Anatomy of a note and Split tis

A few years ago I noticed my students getting confused when reading rhythms that included single eight notes. This flummoxed them:

I knew I had spent a lot of class time engaging students in reading, notating, and creatingwith quarter note and eighth note rhythms but I had never really addressed single tis.

Since then, I've made sure I introduce ti ti as introduce single tis. While I'm at it, we discuss the "anatomy" of a note, (note head, stem, and beam or flag.)  I usually present single ti ti at the beginning of 2nd grade and I review with 3rd through 6th.

Movement Game: Walking Tas, Running Ti Tis

In 2nd grade we play a "Walking Tas, Running Ti Tis" game where I play the drum while students walk with arms down chanting "ta, ta, ta, ta..." standing tall with their arms by their sides. When I play twice as fast, ("ti ti ti ti...") they can choose to beam with another student or hold their arm out like a flag while their running feet match their "ti ti ti ti..." chanting.

Here's a bonus for the teacher: you don't have to worry about everyone finding a partner, we all need to experience being beamed and single, (kind of like grown-up life, hee hee!) 

I alternate being playing tas or tis on the drum and they change themselves from tas to tis. 

Then I mix it up and I can really see who is "tuned in." (they chant "ti ti ta, ti ti ta, ti ti ta" and their beams or flags come out and disappear.) 

WIth 2nd graders we add "too" (half note) by stepping and sliding. This is one of those activities that I initially though would bomb but is something they love and request!

tis with flags and ti tis beamed

Last year I created a SMART Board file of labeled anatomy and included a ta ti ti poison pattern game that showcases single tis and sone stems pointing down.

It's available at my meager  "soon-to-be-expanding-any-day-now-when-I-can-manage-it" Teachers Pay Teachers store. 

(I don't have much at my Teachers Pay Teachers store at this point.)

"Anatomy of a Note" is $1.

If haven't visited already, you really need to check out Amy Abbott's TpT store and Aileen Miracle's TpT store.  (And even if you have, check Amy's and Aileen's pages often, they are very prolific!) have used materials from both Amy and Aileen. They create wonderful and effective materials! 

Have a wonderful, musical week!

When the going gets tough...

I'll admit right now that this blog post is more of a reminder to myself than to anyone else.
There are no "teaching music gems" in this post, please check back later and thanks for stopping by! 

OK. If you're still with me, I'll be honest about something.
Many things have shifted at my school in the past couple of years and I am adjusting to the changes. Of course, the wonderful thing about teaching is that I always have the opportunity to grow and learn with new challenges. (Even when I'd rather coast along!)

Some new challenges are a change in student and parent behaviors and attitudes. I have been teaching music at the same school for the last 14 years. The students I teach today are very different from the students I taught 4 years ago. There is a lack of personal responsibility on the part of many students and a lack of respect for others. So, I find myself spending more time teaching procedures, reviewing my classroom management plan, and  documenting extreme negative behaviors. Musical concepts and skills take longer to grasp and require more review. I once believed that if I taught excellent quality repertoire and crafted active lessons which alternated concentration with relaxation, student behavior would not be an issue. (I contribute that belief to either optimism or naivety, depending on my mood!)  I wish all my energy could go towards teaching children music and focusing on their growth as musicians.  The most well-planned music lesson armed with excellent materials, instruments, technology, and fabulous manipulatives will fail to make an impact if there are 4 or more students who are determined to sabotage the class because they are in need of attention. 
Here are a few ideas I continue to return to when I start to feel negative:

Breathe
I can't control others, I can only control my actions and reactions.
Stopping to breathe slows down knee-jerk reactions and reminds me to think rationally.

Be Joyful
Why do you teach music? Do you love music and want to share it with others?
Don't forget to include joyful music making, (even if it doesn't exactly relate to preparing low la, or ti tika!)

Have a Disipline Philosophy and Review it Often
I am a big fan of Love and Logic. The basic cornerstone of Love and Logic is to help children solve their own problems and take owner-ship of their actions. I want to help students make positive choices and develop resiliency. There are several Love and Logic books, DVDs, and audio recordings that detail specific action plans for classroom teachers and parents.

Scaffold/Break it down/Back up the train
So, the students bombed the assessment you set up. You may need to re-teach some very basic concepts to ensure their success. There's no shame in breaking things down further and further still until students can really digest the information. That is what good teachers do.

