OH MY!!!
Happy November everyone! This is Karla from CMajorLearning. Today, my post is going to showcase some of the activities my students have been doing the past couple of weeks.
My first graders have been reviewing all the different voices we can use in the music room: talking, singing, whisper and calling. This particular group of kids seems to have a harder time finding their singing voices and differentiating between their talking and singing voices than I typically have had. While reviewing heartbeat and word rhythm as well as prepping ta and ti-ti, I have made a very conscious effort to continue to work on experiencing and using their different voices. The fall happens to bring some great opportunities for vocal exploration so I have paired the simple chant Miss White (Miss White had a fright, in the middle of the night! Saw a ghost, eating toast, half-way up the lamp post!) with ghost melodies. After learning the chant, finding the beat and word rhythm I made a simple smartboard file that has a ghost on a black background with a sliver of a moon in the sky. I used the white pen and modeled different "paths" (lines) that the ghost flew and the students made their voices follow the path. The next class meeting, I modeled a couple of patterns again and then had several students write their own paths on the smartboard. The student then lead the class in the vocal exploration. The third class meeting, I modeled on the smartboard and then passed out dray erase boards and markers and the students created their own individual patterns. After writing, we did a pair - share activity where each student did their pattern for a partner and then they performed the partners pattern too! To end the activity everyone performed their melodies at the same time! It was FANTASTIC, some patterns were longer than others and some were more complex - the kids loved it! Here are a couple of pictures of their work!
As I have shared in other Kodaly Corner posts, sometimes I double up classes when one of the other related arts teachers does not have a sub. Not one to put in a movie or lose instruction time, I have to come up with clever ways to keep the students working and learning. During this seemingly endless search for ideas, I came across the Fall Listening Glyphs on TpT by Jena Hudson at Sew Much Music.
Do you know what a glyph is? Well I had heard of it before and seen a couple done in a math class but was by no means an expert. So what do you do, well google it of course! According to Websters, glyphe is a carved work from ancient times. I interpret that as a modern day picture representation of something or a type of coloring page with specific directions for completion.
Armed with a great activity, quality recording, lots of crayons and 50 or so 2nd graders, I began class. I explained why we were all together in music (they have come to understand this because we have to double up more than we would like), what our activity was going to be doing today and that I brought a very cool listening example for them to hear. We talked through each item they were to be listening for and then I set them to work. Because it was such a large group of students, they were to work in small groups of four sharing crayons but not answers! I didn't know how that would go but they did great! Here is some of their work!
I have since bought the Mega Bundle Listening Glyphs to use through out the school year. It was a great assessment of the students understanding of a real life recording as well as a great way for me to see what they were missing or not yet understanding all done with 50 or so kids in my class! These files are definitely worth looking into!
Lastly, I was delighted to see such success with my students while practicing sol and mi realding from the 3 line staff. I had the students work on some Candy Corn Melodies from another great TpT seller, Malinda Phillips. While researching for this post, I realized that I received my so-mi set of Candy Corn Melodies through a promotion from her store and they do not seem to be available on TpT. BUT, she does have several other melodic elements avaliable, click here to be taken to her store. It was a bit time consuming to cut all the candy corn pieces but well worth it when I saw the great results!
My students had just been presented sol/mi in the previous lesson and this was a fantastic way to see how they were doing on their reading of the patterns in an independent fashion. After matching all the candy corn halves, the students picked a partner, checked each others work, made corrections (although not many were needed YEAH!), and checked again. The students were so engaged, I couldn't believe how quietly they were working! Here are a couple of pictures!
I know that halloween has passed and some of these activities may not be November appropriate, but I think that they could be adapted to work in the upcoming weeks with just a little bit of tweaking. Try turkey gobble patterns instead of ghost melodies, check out the November themed listening glyphs (did I mention that they come with listening suggestions!) and candy corn is good anytime!
Have a great November!
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