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.

Crazy 8's: chant in 8/8 meter

Here's a chant playing with 3 + 2 + 3 groupings in 8/8 meter! This could be a great one for flow, or perhaps some unpitched percussion at the beginning of every measure or the ends of phrases. Feel free to share activity ideas in the comments!

Let's Play in the Snow! Rhythm finding activities

"Let's Play in the Snow" from Jump Right In is a well-loved song for my students at this time of year!

 My 1st graders use it to create different movements based on different winter clothes they could put on (scarf, hat, snowpants, etc.), and once they know the song, they practice audiating parts or all of it!

They also pretend to build a snowman, echoing triple meter patterns or singing the resting tone as they put new pieces of the snowman on.

My 3rd graders use these files to practice finding rhythms in the song, doing the 3rd grade version of rhythmic dictation for some of these trickier rhythms!

File 1:  Powerpoint with rhythms for them to read first, then rhythms to find in the lyrics of the song.  This is their first introduction to reading quarter-eighth rhythms in 6/8 (DU-DI).

File 2:  SMART board file for them to practice dragging some of the rhythms to where they go as a class.

File 3:  Small group work where the kids take the cut-out rhythms and place them where they go in the song.  I laminated the paper and the cut-out rhythms so we could reuse them, but you also could have the kids cut and glue if you wanted.

All 3 files are here!  Enjoy!!!

New hello song! Phrygian 6/8 with individual response!

A new hello song!  Activities to do with the song:

• Change "second graders" to a name of a different student every time, and the student sings on 5-1 "I'm fine!" or "I'm great!" etc. based on how they're doing that day
• Take a walk to the beat and wave to people as you pass by, using "everyone" instead of a name or instead of "second graders", stopping at someone different every time the song ends.
• Use the song as a name game, learning the name of someone you don't know in between repetitions, and then singing the song to that person with their name in the song the next time through.
• Do a movement as a team and sing the song with 1 or 3 kids' names.
• Repeat the generic version with waving as you find a new friend, then repeat.

Locrian Jam song!

This song works well with movement activities. Students explore Laban efforts around the room in self-space after spinning our "movement spinner." Another activity for the song: A student with a sign that has Macrobeat written on one side and Microbeat on the other turns the sign to whatever beat they want the class to move to, switching every 4-8 beats. This is also a fun song to have students try snapping on beats 2 and 4, or for students to have a partner that they share a rhythm stick with, swaying side to side or back and forth on macrobeats or microbeats, with each student holding one end of the rhythm stick.


2017 addition: 
Here is an optional B section that you could use for activities such as circle dances or Laban movement opposites! Still swung. :)

Shake the Papaya Down: Visual, Chord root rhythm writing worksheet, and Garage Band projects

Lyrics and chord roots visual

Shake the Papaya Down lyrics and chord roots visual: you can download the free and editable Microsoft Word is here.

Shake the Papaya Down chord root rhythm worksheet: you can download the PDF for free here.

This is a great song for upper elementary because it has 3 partner songs, and the chord roots have I IV V I. You can have students sing the chord roots, label them as tonic, subdominant, and dominant, improvise rhythms over the chord roots, and even improvise with the chord tones.  After my 4th graders did their chord root rhythm composition, they worked with partners on a Garage Band project where they picked an instrument to play the chords, and they recorded themselves singing the partner  songs and chord root ostinato they composed.

Video of 2nd graders reading triple meter rhythms

Students are reading rhythms from the St. Patrick's Day shamrocks that are posted on this blog!