Tag Archives: Denise Gagne

Peter and the Wolf – Online Music Lesson for PreK-Gr. 2

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Peter and the Wolf is work created by Prokofiev that is beloved by children all over the world. Each of the characters in the story is represented by a different instrument. It’s an excellent way to introduce young children to the instruments of the orchestra. At www.Musicplayonline.com we’ve created a Unit with 4 lessons to teach the story, introduce all the themes, introduce the instruments and in the final lesson, watch a video of the story with the music. This website is open for FREE STUDENT ACCESS while schools are closed due to Coronavirus.

The Lesson begins with the story of Peter and the Wolf (without music), illustrating each of the characters and the instruments that represent them.

The next part of the lesson introduces The Bird, played by the flute. This short engaging video, plays the theme, and asks children to listen to whether the music is high/low, fast/slow or loud/quiet.

Students are then asked to complete a worksheet (if they have a printer) or color and draw the bird and a flute.

The Duck is the next theme that’s introduced. The Duck is represented by the oboe.

The Duck has lyrics that can be sung with the theme. The lyrics are printed on the optional worksheet. Again, students can print the worksheet if they have a printer, but if not, are instructed to draw and color the duck and the oboe.

This is the end of Lesson 1. In Lesson 2, students are introduced to the Cat, Grandfather and the wolf. In Lesson 3, the students learn Peter’s and the Hunter’s themes and instruments. In Lesson 4, students watch a video of the entire work and then complete worksheets to review all the instruments and match the character to his instrument. The Musicplayonline.com website is open for FREE STUDENT ACCESS while schools are closed due to Coronavirus.

Download the Lesson Guide to Peter and the Wolf Lesson 1. And find this online lesson at www.musicplayonline.com.

PK-Peter-and-the-Wolf-Story-1-Bird-and-Duck-Download

E-Learning Music Lessons with Musicplayonline

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With Coronavirus cases topping 100,000 worldwide, schools are starting to close and teachers are having to teach their music classes online. There are a variety of ways to do this. One of our Shanghai teachers has been teaching by making videos for her students, posting them on YouTube and sending them the link. Some teachers are going to try to teach virtually using Zoom, Google Hangouts or Skype. At Musicplayonline, our first response to the possibility of students need learning at home lessons was to open additional areas of the Musicplayonline website to students. The following areas of Musicplayonline are now open to students:

  1. Song videos – lyrics, notation, highlights and kids demos
  2. Interactive activities: solfa challenge (new!) interactive rhythm
  3. Listening
  4. Solfa Practice and Rhythm Practice
  5. Recorder
  6. Ukulele
  7. Guitar
  8. UNITS
  9. Rhythm and Melody Composition Tools

With all this content available to students, they’ll be able to continue singing, moving, read/writing, and creating music at home!

In addition, we’re building (and will have v.1 online approx March 20) a new section where e-Learning lessons will be housed. Until the new section is live, I’m going to post e-Learning lessons for the week in the printables for song 1 of PreK, Time for Music.

I’ve written lessons for Grades 1-2-3 students for March week 3 and will post them online, as well as in this blog post. I’ve made these lessons as a fillable pdf, with places for you, the teacher, to add notes to your students. Just download the lesson pdf, add your notes, save it, and you can send it out to your students. I’ve included I Can statements, step by step directions, and screen shots of all the activities.

Who can use the student login? If you are a subscriber to www.Musicplayonline.com your students can have access to the website with no extra charge! They DON’T create an account. They use a special student login that we change every 3 months. Until April 1st, the student login is snow and the password is 2020. That will change April 1st, and we’ll post it in the red NOTICES box on the online site. (We change it so only subscribers students can use the site)

March-wk-3-e-Learn-Gr.-1-1Download
March-wk-3-e-Learn-Gr.-2-2Download
March-wk-3-e-Learn-Gr.-3Download

In addition to the Grade 1-3 lessons (and K), we’ve got some excellent units that will provide great e-Learning opportunities for your Grade 4-6 students. If they are learning recorder, ukulele or guitar those sections have many songs and links to fun pop songs. There is an excellent unit on the STAFF in the UNITS section. I’ve written a guide to it and will attach it below. There are places for teacher’s notes in the guide, so if you have additional activites you want students to do, you can include the instructions in one pdf.

Staff-UnitDownload

We hope everyone stays healthy through this pandemic!

Denise and the Musicplay team!

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Themes & Variations on YouTUBE

Engaging Activities for Gr. 4-6 Music Classes

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Every music class is different. The song that might be the favorite of one class of Grade 4 students, another class might not like. If I introduce a song or activity and the students really dislike it, I’ll put it aside for another year.

