Tuesday, May 22, 2018

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