Hello Music People!
Music Teacher Coffee Talk #10 is all about our favorite Spring songs, games, and activities in the music room.
Kindergarten
Vocal
Exploration using the book Up, Down, and Around by
Katherine Ayres and illustrated by Nadine Bernard Westcott. ISBN:
0763640174
Students
follow the path of the vegetables on an “oo” vowel. Could also play as glissandi on barred
instruments.
Game
directions: Students stand in a
circle. One student walks around the
circle with an umbrella. At the end of
the second phrase, the student stops behind someone and sings “Little (name)
wants to play” using the name of the child in front of them. The class echoes as the students trade
places.
Suggested
activities to practice so and mi:
•Write
so/mi patterns using umbrella icons on a 2, 3, or 5 line staff.
•Students
match umbrella cards, one with the stick notation of the song and
the other
with notes on the staff.
•Students
create a 4-beat so/mi pattern on individual staff boards and sing their
pattern
in between repetitions of the song.
1st Grade
2nd Grade
Improvisation
activity:
Students
sit or stand in a circle. All sing the
song and one student improvises
a new fruit or vegetable at the end of the
phrase. Play as a cumulative game,
repeating all the improvised words on each repetition.
3rd Grade/4th Grade
Game:
Solo singing. Children sing and improvise chores.
Children form a standing circle and bounce/catch a ball around the circle on the beat
The child holding the ball on the last syllable of "gar-den" holds the ball while singing the
improvised solo.
5th Grade
Stick passing game:
Students sit , cross legged, in a circle. Each student has two slender sticks or pencils in front of them
(Chopsticks work well.)
Students pass to the right with the following pattern:
Beat 1: Pick up
Beat 2: click sticks together
Beat 3: pass (place sticks in front of person on the right)
Beat 4: pick up
Beat 5: pass (repeat pattern 4 times for entire song.)
(It can be helpful for the students to say, "Pick up, click, pass, pick up, pass" as they are initially learning the pattern.)
Coda section recommendations:
Rainy Cafe
I Knew You Were Treble
All About That Bass (Clef)