What do I do with the (fortunately very rare) student who says that they don’t like music. Does every student like math? reading? art? Music is a required part of the curriculum, just like math, reading, and art. There are skills that they are expected to learn, even if it isn’t their favorite subject. As a teacher, I’m expected to write report cards, do outdoor supervision and attend staff meetings — even if those aren’t my favorite things to do. This is life.

What do you do with the kids who want to listen to pop songs and don’t want to sing folk songs? In language arts do the students read Archie comics? No – they read literature that has been selected because it’s “quality” literature. In music class will I teach pop songs? Sometimes, for a specific purpose, I will. But I would never teach just pop music, any more than I would feed a child junk food for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Folk songs have survived for hundreds of years because there is something in them that is timeless and they teach us not just musical skills, but teach us about our past.

There are some games and actitivities that are always favorites! If you start the year with activities that the students really enjoy, you’ll have more success introducing new activities.
Find all of the singing games listed below at www.musicplayonline.com . There will be song videos AND there will be kids demo videos available to help you learn how to play the game.  Get more information on the Musicplay curriculum at http://musicplay.ca/.

 

Favorite Games
Musicplay 4
* Wake Me! Shake Me!  – create a B section
* Good Morning (#5) – what my students liked most about the game was introducing themselves
* Cut the Cake (#28) – every student I’ve ever taught loves chase games
* Sarasponda (39) – kids love the stick game, especially the toss
* Ma Ku Ay (#22) – kids love the stick game – they’d borrow rhythm sticks at recess to practice
* Pass the Pumpkin (26) – the challenge of doing the rhythm chain keeps kids engaged
* Stella Ella Olla (#34) – my students would play this game every music class from Sept – June! Loved it!
* Categories (#64) – this game took a few classes until they “caught on” but we’d often use it after that.
* My Bonnie (#35) – going up and down each time there’s a B is fun!

Musicplay 5
Concentration (#2)
Ickle Ockle (#8) – the song is simple, but the kids love the chase!
Four White Horses (#10) – the clap pattern is tricky to teach, but not really that hard and the kids like the challenge.
Button (#13) always engaging – they have to see if they can guess
Our Old Sow (#28) my students favorite game!
Green Sally Up (#33) – this is a clap game with a handshake. The creating was fun too!
Old Maid (#46) – fun stealing partners
Waddally Acha #88 – fun with the Boomwhackers

Musicplay 6
Dollar #19 – played like Button, it’s an engaging game
COFFEE #46 – try the tennis ball routine with the round – fun!
Hanky Panky #30 – this is played like Stella Ella Olla
Un Elephant #117 is the same kind of game with French words.

Creating Activities – Using the singing game song as a theme, have students create a B section.  If you have Orff instruments, teach the Orff arrangement, then have students improvise melodies using a tone set from the song as a B section.  If you don’t have Orff instruments, create ostinatos using ideas from the song and try song + ostinato.  Or, create word rhythms with ideas from the song, transfer to body percussion or unpitched instruments as an introduction/ending to the song or as a B section.  The Orff Source vol. 1-2-3 (or the Orff arrangements at musicplayonline.com) have many creating ideas for most of the singing games listed above.

Listening Activities
Listening Logs A teacher from St. Michael’s boy school once wrote and told me that her 5th grade classes favorite activity was to do listening logs. It wasn’t what I would expect, but it was this class’s favorite!
Cup Games – In the Listening Kits 3-4-5 (also listening section at musicplayonline) there are cup games. I like to teach one or two patterns, then have the students make up their own. The only patterns they can’t use are ones that they’ve learned somewhere else – has to be brand new!
Rhythm instrument play alongs – kids love to play rhythm instruments!
Head and Shoulders Knees and Toes – From Listening Fun book.
– kids loved this when we did the videotaping. They really liked all the tennis ball routines as well!

Favorite Songs
Musicplay 4:
This Little Light of Mine – this is familiar, so is easy to teach. I find a sing along song at the beginning of the school year gets the kids singing. It might be that it’s familiar, and they have confidence singing it.
Bats – Kids love the balloon sound effects in this song
Chester – Kids love the challenge of doing the actions as tempo increases
Scotland’s Burning – this is a round that is easy enough for your students to have success in 2 parts. I found adding the actions made it even more appealing.

Musicplay 5
Little Tommy Tinker (#3) – very successful round
Ronald McDonald #17 – fun action song
We Love to Sing #95 – great warmup – stand up each time you sing “We love to sing!”
Shalom #23 – great for Remembrance Day, we added sign language for part 1.
Jack was every Inch a Sailor – #14 – this is a fun folk song and easy to accompany with I and V chords.  There are lots of songs in Musicplay 5 that use just two chords – accompany with ukelele, guitars or . Boomwhackers!   There are too many favorites to list them all! Same with Musicplay 6 – lots of excellent choral pieces!

