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!

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.

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!

Forest: Dorian tune and activities

Another new tune for you!  

Activity ideas: 

• Do a story-related seated or locomotor movement activity: What could the hiker see next in the forest?  Should we pretend it's a scary forest at night (with Halloween characters) or a sunshine-filled forest in the day (with different animals)?

• Have students move macrobeat and microbeat simultaneously, both stationary and locomotor
• stationary (macro in heels, micro in fingers tapping different body parts)
• locomotor (macro with feet walking, micro in hands patting)
• The locomotor activity can have kids take turns taking "a walk through the forest" by crossing the circle. The class stays on the edges of the circle, and the teacher says "[student's name], ready go!" and the student crosses to the opposite side of the circle with this locomotor movement with macro and micro going at the same time in their walking and their patting.

• Pair with duple patterns, group and individual

• Do AB or ABA movement opposites: measures 1-4 staccato flick motion or flow with pulsations, measures 5-7 legato side-to-side motion with hands or swaying whole body.  Measure 8 could be back to staccato, or still legato, depending on teacher preference and student age.

Autumn leaf rhythms to read!

Here are 5 different autumn leaf printables with duple meter rhythms to read. All rhythms are 4 beats long, and have just quarter notes and eighth notes.

3 of the rhythms come straight from the first duple meter Verbal Association LSA, representing the  Easy, Medium, and Difficult patterns that the kids learn to chant.

Download the leaf rhythms here.
Print these on autumn-leaf-colored paper (I used red, orange, yellow, brown, and green, and printed 6 of each pattern), cut, and laminate, for a cute rhythm reading activity where the kids can hold different rhythms they'll get to read!


As an extension to the activity, print out BLANK leaves, and have small groups write their own 4-beat rhythms!  Then have the kids perform the rhythms for each other in a Rondo form using a fall song as the A section of the rondo, and each small group as the B/C/D/E sections! (I use a song called "Fall Canon," which I got from an Orff class.)

Frozen outtakes: Mixolydian round!

"Spring Pageant" from Frozen's outtakes is a GREAT Mixolydian round for kids!  See the first minute of the video above.  In my 2nd grade classes this year, we used just the first stanza (ending at the first "Spring's good and winter's bad"). We also sang it in E major to fit the students' voices better than the original C major.


Here's what my students did with this song:

• listened to the original recording, imagining the characters from Frozen singing it
• created macrobeat movements as if we were different Frozen characters (your students will have zillions of ideas for this!)
• used rhythm sticks on the beat pretending they were Frozen characters: make your rhythm stick Olaf plodding through the snow, Cristoff reining in the reindeer on the beat, Elsa creating snow....
• sang "Brr" on the resting tone as an ostinato; the kids on the ostinato and me on the melody
• sang "Ding-dong" on scale degrees 5-1 as an ostinato, as well as other tonic ostinati using the words "ding-dong" or "ding-ding-dong"
• split the class in half, with half the class singing an ostinato and half the class singing the melody
• sang the song in a round with them going first and me going second, then reverse
• sang the song in a round, just the students without me (in 2 parts; for 2nd grade I was very impressed!!)
• played ostinati on Orff instruments with the song
• the students composed their own 4-beat ostinati on Orff instruments using tonic pitches

Beethoven Symphony No. 7 Listening Lesson + Rhythm Reading

Got this lesson from my AWESOME mentor teacher. I made the slides though. ;)

Lesson plan:

Have students read the rhythms on the first 4 slides. 

(Download the slide show for free here.)

Then turn to the 5th one and have students read through the line of music after giving them a little background info on who Beethoven was. 

Then students listen to the beginning of Beethoven's Symphony No. 7, Movement 2. Can they hear the rhythm they just read in the music?  

Pause the music and have the students tap the rhythm on their laps as they follow along with you pointing to the rhythm.  

Pause the music again, and have the students come up with a different place on their body to tap the rhythm. They tap the rhythm again as you point to the notes on the projector or SMART board.

Then ask for student volunteers; who thinks they've followed along with the notes so well they can point to them for the class?  The student leader points to the notes, and everyone else follows along with the notation, moving to the rhythm in another new way. 

Continue until the song changes to a new section (at 2:45 in the youtube recording linked to above). Tell the students to stop the movement when they hear the music change to a different rhythm and tonality.

Pirates of the Caribbean listening activity!

Download the listening worksheet here (free and editable!!!).

Pirates of the Caribbean Theme Song, Hans Zimmer

link to track used: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUnrWo6z9WY. Stop the music at the awkward edit at 2:19.

Activities leading up to this:

• Learning Sequence Activities in triple meter
• Songs in triple meter
• The “poison rhythm” game where students have to remember the main rhythmic motive of the song and not repeat it or they’re out J

1.  Have students chant the main rhythmic motive on solfege after me, showing the weighted articulation using a fist gesture on macrobeats in the air as they chant.  (The motion is as if they’re using a hammer in the air.) Showing them the rhythm on the board, have students echo it looking at the notation. Have them identify if the rhythm is in duple or triple meter (or other) (triple).  We’ll call this the pirates theme.

2. Listen to the first A section with the students, pausing after every time the rhythmic motive happens to point it out or to ask students if it happened in what they just heard. If they need help hearing it, have them whisper-chant the motive as they listen to those measures again.

3.  Hand out the call chart, clipboards, and pencils.   Ask them to keep tally in the blanks next to “A” of how many times they hear the pirates theme, and follow along with the beat with their finger in the other sections. Listen and call out the following sections at these times:

A: at 4 seconds

Waves: at 38 seconds

B: at 45 seconds

Waves: at 59 seconds

A: at 1:11

Waves: at 1:47

B: at 1:52

Waves: 2:06-2:19.

4.  Ask them to listen again to check their tallies (at least once more here). Tell them this time before they start that in B the articulation changes—see if they can listen for that change and describe it afterward.

5.  Ask for the answers to your questions:  number of times for pirate motive in each A section, what happened to articulation at B (we’ll call it the smooth sailing section after they answer).

6.  Listen again and count together each time the pirate motive comes.

Extension: students come up with moves they could do on beat for the different sections J

Microbeat/Macrobeat signs with snowflakes

Students work on keeping Macrobeat and Microbeat (for example, half notes and quarter notes in 4/4, respectively) as they listen to new songs.  These signs can be printed out, laminated, and taped back to back; one side shows students to move to the Macrobeat, and the other side shows students to move to the Microbeat.

Students love being the "beat switcher"! First, students listen to a song and as a large group and create a movement for the Macrobeat. (For example, standing and moving to the beat by lifting and lowering the back of their heels.)  They also create a movement for the Microbeat (for example, tapping the shoulders) and move to the song to Microbeats.

Then, I hold up the sign. When they see the Microbeat side, they do their Microbeat movement only; and vice versa.  At first I switch which side of the sign they see only at phrase or verse points, then I make it tricky and switch every few beats!

Then individual students get to be the beat switchers! They LOVE trying to trick their classmates!


Download the duple meter sign for free here.
Download the triple meter sign for free here.

The files above are in Microsoft Word format, so you can edit them for other seasons and meters as you like!


Images of the signs (again, download the editable signs at the links above!):

Duple meter sign front and back:

Triple meter front and back: