Episode #87: New Favorites for 1st Grade and Kindergarten
Main Theme
Tanya has been working a lot with Kindergarteners on the difference between beat and rhythm, aka "the way the words go." She mainly uses chants when doing beat vs. rhythm such as Engine Engine #9, Two Four Six Eight, and Queen Queen Caroline. She has also been doing spring themed pony songs and activities such as See the Pony Galloping (great triple meter song for steady beat) and moving to the Wild Horseman by Schumann.
For 1st grade, Tanya has been focusing recently on rest using repertoire such as Bow Wow Wow, Pease Porridge Hot, and Just From the Kitchen. She also isolates patterns with rest using repeated phrases from picture books. For example, "Please Baby Please" is ta ti-ti ta rest, and "Click Clack Moo" is ta ta ta rest. Another new favorite has been the picture book Drum Dream Girl by Margarita Engle, which tells the story of percussionist Millo Castro Zaldarriaga.
Carrie started both Kindergarten and 1st grade by learning and reviewing the comparatives fast/slow and loud/soft. A favorite movement song to practicing moving fast, slow, loud, soft is Down to the Baker's Shop. Then for Kindergarten, she focused a lot on going up and down using David Row's strategies incorporating nursery rhythms on barred instruments such as Hickory Dickory Dock and Jack and Jill. She also used the picture book Fortunately by Remy Charlip, playing or moving up after each time the book says "fortunately," and down when the books says "unfortunately." Carrie has also been doing spring themed songs such as Rain Rain, Go Away and Que Llueva.
For 1st grade, Carrie did introduce steady beat, ta and ti-ti, rest, and so/mi this year. One renewed favorite for practicing ta and ti-ti has been Bate Bate. We had a lot of fun playing the rhythms of the chant on kitchen instruments when we were doing Zoom music classes in December. On Seesaw, student performed ta and ti-ti rhythms on their kitchen instrument as an assessment, and then created their own ta and ti-ti rhythms to read and play.
Know Better, Do Better
#StopAsianHate
Thank you to Alice Tsui for your powerful words and sharing your story to raise up the increased violence against AAPI people. Please watch this video to listen and learn.
Here are some resources to learn more, offer support, and look for resources for your classroom:
Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month
Work Smarter, Not Harder
Check out the Google Chrome extension called Fullscreen Interactive Google Slides, which allows you and students to drag and drop, type, and otherwise edit a Slides presentation while still in Fullscreen mode.
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Carrie has been enjoying the TV show Real World Homecoming: New York Season 1 on Paramount+
Tanya has been enjoying the movie Moxie! on Netlifx
I am super struggling with how to make music fun for these little kids without all the normal go-to activities and this episode was so incredibly helpful! Thank you both so much!
ReplyDeleteYou're welcome!
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