Activities
beat/rhythm with sticks – Yankee Doodle Stick Game in Musicplay 4 works well If you’ve found other favorite songs in 4-5-6 for doing beat/rhythm switch, please let me know!
Beat Boards – drumming along with pop songs. Get the students to create their own pop song playalongs!
Review note values: draw a whole, half, quarter, eighth on the board. Kids play what you point to.  Do this with a fun pop song in 4/4 time – Sugar Sugar works well. Try this with tennis balls!
Creating rhythm compositions – use the note squares that are in Musicplay 6, or give students a template and have them create their own rhythm compositions. Turn the composition into 2 or more parts by adding an ostinato or playing it as a canon.
Composing piggyback and raps – this unit is part of Musicplay 6. Rap tracks are on CD#4. If you haven’t tried this unit, copy the reproducibles (in the back of the binder worksheets 17-22) and get your kids creating rhythm compositions, verses, then piggyback songs, then raps and rhythm and blues songs.
Pop Song Assignment – Musicplay 6 pg 6-7
Guitar or Ukelele – Many of the songs in Musicplay can be accompanied with instruments. Musicplay 5 includes many songs that can be accompanied with just 1 or 2 chords.
1 chord minor #20, 21, 33,
1 chord major #6, 8, 24, 62,
I-V #2 Concentration, 3 Little Tommy, 10 Four White Horses, 15 Alabma Gal, 25 El Torojil, 26 He’s Got the Whole world, 27 Peace is FLowing, 28 Our Old Sow, 38 Winter is Here, 45 Early to Bed, 54 I’ve a Car, 75 Funga Alafia, 77 Old Woman, 79 John Kanaka, 89 Play that Rhythm, 91 Clementine, 92 I Let Her Go, 96 Boll Weevil .  If you don’t have guitars or ukeleles, you can accompany with Boomwhackers.

Create accompaniments for poems or simple songs: Use word highlights or ostinato to create accompaniments for poems or simple songs

Does music class have to be fun? Practicing scales on the piano or a trumpet isn’t something that I’d call “fun” but I know that I have to do the technique to improve my skills on my instrument. I think that students get a great deal of satisfaction from doing something well – singing well, accurately playing a part on their instrument, creating a movement that looks neat, learning to read a new rhythm. It’s not always “fun” – but it’s very satisfying – and that makes me want to keep doing an activity.

Coming Soon – Ideas for Earth Day!

 

Artie and Denise – in Dulles, VA .  July 17-18, 2018

Join Artie Almeida, Denise Gagne, and Katie Grace Miller for a 2 day elementary music conference that will give you a wealth of ideas and inspiration for teaching elementary music classes. Close to Dulles airport – -GREAT workshop and close to Washington DC for sightseeing! Workshop registration includes a one year subscription to musicplayonline.com – it’s like a free workshops!!!   Register: http://musicplay.ca/

 

St. Patrick’s Day Unit – Lesson Ideas for St. Patrick’s Day!

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2018-03-09 St Patrick’s Day Lesson Ideas

The St. Patrick’s Day Composition, Improvisation Flashcards & Theory Unit is available to download from Teachers Pay Teachers OR use the interactive composition, improvisation, Rhythm Chain and Rhythm erase at www.musicplayonline.com. Musicplayonline has 10+ Irish folk songs and instrumental selections for movement/listening that aren’t included in the TPT version.  The TPT version has additional flashcards, themed recorder mad minutes and a themed staff lesson that aren’t at musicplayonline. 

1.  Two Fun Fact movies are included in this unit. The K-5 movie is shorter with less detail.   Show the students the movie to begin your St. Patrick’s Day unit. There is also a colour by .  note value activity included.

  • 2. Leprechaun Improvisation includes:  song, mp3, worksheet
  • To the Teacher: this is a melodic improvisation activity for PreK – Gr. 5.
  • Discuss the legend that says if you catch a leprechaun he can grant you three wishes. Ask the students for suggestions of what they might wish for.
  • Teach the song by rote to younger students.Older students may be able to read the rhythm and the melody. (drm s)
  •  Demonstrate how to improvise some of the students ideas for wishes. Use a variety of pitches: s ml, drm, drm s.
  • Ask for student volunteers to improvise vocally their wishes.
  • If you’d like to perform this, a performance/accompaniment track is included in the unit OR accompany with a C-G bordun on Orff instruments

3, Compose a Melody 1 AND 2 .  Compose with solfa: drm, drm sl Or with the notes CDE or CDE GA

  • To the Teacher: Choose from Melody 1 and Melody 2 poems for the composition activity. Both have the rhythm notated, so students only have to write the melody.  Choose whether to have your students compose with solfa: drm, drm sl Or with the notes CDE or CDE GA
  • Teach the poem.
  • invite students to improvise melodies for phrases of the poem using either do, re, mi or do, re, mi, so, la.
  • Use the projectable PowerPoint to create a melody as a class. (copy and paste the solfa or the notes to compose in PowerPoint.)
  • Accompany the composition with a bordun on the Orff instruments. You can accompany  drm, drm sl in the key of C with C-G.

