing voice

 I'm sharing a few activities I haven't posted yet!  This one is a favorite of 1st graders and is excellent for including individual response to help them find singing voice. You can even include a guesser trying to figure out who sang one of the items to make a game out of it!

I've used it on informances in the past, including having student leaders singing the call part at the end. As the kids are still passing pieces of Mrs. Potatohead to someone else who is closing their eyes and moving with flow, after the Mrs. Potatohead song as shown below is done, I pair the song with the Mixolydian song "Tiptoe" from Experimental Songs and Chants without Words.

A clearer version of the notation can be found here.

Echo songs, camp songs, and just-for-fun songs :)

As the year comes to a close, some of us may need some just-for-fun songs for our students. Most of these have something very easy for kids to pick up on right away, whether it's the echoes or the call and response or the movements. Enjoy!

Echo songs/call and response songs

·      Down by the Bay

·      My Aunt Came Back

·      Mama Llama

·      Moose song

·      A rig a bamboo

·      Charlie over the Ocean

·      John the Rabbit

·      Hill and Gully Rider

·      And the Sidewalk Went All Around

·      Wise Old Owl

·      I Got a Letter this Morning

·      Banana Boat Song

·      Scotland’s Burning

Camp songs/action songs/ other just-for-fun songs :)

·      Baby Shark

·      Bumblebee

·      Peanut Butter and Jelly

·      Father Abraham

·      Boom chicka boom

·      Rattlin’ Bog

·      Too-dee-ta

·      Jack, Can I Ride?

·      Apples and bananas

·      Aiken Drum

·      Alligator Pie

·      A Rick Tick Tickety Tick

·      One Bottle of Pop

·      A Ram Sam Sam

·      5 Little Monkeys

·      5 Green and Speckled Frogs

·      Do your ears hang low?

·      Welcome back to school, can you clap?

·      Head Shoulders Knees and Toes

·      This is a Story about Sammy

·      Little Bunny Foofoo

·      5 Little Monkeys

·      Here We Go Looby Loo (similar to Hokey Pokey)

·      Shake, Shake, Shake; or Shake My Sillies Out

·      Clapping Land

·      Ant Dance, or Action Leader

·      A-Hunting We Will Go

·      Wa-da-li-a-cha

·      Riddle Ree

Here is a powerpoint I made at the end of last school year with several camp songs' lyrics!
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1WKc6MzepTu438GmIzydBQ-Z_Xwg92l4v/view?usp=sharing

Beehive!

A new melody for an existing chant (not sure who wrote the chant). First graders love this song and set of activities!

• Day 1: Start the students on an ostinato sung on the resting tone on macrobeats: "1, 2, 3, bzz, 1, 2, 3, bzz," having them tap the macrobeat on their legs for the first three beats and on their shoulders on the buzz. Sing the song over the ostinato.  If you are using the words the first day of the song, display the words to students with bees, sees, hive, and five underlined, guiding them to notice that the "bzz" happens at those spots.  Then, have 5 students pretend to be the bees, walking around the outside of the circle on macrobeats, gently tapping one student's should only on the buzz parts of the ostinato. Have the bees perform a major or triple pattern, and appoint five new bees, singing the last line of the song as you choose them.

• Day 2: Have students flow during the song as if they are bees flying in curvy pathways. Use this free TpT bumblebee animated vocal exploration SMART board file to have students explore their head voices between repetitions, having one student come up to the front to click the smart board and echo a triple meter pattern. For other repetitions, have students move the ostinato from day 1 again, changing which body part they sting themselves on for the buzz every time.

• Day 3: Use the song for a locomotor movement activity. Guide the students to explore curvy and straight pathways ("beelines" 😃) around the room. Have them fly high or low. Have them find closed or small shapes like they are the bees hiding, or open and large shapes like they came out of the hive.  At the end of the activity, ask the students to "fly back to their nests" returning to their spots.

Other ways to vary or spiral the activity to other grades, depending on students' skill levels:

• Have one student hide a toy bee around the room like it is hidden in the beehive as the rest of the students close their eyes. When the song is over, have students open their eyes and point quietly when they see the bee. Someone who pointed quietly will get to hide the bee next, and anyone who gets a turn performs a triple or major pattern.

• Use the toy bee to go around to students during the song, pausing after every line to "sting" a student with a dramatic resting tone buzz! Invite the student you sing to perform the resting tone as well. 

• Have students find the DO SOL MI patterns and sing DO SOL MI on solfege or on BUM BUM BUM in the song every time it occurs. They could also look at the notation for that pattern if they are ready for symbolic association, or they could replace it with different major tonic patterns that they create singing or writing and singing.

• Have students sing chord roots (DO DO FA DO, DO DO SOL DO) and possibly transfer that to instruments.

• Connect to the major tonic patterns in the song by playing the major tonic game. My version of the game: Students listen to patterns and jump after they hear a major tonic pattern, singing "major tonic," and they squat after they hear a major dominant pattern, singing "major dominant." If they are incorrect they sit down where they are and are out until the next round. Perhaps add subdominant in there since it is part of the song's progression!

Notation is here if you want to edit or display it in higher quality to your students.

Hello, Hi Hello: A Hello Song based on Hey, Ho, Nobody Home

This is a great hello song for classes musically ready to sing in rounds!  It's based off of the well-known, "Hey, ho, nobody home."

This song can be used for:

     ~4-part rounds

     ~Minor ostinati such as LA, MI, LA, MI (the song has a i V chord progression)

     ~Games where the teacher throws a ball to a student after the song or between lines of the song and the student sings the resting tone on LA or on BUM

     ~Moving macrobeat and microbeat simultaneously

     ~Students could create one movement for every 2 measures, then perform the movements as a class while singing. Then they perform the movements as a class while audiating.  Finally, they audiate a round while doing the movements, and then sing a round with the movements.