Have a "worst-case-senario" Plan
Have you ever had a student throw a temper tantrum in class, become a danger to others, throw things, and refuse to leave the room? What did you do? What would you do? Make a plan and share it with another teacher who's room is near yours. Better yet, enlist that teacher's promise to help if the situation arrises. (Still better, marry him. Just kidding! But that's what I did...) I calmly asked a class to line up, gathered my laptop and 3 picture singing books and led them to the library where we continued class while the troubled student raged on without an audience. Once in the library, I called the principal and let him know what was happening. During another similar situation, the library was in use and I led the class into the hallway. We sat criss-cross and continued singing and hand-signing. Frankly, the other students enjoyed the change of venue and reveled in  the attention they received from a kindergarten class traveling down the hall on their way to recess.

Give Positive Attention 
Everyone hungers for positive attention, even those who act as though negativity is the only fuel they can ingest. Give honest, positive feedback to students when they deserve it. Kids know the difference between real and false praise. Additionally, if you praise Bobby for in-tune singing and turn around and lavish praise on Johnny for kind-of participating, it cheapens your encouragement. Johnny's thinking, "Wow, I must be stupid if she thinks doing the minimum is a big achievement for me", Bobby's thinking, "My singing must not be that great, how can I trust her judgment if she thinks that kid deserves the same praise?" 

Stay Positive Yourself
There are children whose lives are enhanced by being in your music class, remember that. 
Exercise, eat right, plan a happy hour with the art teacher, hug your own children, get a massage, buy a new pair of cute shoes, drink wine. Enjoy life outside of school.

Have Integrity
Do the right thing, go that extra mile, be the change you want to see.
If you're not feeling positive, fake it. Act as if  you can make a difference, (and really, you can, you just need reminding.) My Kodály level 1 teacher was Jo Kirk, one of the most dynamic, energetic, positive, and inspiring music educators I've ever known. I often find myself saying, "WWJD?" ("What Would Jo Do?") I'm not Jo, but borrowing a Jo mentality often leads me to a solution. 


It's late and tomorrow's the start of a new week! 
Go forward, share music, and brighten a child's day, (or several children!)

COFFEE/Coffee Row

Happy New Year! (Is it too late in January to say that?)

Let's have some coffee!

COFFEE is one of my favorite 3/4 meter songs. It is a fun song to sing, students love it, and it has several uses in the music classroom.

This song pairs very nicely with Music Alone Shall Live.

Students sing COFFEE, then Music Alone Shall Live, and finally both songs simultaneously. (Ah, coffee and music, these are a few of my favorite things...)

About a million years ago at an Orff workshop in New Mexico I learned a chant that was written to accompany COFFEE. I apologize for not listing the source for Coffee Row, I still have the chant but I can not find the notes from that workshop. (If anyone out there can help shed light on where this might have come from, please let me know!)

This chant is from Jo Ella Hug from from Missoula, Montana. (Thank you, Signe!)

This chant partners very well COFFEE in an ABA form and/or as a partner song. This above image is from my SMART Board lesson; students drag red bar lines to show the correct measures for 3/4 meter. (Cue Ms. LeJeune: "What exactly are we measuring, students?" Students: "the BEAT!")

There are many ways you can arrange these songs and chants to create a enjoyable performance piece. In the past I've added barred instruments and dramatization.

*The SMART Board lesson featuring COFFEE and Coffee Row are exclusively available for purchase, (along with many other great digital lessons including a fun stick to staff matching game for COFFEE,) at the ROCKE Make and Take on Saturday, Jan. 26th, 2013 during CMEA at the Broadmoor in Colorado Springs. (Colorado's NAFME conference.)

Going to CMEA?

I am very excited to present a session: Electronic Engagement on Friday sponsored by ROCKE (Regional Organization of Colorado Kodály Educators.) 

My good friend, the lovely and talented Amy Abbott will also be presenting Manipulative Mania, also sponsored by ROCKE. (Do you follow Amy's extremely useful, very prolific blog? Of course you do.) 

I will also share a session on Friday at 3:00pm titled SMART Board Assessments in the Music Class Room. I hope to see many Colorado music teachers there!

March from The Nutcracker and 1 beat rhythms: a practice in form (and foam!)

"O Christmas foam, O Christmas foam, how many are your uses!"

So Target has many Christmas foam packages in the dollar bin this year and I've been enjoying using them in a couple of different ways. (Reminder to self: look into purchasing stock in Target.)

We have been listening to selections of the Nutcracker and the March is a favorite of mine and the students'. It is instantly recognizable to most of the kids and they love moving to this piece.

I'm sure many music teachers are familiar with the body percussion movement that follows the rhythm for the March. I apologize for not sighting my source on this movement activity. I learned it about a million years ago, (well, the late 80s, which seems like a million years ago.) I am reasonably certain it was taught at an Orff workshop I attended while teaching in New Mexico. That's as much as I can narrow it down.

Movement activity for the March from The Nutcracker Suite:

Formation: standing circle

In the A and B sections the movements match the melodic rhythm of the piece.

The C section movements are to the beat.

ABACABA

A section:

stomp, pat-pat-pat   pat  pat  clap clap  snap

stomp, pat-pat-pat   pat  pat  clap clap  snap 

thumb dance for 16 beats

stomp, pat-pat-pat   pat  pat  clap clap  snap

stomp, pat-pat-pat   pat  pat  clap clap  snap

thumb dance for 16 beats

B section:

(similar to A but traveling down the body)

snap, clap-clap-clap  clap clap  pat pat  stomp

thumb dance for  8 beats

snap, clap-clap-clap  clap clap  pat pat  stomp

thumb dance for  8 beats

C section:

"Russian Dance" (fold arms in front, squat and kick out heels)

32 beats

After learning and performing the movement I set out the foam shapes I have labeled with As Bs and Cs. I place the green pile of As, the red Bs and the white snowflake Cs near different walls of the music room. Students may work in pairs or on their own as they collect the section labels and map out the form. Initially I don't play the piece for them as they are collecting the foam labels and working it out. This is an excellent opportunity for students to practice their inner-hearing as they try to work out what order the form is in. I play the piece again as they check their answers. This is a fairly easy piece for them to work out and they enjoy seeing the symmetry of the March.

A completed form

These boys stacked their sections and flipped through them as they listened.

1 Beat Rhythms

My other use for all the foam I've bought is simple rhythmic dictation. 

The 4th graders are in heavy ti tika and tika ti practice and I made this set specifically for them. I know, I know, they should be "syn-co-pa-ing" by now but this group is just not ready at this time. Please don't call the Kodály police, sol-mi....sol-mi....sol-mi.... (whoops, that's their siren!)

Anyway, I wanted to make sure they could either chant the rhythm of each foam or the object name which matches the syllables with the rhythm.

pre-sent = ti ti

tree = ta

gin-ger bread = tika ti

snow = ta

snow-flake = ti ti 

(I actually cheated with snow and snow-flake. I wanted more tas in each set so I drew ti ti on one side of the snowflake and call it "snow-flake" and ta on the other side and call it "snow"! 

I could have also gone with "pre-sent" and "gift")

Each student had a rhythm pack and they decoded four beat patterns.

My basic procedure for rhythmic dictation is I play, (clap or play on a woodblock), they echo, and then they write/decode. Then I play the pattern again and they echo it only in their head and check/refine their answer.

With this rhythmic set I let the students chant the rhythm using either rhythm syllables or object names.

Pre-sent, gin-ger bread, snow,gin-ger bread

or

ti ti, tika ti, ta, tika ti

Students create their own patterns

Are you wondering, "where is ti tika?" Ah well, we just turned a gingerbread on his head! That was a fun discovery when I played a pattern including ti tika and the students had to figure out how to notate it with what they had. 
Of course, we had to talk about how unnatural it is to say GIN-ger bread, but they adapted immediately.

During another class period students composed their own 4 beat patterns and they walked around the room chanting each pattern accompanied by Leroy Anderson's Sleigh Ride. (If you try this and play that version of Sleigh Ride I highly recommend throwing it in Garage Band, Audacity or the Amazing Slow Downer and slowing down the tempo!)

I learned the hard way with Leroy Anderson's Sleigh Ride!

Have a very happy holiday! (Or holidays, if I am unable to write again before January. I am exhausted.)

Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy Play-a-long

'Tis the season to bring in the winter holiday music in music class!

I love introducing young students to the wonderful music of Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite. The individual pieces are short and familiar to many kids. Several of the pieces provide an excellent opportunity to reinforce concepts we have been focused on in the music room.

Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy is a favorite of many students. 

This short, festive piece is not only a chance for students to play-a-long with the celesta theme, it is also an excellent review of ABA form. (I ask students to improvise a "glittering snowflake dance" with their hands during the B section. Each sforzando could be a sudden gust of wintery wind.)