Rhythmic Phrases PPT and Worksheet

  • Teach or demonstrate how to complete the worksheet using the PowerPoint. Say the phrase and invite the students to tell you which rhythm matches the phrase.
  • In the PowerPoint, copy and paste the rhythm into the box.

Have the students complete the worksheet as a center activity or an assessment activity.

5. Shamrock Rhythm Erase

  • This has 8 levels for Gr. 1-6  – interactive PDF, PPT, Worksheet are included online and in the TPT version.   To the Teacher:
  • Say each of the rhythm patterns.
  • When students know them all, click on one to take it away.
  • Say all four patterns again.
  • Click on another one to take it away.
  • Continue making patterns disappear until you are left with only the shamrocks.
  • Have the students tell what the patterns are. Click to check if they’re correct. (In the interactive PDF, click the “reset” button.
  • Try playing the patterns using body percussion or unpitched percussion instruments.
  • Try having the students use the worksheet provided to write the patterns down, check
  • their answers with the activity.
  • Try a new level!

Leprechaun Hunt Rhythm Chain

  • This has 8 levels – interactive PDF, PPT, Flashcards .   To the Teacher:
  • • Help us find the leprechaun! To start, click on the start button to make the first rhythm appear.
  • When the students have memorized the rhythm click on the rhythm to make it disappear.
  • Clap the rhythm again and find the leprechaun’s yellow footprints.
  • Click on the footprints to reveal the next rhythm. When the students have memorized the second pattern clap the first pattern followed by the second. As you collect more patterns the rhythm chain will become longer.
  • Continue collecting rhythm patterns by clicking on the rhythms and the footprints.
  • Have the students tell what the patterns are. Click to check if they’re correct. (In the
  • interactive PDF, click the “reset” button.
  • Try playing the patterns using body percussion or unpitched percussion instruments.
  • Try a new level!

Rhythm Flashcards – in TPT version only
80 Rhythm Flashcards are included, themed for St. Patrick’s Day.

Staff Lesson Workshops –     in TPT version only .
These correlate with the staff lesson at musicplayonline.com – the staff lesson is found in the interactive activities for the first 6 songs in K-6.   (We will be moving the staff lesson to the Units section when we start building our theory section)

Recorder Mad Minutes – themed for St. Patricks Day . – in TPT version only

 

  • Songs / musical selections for St. Patrick’s Day found in the St. Patrick’s Day Unit at musicplayonline.com.  (These are not in the TPT version)

  • 1. Paddy From Home
  • 2. St. Patrick’s Day Jig
  • 3. Fillimiooriay
  • 4. I Like Leprechauns
  • 5. Leprechaun March
  • 6. Lucky Leprechaun
  • 7. Connaughtman’s Rambles
  • 8. Irish Washerwoman
  • 9. Irish Jig
  • 10. Irish Reel
  • 11. Wild Mountain Thyme
  • 12. Mary Mac
  • 13. Hi Ho the Rattlin Bog
  • 14. Cockles and Mussels
  • 15.  Mr. Potato Head
  • – and of course there is a menu of suggested activities for each of the songs!

At www.musicplayonline.com The UNITS button is on the left menu

   

Select Festivals and Holidays – St. Patrick’s Day

 

 

Happy St. Patrick’s Day to everyone!  

Chinese New Year Musical Activities Unit

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Wow!  In one week, we’ve celebrated Valentine’s Day, seen the start of the Winter Olympics, and started Lunar New Year celebrations – including Chinese New Year on Feb. 15th!

We’ve created an entire Chinese New Year, or Lunar New Year celebration at www.musicplayonline.com.  If you don’t subscribe to the online site, You can download the unit from TPT.  TPT Download

The Unit starts with Fun Facts about Chinese New Years or Lunar New Year as it should properly be called.  Beautiful projectable images illustrate many traditions and customs.

A traditional song is included in the unit.   Ruth Fung was a parent when I taught at GW Smith Elementary.  She taught us the song, and provided the translation and the phonetic pronunciation.  Her daughter and a daughter’s friend recorded the vocals for the song, and this recording is included in the unit to help learn the pronunciation.

Two composition activities are included.  A Chinese New Year Rondo introduces a simple song to use as the theme, then the students can create word rhythm compositions as B, C, D sections.  Two levels are included:  one/two sounds per beat for your young students, and more words for your older students.  Online the pdfs of the word cards are available to download – these are designed to be very easy to print out and make sets!  These pdfs are included in the TPT download of the unit as well.

