Valentine game and minor song!

Song used: Valentine, Valentine, I'm searching for a Valentine (Jump Right In! book, Grade 1)

Materials:  small foam or paper hearts (2-6 of them)

Students sit in a circle with their eyes closed. First the teacher walks around the circle behind the kids, and hands out one heart each to 2-6 kids (depending on how many kids you want singing the pattern in between times through the song).

When the song is over, the teacher is back in his/her seat, and students open their eyes to look behind themselves and see if they got a heart. If they got a heart, they echo a minor tonic pattern in D minor after you (MI-DO-LA works great with this song since it's in the melody).

The students who just echoed patterns pass their hearts to new students as the rest of the class closes their eyes, getting back to their seats by the time the song is over. And the game continues!




Alternatives:

• Students could listen to the music for how many times they hear MI-DO-LA in the melody.
• Students could look at the notation of the music for where they see MI-DO-LA in the notation.
• Students could create a minor tonic pattern or minor melody instead of echoing after the teacher.

***Easter alternative of this song***:

I've also heard this song used with the words "Hiding eggs" at the beginning; however, I can't remember the rest of the words. But it could be used as an Easter activity too with revised words!

Reading Music: Tonal Patterns for Valentine's Day (FREE DOWNLOADS!)

For Valentine's Day, my 4th graders did an activity with the song "Love Somebody"(notation here; we sang it in D major) to practice reading tonal patterns.  Instructions for the activity (and obviously you can adapt it for your students):

• Download (at the bottom of this post!), print on light pink or red paper, and laminate the hearts from this page ahead of time.
• Pass out 1 heart each to about 4 students as you sing "Love Somebody."
• After the song is over, those 4 students look at their pattern and sing it by themselves for the class. The whole class can echo DO-MI-SOL patterns after you in between the individual students.
• Those 4 students pass their hearts to 4 other students as you sing the song again (the rest of the class can even close their eyes so it's secret!).
• The next 4 students sight-sing their patterns. 
• Repeat until the class gets tired of the activity!

Download the free, editable tonal-pattern hearts here.