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.

Tracks for kids' improvsisations!

Improvisation is so important for developing kids' musical creativity and independent musicianship!  Here are some super fun YouTube backing tracks for kids to improvise melodies to.  

My students use recorders to improvise to these tracks, but they would also work with xylophones, voices, or ukuleles playing melodies.

Process:

• Start the track and demonstrate some of the improvisation for the students.
• Show them which notes they are allowed to use for the improv.
• "Trade 4's" with the students, where you improvise musical questions, and as a class they improvise musical answers
• Give students time to explore possibilities with their own instrument, improvising to the track.
• Allow volunteers to demonstrate their improvisations, having students clap after the solos as if it was a jazz performance, and flowing from one soloist into another.
• Add more pitches to what they are able to use in their improvisations, repeating the process. 

1. Guitar backing track in A-Aeolian, with Am and G as the main chords:

      Have students improvise rhythms first on A, then melodies with A and E since they're LA and MI

     Next A and G only

     Then A, G, and E

     Then A, G, B, and E. 

     Remind students that A is the resting tone so they could make some of their phrases end on A.

     If you're having your students improvise with ukuleles, they could play Am and G chords improvising strumming rhythms, or they could play melodically in the process described above.

2.  Slow rock E minor backing track

      

3. Fast rock E minor backing track:

     Kids improvise with E, G, A, and B first.

     Then let them add D and F# if they know how to play them on recorder.

Day in the Park: Mixolydian song and movement activity

A new Mixolydian song and movement activity!  

Sing the song on a neutral syllable as students walk to macrobeats, then microbeats.

Have students audiate the resting tone of the song.  Then have them breathe, jump, and sing the resting tone when they land (feel free to add some story imagery here related to what they're jumping on at the park!). 

Have the students do the walking activity again, this time giving a high 5 the person they're closest to at the end of each phrase (the second half note in m. 4 and m. 8). 

Then, during the last repetition, have the students sing the resting tone as they high-5 the person they're closest to at the ends of phrases.


In other days with the song, let the kids use their imaginations to create park related movements to do!  Perhaps they can pretend to walk a dog on microbeats, swing their arms as if they're on the swings on macrobeats, alternate beats with their hands in high space as if they're on the monkey bars, perform vocal exploration like they're going down the slide...sky's the limit!

Hello, the Telephone Rings!

My students love using toy phones for this! :)

This song can be used for:

• Melodic improv conversations (each singer with a toy phone)
• Duple improv conversations with syllables
• Tonal pattern improv: “Hello ___” “Hello ____”
• Minor resting tone or patterns, with or without syllables
• Adding a RE RE DO RE ostinato to the Dorian version
• Changing the tonality of the minor version to major

 

Someone Special Gets the Drum

This is my Dorian version of a classic elementary song (the original version is mostly SOL-MI if I remember correctly).

Use this song for:

•     Moving to macro and micro
•     Rhythm pattern creativity with syllables
•     Drum exploration
•     Rhythmic ostinati

This post also has a video that includes an activity with this song!