Additionally, I use it as a reading piece showing "split tis" or single eighth notes.  (A blogpost regarding split tis will be coming soon! Watch this space for ideas regarding teaching split tis after ti-ti is learned. )

Students will be intrigued by that rarely heard, fairy-like, bell-sounding instrument, the celesta. Here is video of someone playing this piece.

(This is the most close-up shot of someone playing the celesta that I could find.)

Every year I ask students if they have seen the Nutcracker ballet live and as the years go on, less and less students have had that experience. I can give them a glimpse of the ballet that they may never see live. (Don't you just love teaching with modern technology?)

Here a youtube video of the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy.

Download a free PDF file of  my play-a-long pages here.

Turkey Turkey Gobbler: a favorite "re" song

Here is another one of my favorite Thanksgiving themed songs. 
It's perfect for my 2nd graders right now as we're preparing "re." 
This is a wonderful "re" song because the "res" are in a prominent place, 
(the 3rd beat,)  in the 1st and 3rd measures. The rhythm includes tas, ti-tis, and toos (half notes) in a simple to decipher form. This allows students to focus on the melody and not get hung up on a challenging rhythm. I am a proponent of many uses for one song but we are zoning in on hearing/singing/feeling that pitch between "mi" and "do" with this song.

Naturally, the song is enhanced by a great, active game and this one is a favorite of my students.

Before introducing the game, we hear and practice imitating the turkey gobble.
(Share real turkey sounds with your class by going here.)

By having a couple of minutes of "Turkey Gobble Choir Rehearsal" this is a good opportunity for students to practice watching a conductor for cut-offs, growing louder and growing softer, (and all with our head-voice gobbles! Hurray for more vocal exploration!) Once we've "got our gobble on," it's time for the game.

Game:
Standing circle, one farmer is chosen, one turkey is chosen.
The farmer is blindfolded. I have a turkey hat for the turkey to wear, (thank you again, Target dollar bin!)

Sing the song as class, then the farmer tries to find and tag the turkey by calling "Turkey!"
Turkey must respond with "Gobble! Gobble!" (high-pitched, head voice gobble.)

If farmer gets to close to the standing circle (the "fence") students simply call
out "fence" to prevent the farmer from running into them.
If the action goes on too long, I show a silent 10 second count down with my fingers. Both the farmer and the turkey choose new players. 


Happy late autumn!

P.S. Amy Abbott recently posted this song with a different game and reading activities. You can see her post here. (Great ideas from Amy!)

Thanksgiving Day

Can you believe that Thanksgiving is just around the corner? 

Here is a Thanksgiving song I love to use in my classroom with 1st and 2nd graders.

Thanksgiving Day is a song I saw in the OAKE Western Division newsletter a number of years ago. It was submitted by Verla Boyd and Kathleen Bassett. (I've also seen a few variants of this song around the internet.)

We sing this with autoharp accompaniment. In the 1st grade classes students pair up and one student presses buttons for chord changes while the other strums the steady beat, (the autoharp sits on the floor and the strummer strums away from their body.) I bring this song back in 2nd grade for fun with one student per instrument, strumming and pressing buttons for chord changes.

This year I'm adding singing solos by having two students acting out the Turkey and Pumpkin roles.

You could easily add bordon accompaniment on Orff instruments if you want to avoid autoharps. 

I know that autoharps have fallen out of favor in most music classrooms and I understand why: many teachers inherit a few clunky, dusty autoharps that haven't been tuned since the 80s. However, autoharps can be a great addition to the music class allowing students to practice the steady beat and easily play full chord accompaniments. (It's exciting to hear the 3rd in the chord for a change!) 

It's worth remembering: for a song with 2 chord accompaniment you only have to tune the notes in those chords. That certainly saves time when you're faced with 6 out-of-tune autoharps!

If you are interested in a better autoharp, you must see Evo Bluestein's line of autoharps, especially the Sparrowharp. Evo came and presented a few sessions for the OAKE Western Division mini-conference in 2008 and he is a wonderful musician, teacher, and champion for traditional american folk music. His Evoharps have a beautiful sound and appearance and are so much easier to hold and play then the awkward Oscar Schmidt black and reddish autoharps in my room. I don't own a Evoharp yet, my school music budget is not that healthy and I'd rather buy it for myself and not have it belong to the school. Maybe I need to ask Santa!