A second composition activity that you can choose is the Animals of the Zodiac activity.  This activity uses animal word rhythms and sounds that the animals might make.  To model interactively for students if using the TPT version, use the PowerPoints and cut/paste the words to create a class composition.  at www.musicplayonline.com, you can use the interactive version.  Worksheets to practice name notes and solfa are included!

Dragon Dance

When I was the music teacher at Grandview Elementary, Dr. Kenneth Wu, a martial arts teacher and dragon dancer (and acupuncturist) came into our school and taught our students how to do the dragon dance.  His instructions are included in the Dragon Dance lesson plan, and a video of our students performance is also included online and in the TPT download.  Building the dragon for this performance was a ton of fun for me and for the students.  We used a tablecloth runner long enough for 20-25 students, and decorated it with lots of glitter and artwork.  I remember glitter from one end of the school to the other!

Rhythm Chain

A rhythm chain is the opposite of a Rhythm Erase – you try to memorize patterns starting with one, then adding to it.  Use a variety of body percussion to make your performance interesting.

The first rhythm will be revealed to you. When you’ve memorized the first rhythm, click on the rhythm to hide it and click on the next scroll to reveal the second rhythm. Clap the first rhythm (hidden) and the second rhythm (revealed) until you memorize the second rhythm. Hide the second rhythm and reveal the third rhythm. Contine down the chain.

Four rhythm chains are included in an interactive PDF – each one at a different level.

Rhythm Lanterns – Rhythm Erase

Lanterns with riddles on them are hung up around the cities, and children go from lantern to lantern solving riddles.

In the Rhythm Laterns, students complete a rhythm erase.  They memorize the rhythm patterns, one pattern will disappear at a time, until you are left with only the lanterns.   When they complete the rhythm erase, they are rewarded with a riddle.

A 24 page teacher’s guide is included with the unit.

Where can you get these Chinese New Year lessons and activities?

We’ve created an entire Chinese New Year, or Lunar New Year celebration at www.musicplayonline.com.  If you don’t subscribe to the online site, You can download the unit from TPT.  TPT Download

Are you still celebrating the Winter Olympics?  We’ve posted the unit on TPT, so if you want to download all the materials, you can.  LINK to TPT Winter Olympics Musical Activities

Or visit www.musicplayonline.com – see our new UNITS section on the left menu to use interactive versions of the activities.  More units are coming soon!

 

Obwisana Lesson Ideas to Teach Ties

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In this newsletter I’m going to share the process I use to teach ties, using the song Obwisana.  When first writing and recording songs for Musicplay in 1999, the internet wasn’t the wealth of information it is today.  I asked everyone I knew in Red Deer, Alberta (not a very multicultural city in 1999) if they know someone from Africa who would teach me some African children’s songs.  I finally was able to connect with “Nana” who was a health inspector in Olds.  I had some songs in secondary sources, but wanted some that came right from the source.  Nana had been born in Ghana, lived in Botswana, then emigrated with her family to Canada.  She remembered singing Obwisana as a child.  She didn’t have a literal translation for the song, but remembered that it meant, “Grandma, the rock hit my finger.  It hurt.”

Process:
1.  Teach the song, and tell the students what the words mean These projectables are from the Concept Slides in the Musicplay Digital Resource PowerPoints.  They are also in the Concept Slides section at www.musicplayonline.com .

Play the Game!!!  The traditional game is a stone passing game.  I’ve done it that way with students, but when I turned the game into a stick passing elimination game, it because a requested activity!  When doing passing games with grade 2, I start with the pile of sticks in front of me, and pass them out one at a time to my right.  I say, “Pick up, set down” and the child on my right does that.  Then there are 2 children who pick up, set down, then 3, then 4 until the whole class has a stick.  This is the way to get kids to all go in the correct direction when passing!  I mark one stick with tape.  The pattern we used was:  tap, tap, set down (in front of the person on their right), pick up. (pick up the new stick) . We sing the song and at the end of the song, the child with the marked stick is “out” and starts a new circle in the center.  I go into the circle with the first out.  They change sticks so the marked stick stays in the outer circle.  Once you’re in the middle, you’re just playing for fun.  There’s a kids demo video of this in the Musicplay Digital Resource, and at www.musicplayonline.com .

2.  Show where Ghana is on a world map, and show the students what life is like in rural northern Ghana.  My friend, Marilyn Pottage, took these photos on one of her many trips to Ghana.  She runs a foundation that helps provide secondary and university education for girls.  These photos are in the Concept Slides of the Musicplay 2 Digital resources and are in the Concept Slides of musicplayonline.com.

3.  Have the students pat the beats in the song.  I like to have them count the beats, then check if they have them right, on a beat chart.

4. Then I have the students clap the rhythm – the way the words go.  Then we figure out how many sounds are on each beat.

