sol mi Review and Star Foam

You know I have a fondness for foam shape manipulatives. At the start of the school year I found some foam star shapes priced at 10 for $1.00! (in the Target dollar bin section, of course)! I'm a big fan of creating manipulatives for matching games and stick to staff activities, but this time I thought I'd do something different and simple.

Since the beginning of the school year, my second graders have been reviewing singing and reading sol and mi on the staff. (Yes, I know they should have gotten to la by the end of 1st grade but it just doesn't happen like that in my world. The biggest obstacle is that I don't get to teach kindergarten; it is rare in my district for a school to provide art, music, and PE for kindergardeners. It's too bad; kindergarten is such a crucial time for them to have those classes but that's how it is for now.)

I incorporate solo singing often during class because students need to hear themselves and "fine tune" their listening in order to match pitch. Almost always, when someone has trouble matching pitch, the issue is their lack of focused listening skills. Children need several opportunities to sing solo. Solo singing through Chain singing is a fun way to quickly assess students.

On my foam stars I wrote out each phrase of the song Star Light several times:

After reviewing the song and game, the stars are scattered face down in a circle and each student choses their star. 

First I have students group themselves with their same phrase and we sing the song with each group singing their phrase. (This group practice sets them up for confident solo singing later; there's safety in numbers)!  Then they form a group of 4 by finding the other students with the phrases that completed their song. For fun, (and more practice), they all sing Star Light according to their phrase, but now they are standing in a mixed group and the others singing their phrase are standing farther away. (We're always building up that comfort level)!

Finally, each group "solos" and every student sings their phrase alone. We go around the room round robin style. When students are not singing they are body signing the melody.

My students are accustomed to singing solo; they sing the roll call at the beginning of every music class and we play many games that incorporate solos.  However, I always want to re-establish a non-threatening, supportive environment when our solo singing is not in the context of a game. (As the big sign at the front of my room states: "We will never laugh at anyone's honest effort!")

To go along with my sol mi review, I pulled out a scaffolded SMART Board file I created that I've used to practice sol and mi on a 1 line staff, then a 3 line staff, and a 5 line staff.

I fine-tuned it and put it up on Teachers Pay Teachers. 

A real 2nd grader covering lyrics with solfa buttons!

Oh my, I think I may have 6 products on TpT now. Crazy. What can I say? That's just how I roll these days... (Those things take me forever!)

I may not be prolific with TpT products but I do plan on updating this blog at least weekly.

Please check back with me if you're interested.

Have a lovely weekend!

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!)

sol mi la Build a Song

My husband is the art teacher and often has extra materials he can't use. (Many parents donate excess graph paper, card stock, and other supplies.) I spied several brightly colored tongue depressors in his room a few weeks ago. When I asked if he had plans for them, he said "no" and gladly handed them over. 

We've been preparing do and reviewing sol mi la songs in 2nd grade so I thought the sticks would provide a different way to practice constructing known songs. 

I used the following songs:

• Ickle Ockle Blue Bottle
• No Robbers Out Today
• Lucy Locket
• We Are Dancing in the Forest

I have a SMART Board file with each song written out in stick notation (with the solfa written in underneath the rhythm.) After printing out copies of each song I cut them up in 4 beat phrases and glued each phrase on one side of the stick. On the other side is a small picture indicating what song the phrase is from. (You can see the little pictures near the song titles.)

After reviewing the songs, we made a circle and students select one stick each. (One fun way to choose sticks is to play Apple Tree and have the eliminated student pick a stick until everyone has one.)

Students identify their "teammates" by finding those who have the same color and picture on their song stick. Each team rebuilds their assigned song as a team and practices singing and body signing the song. 

Once a team is confident their song is built correctly, they request a song sheet from me and check to see if it matches.

 2nd graders check their song

Are all of my students able to put together a known sol mi la song from memory 

with the stick notation? 

No way.

How can make this activity a successful learning experience for everyone?

Well...

• Many students will benefit from being in a group where they can work together.
• Some students with stronger skills have the option of building their song with a partner, (there are always uneven groups so this is a great way divvy out the song sticks.)
• Some groups build their song with the song sheet in hand. Yes, they are essentially copying the song. This is still a reinforcement of the melody, rhythm and form of the song and those students can still be successful. 

I'm all about doing the same old thing in a slightly different way. 

(And I just love those colorful song sticks!)

Doggie Doggie Beat/Rhythm/Melodic Direction Bones

I've been focused on making good quality manipulatives lately, which is a more tactful way of saying I'm a bit obsessed with manipulatives lately. (Can one be a "bit" obsessed? Maybe...)

I'm going to blame my friend Amy Abbott for this obsession/inspiration; she churns out more quality ideas and manipulatives in the span of a week then any teacher I know. (You probably already visit her wonderful blog, Music a la Abbott. If not, you should be checking in with her blog weekly. She posts often.)

I stopped by the teacher resource store Beyond the Blackboard this week looking for post-it notes in the shape of leaves. I did not find those, but I did find some stickers and paper bones.

Beyond the Blackboard and Teacher Created Resources are NOT paying me for advertising.
(hmm... maybe I should contact them...)

I do not enjoy making everything from scratch. While I greatly admire crafty people, I would rather spend less time putting things together. This means I sometimes spend more money. You could easily make your own bones and paw prints. 

I thought these could easily be made into a great beat/rhythm/melodic tracking manipulative for Doggie Doggie.  This is not a new idea, just a good one that I thought I could make into a classroom set of bones. The pack of bones contained 30, exactly what I use for a classroom set. (My largest 1st grade class is 29, which is ridiculous. PLEASE support your local schools by voting yes for any bond or mill levy in your area. That's a different post for another day but many districts are making huge cuts. I'll just say now that smaller class sizes make a huge difference in quality of instruction. ALL instruction.)

One side is for beat tracking while singing the song:

(Notice the strong beats are the same color as the bone outline. I also want to prepare 2/4 meter with these bones.)

The other side shows the rhythm and melodic direction of the song:

Here's a short video of my son singing and tracking:

I am looking forward to using these with a whole class. (All 29 of them!)

 

Manipulatives: Sol-fa Mittens

These sol-fa mittens are thin foam that were cut with a die cut press. 

Sol-fa names are written on both sides. I use these to practice echoing and decoding melodic patterns.

We start with the class echoing 4 beat pentatonic patterns sung with sol-fa while tapping their mittens.

Students must flip the mitten of the last pitch sung so that the thumb is facing the opposite direction, (creating a right hand mitten.) We progress to students echoing patterns sung on a neutral syllable, (like "loo.") 

I can easily see which students are decoding correctly as each student has a different color set of mittens. I also have a SMART Board page to help model for the class, (and the students love to come up to the board to flip the mittens.)