There are a series of beat/rhythm interactive activites at www.musicplayonline.com .  The interactive activities follow the same process.

The interactive activities at www.musicplayonline.com  are awesome BECAUSE they are interactive.  When you press PLAY on “Point to the Beat” – the beats pulse as the song is sung.

3.  Pat the Beats as you sing the song        4.  Clap the words as you sing the song

5.  Be sure your students understand the difference between beat and rhythm.

You can use “Is the drum playing beat or rhythm” to assess formally if students can tell if it’s beat or rhythm.  If you have student iPads or chromebooks, students can use the student login for www.musicplayonline.com . and they can complete the One sound, two sounds or more than one beat activity on their device.

6.  Clap a phrase of the song, and have students figure out how many sounds are on each beat.  In this song, they’ll be figuring out if there are some sounds that last more than one beat.

If you prefer to have hands-on manipulatives for your students, printable manipulatives of the same activities are given in the printables section of www.musicplayonline.com .

The Beat Pointing Page could be used in place of the interactive “Point to the Beat.”

The Rhythm Pointing Page would be in place of “Clap the Rhythm.”

For some songs, I like to give the students a set of the rhythm cards (#3-4) and ask them to re-create the rhythm of the song.  Easy sets include the words of the song, but if I want to challenge the students, I’ll take out the words!    We’ve made the rhythm cards so it’s very quick to copy onto cardstock, then cut out.  I store them in CD envelopes so I can see through the envelope window and know what song the set is for.  The Rhythm Sort worksheet is a written version of an online rhythm sort activity.  Write the Rhythm would be a great assessment.

Should you do every activity for this song?  Of course not.  I’ve given the wealth of activities at musicplayonline so you can choose the activity that meets the needs of your students.  If your 2nd grade are amazing readers, challenge them with a rhythm sort.  If you have a challenging class, or this is the first year you’ve taught these children, they may still need a beat pointing page.

How many lessons will this take?  That also depends on whether your students are struggling or strong readers.  But, I would allow more than one lesson, especially when you want to get kids creating their own music!

Create and Perform:  Whether your students are amazing readers or still struggling, all students should be encouraged to create their own music.  One of the ways that works well, is to have them create with word rhythms.  Two ways to create are given at www.musicplayonline.com .  The first is creating with words or just use the notes.  When class time is really limited, do this as a teacher led activity.

If you have more time, students could do either of these activities on devices, or you could print out rhythm cards or word cards for them to use to create an 8 beat rhythm.

Teacher can model with the interactive projectable above – then it’s easy for students in pairs or small groups to create their own word rhythm, or note rhythm using the cards pictured below.

Assessment:  As with all new concepts, you may want to assess if students understand.  The Rhythm Sort and Rhythm Erase activity at www.musicplayonline.com . are both great.  I might do the rhythm erase first.  Note that we haven’t included the song title.  We did that so you could use it as a mystery song.  The Rhythm Sort is a great activity to do as your assessment of the “Obwisana Unit.”  There is a printable version of the rhythm sort in printables online.

Rhythm Sort worksheet     Create a word rhythm:      Accented Beats

Obwisana Lesson Ideas Screen Cast:  I created a screen cast to show teachers in a video the materials in this newsletter.  I made a mistake though – and didn’t include in the video the Concept slides about Ghana.  So be sure if you teach this lesson, you include the cultural context.   You can watch the video at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLB99FyylsA&t=5s .  The video includes the kids demo of the game.

Hope you enjoy the screencast and newsletter with lesson ideas on Obwisana!

Denise

Denise Gagne
denise@musicplay.ca
www.musicplayonline.com
(blog) www.denisegagne.com
Musicplay Teachers Group on Facebook!

Next Blog Post – Chinese New Years lesson and ideas!
If you want a sneak preview, visit www.musicplayonline.com and go the first 4 songs of Musicplay 3.  We’ve removed those songs and replaced them with songs and lessons on Chinese New Years!  (Our programmers are working on a “New” Songs section)

Recorder Mad Minutes

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MAD MINUTES – A Great Way to Help Students Develop Note Reading Abilities!

Mad Minutes help students develop their note reading ability. Mad minutes were invented by math teachers to help children develop instant recall of math facts.  In music, Mad Minutes are timed drills to practice letter names. As the students enter the classroom give a mad minute and a pencil to each student.  Usually I hand out the papers, and the first student in line gives out the pencils.

If students are learning BAG songs on the recorder, they should be completing a BAG Mad Minute.  As they learn to play more notes, add the notes to the Mad Minute.

Start the timer, and tell the students to “GO!”   Tell the students to call out “Done!” and raise their hands when they are finished. Then, you tell them how many seconds or minutes and seconds it took them to complete. I like to do a mad minute at the start of every recorder class. In the Recorder Resource Kit there are two BAG mad minutes, then the mad minutes add a note. When you are working on BAG songs, use the BAG mad minute. When you start on the low E, use the BAG E mad minute. Use each mad minute more than once – lots of repetition is needed for students to develop instant recall of note names.

Students try to improve their best time. It’s not competing against others in the class – they are competing against themselves. This has been really engaging for my students – a great way to start off the class.

Watch the video to see the level of engagement!

If you have students taking private lessons, make them harder mad minutes. If they take piano, I give them a mad minute with treble and bass clef – and the piano teachers love me for it.

Where can you get Mad Minutes?  Mad Minutes are included in the Recorder Resource Kit. We’ve just lowered the price of the Recorder Resource Kit with Projectables (PDF and videos!) to $40!   The Recorder Resource Kit include 38 songs in regular AND Kids Notes notation. The songs are sequenced as follows: BAG E D C’ D’ F C. The kit includes many extras: practice bugs, composition template, quiz, rubrics, theory worksheets, and note name flash cards. It’s available as print and/or download.  The Kit includes instruction on how to do a Recorder Karate program with selected songs from the kit.  But there are far more than test pieces in the kit – this is a carefully sequenced collection, so your students will learn to read music – they won’t just learn to play a test piece by rote.  

Order the Recorder Resource Kit from your favorite music store or from Themes & Variations:

Canada: http://shop.musicplaytext.ihoststores.com/productinfo.aspx?productid=116-P

USA: http://shop.musicplaytext1.ihoststores.com/productinfo.aspx?productid=116-P

All the songs that are in the Recorder Resource Kit are given twice – regular notation and kids notes. With Kids Notes, the letter name is imprinted right on the note.  You can make kids notes booklets for your students who struggle – helping them to keep up with the class.  Kids notes are a huge help to students who still struggle – even after completing many mad minutes.  The projectable PowerPoints, PDFs and movies in the Kit project both regular notation AND kids notes.  Kids notes are much better for the kids than writing letters under the song.  When kids pencil in notes, all they look at is the pencil.  With Kids Notes, they see the placement on the staff and they read the rhythms – and easily transition to note reading when they are developmentally ready.

  • The Recorder Resource Kit includes 38 songs in regular AND Kids notes notation.  It also includes:
  • mad minutes
  • theory worksheets
  • assessment tools:  theory quiz and playing rubrics
  • Recorder Karate test pieces, and helpful hints (in the Teacher’s guide)
  • Projectables in 3 formats:  PDF, PowerPoints, Movies

Canada: http://shop.musicplaytext.ihoststores.com/productinfo.aspx?productid=116-P

USA: http://shop.musicplaytext1.ihoststores.com/productinfo.aspx?productid=116-P

Student Book Recorder / Book / CD Packages
Students practice more and practice better when they have the accompaniment CD. We make these affordable packages available to Canadian schools. For $10 you get either a quality Handel recorder or a Yamaha recorder, the Recorder Resource Student Book and a CD. (If students don’t have a disk drive on their computer, they can email for a download version) . Order Packages for Canadian Schools –

PreK – Gr. 3 Holiday Concert Songs

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A recent Facebook asked for help finding a cute song for K-3 students. In this article, I’m giving suggestions for easy and cute holiday concert ideas for your primary (PreK-Grade 3) students. If you choose a song that is already familiar to the students it will be quicker and easier to learn.  Some of the ones that most will have heard before include those in the K-3 Christmas Concert Idea Book.

K-3 Christmas Concert Idea Book

* The Bells on the Sleigh (new words to Wheels on the Bus)  Watch a performance on YouTube – this is fun and easy for kids to learn!   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHqpE8tEjRU

* He’ll be Comin’ down the Chimney – fun and easy!  See a performance:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDlcOY8qQeg

* And Santa is his name (BINGO with Santa words)
* Jingle Bells (song and dance)
* Up on a Housetop
AND 20+ more songs, poems, fingerplays – see complete contents at the link
We have nice recordings of ALL of these in K-3 Christmas Concert Ideas.

Don’t have time to wait for a book/CD to come by mail? No problem – all of our Christmas collections are available as downloads. In the download you get the pdf file of the book and a folder with all of the MP3s of performance and accompaniment. There are also poems for choral reading, a reader’s theatre of “The Elves and the Shoemaker”, a mini-play, “No Cookies for Santa” a Nativity scene, We Wish You a Merry Christmas, Ribbon dance, finger plays, and more!      This is a great deal – $18 download for the whole collection — many single song kits are $15 for one song.

CANADA Teachers:  http://shop.musicplaytext.ihoststores.com/productinfo.aspx?productid=327-D

USA Teachers: http://shop.musicplaytext1.ihoststores.com/productinfo.aspx?productid=327-D

 

Kinder Christmas Collection

Another favourite familiar song for your primary students is Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. We recorded a performance and accompaniment track for Rudolph in Kinder Christmas collection. Another familiar song in this collection is “There was a Little Baby” – the song that was recorded on the Raffi Christmas album. We’ve included an accompaniment track so your kids voices will be heard without Raffi in the background. $20 Book/CD
The collection includes these songs:

* Feliz Navidad, Joyeux Noel
* Rudolph, the Red Nosed Reindeer
* Reindeer Love to Boogie
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJx2I9h7hRk
* There Was a Little Baby  (with acc. track)
* Tap, Tap, Tap
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ih6hetJ_qzI
* Let’s Be Jolly
* Chris tmas ABC (American)
* Christmas ABC (Canadian)
* Gingerbread
* Teddy Bear Twist
* I Hear the Bells
* Ten Little Angels
* Christmas Dance
* Rock Around the Christmas Tree
* Play the Bells to Celebrate

CANADA Teachers:   http://shop.musicplaytext.ihoststores.com/productinfo.aspx?productid=332-D

USA Teachers:   http://shop.musicplaytext1.ihoststores.com/productinfo.aspx?productid=332-D

Christmas Favorites Collection

Santa Claus is Cominʼ to Town
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJ_HvB0nvZI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYvMCH5KZ1k

Jolly Jolly Santa
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9X6z5zYyNv4

Snowflakes (partner with Jingle Bells)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjdIWz4Csbs

Christmas at the Hop
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4NXd30vP5s

Other Songs in the Collection are:
* I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus
* Do You Hear What I Hear?
*Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer
*  Christmas Candles
* Follow the Star
* What Child is This?
Optional Biblical Readings
* Starry Night

CANADA Teachers:  http://shop.musicplaytext.ihoststores.com/productinfo.aspx?productid=160-D

USA Teachers:   http://shop.musicplaytext1.ihoststores.com/productinfo.aspx?productid=160-D

Christmas Concert Idea Book

Makin’ Christmas Cookies
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2DUeSKmhP8

* Shine a Light for Peace
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45mbqi83icc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCEsJyha1Tc

* AND 10 More songs!  Includes a Nativity for Catholic or Christian schools:
*Christmas is my Favorite Time of Year
* Time to Pack the Sleigh
* Santa’s Computer
* Christmas Spirit
* Presents
* The Road to Bethlehem
* Little Star
* Glory to God in the Highest
* The Colors of Christmas
* Christmas Time is Here

CANADA Teachers:   http://shop.musicplaytext.ihoststores.com/productinfo.aspx?productid=328-D

USA Teachers: http://shop.musicplaytext1.ihoststores.com/productinfo.aspx?productid=328-D

Christmas Music Lessons

This is a collection of lessons and activities based on nine familiar Christmas carols. Each song is notated for vocals, soprano recorder in two parts, Boomwhackers in two parts, a variety of percussion instruments, and with chords provided for ukulele (or guitar). All parts can be used together and also work in any combination. Each song comes with a vocal track and an orchestrated accompaniment track. A slower accompaniment track is given for Boomwhacker play alongs. Reproducible and Projectable lyrics are included so the songs could be used in a performance or a school holiday sing along. The activities include naming notes, writing notes, recognizing rhythms, creating new melodies, as well as fun games and word puzzles based on the lyrics of the carols and the song information.

* African Noel
* Jolly Old St. Nicholas
* Up on the Housetop
* Joy to the World
* Jingle Bells
* Christmas Chopsticks
* D’où viens-tu bergère?
* Over the River and Through the Wood
* O Come Little Children

CANADA Teachers:  http://shop.musicplaytext.ihoststores.com/productinfo.aspx?productid=C45-D

USA teachers:  http://shop.musicplaytext1.ihoststores.com/productinfo.aspx?productid=C45-D

Themes & Variations publishes many more Holiday and Christmas collections and there are many holiday songs in the Musicplay PreK – Grade 6 curriculum.  Visit http://musicplay.ca/ to see our complete Christmas section.

Easy Bucket Drumming

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Bucket drumming is a really engaging activitiy for your music classes. It’s inexpensive to equip a classroom with buckets and sticks, and they are easy to stack and store, so bucket drumming is an activity that’s accessible to all.

Buckets: What kind of buckets should you get?   You can use all shapes and sizes of buckets. I’m fond of the sound that Costco laundry detergent buckets make. Ice cream stores sometimes give away large ice cream buckets. Home Depot and Lowes have 5 gallon buckets that they sell for $3.97 Canadian. If you take in a letter from your school requesting a donation, they may give them to you. (One teacher reported that the Lowes buckets don’t stick together) If you’d like to create a complete Bucket Drumming ensemble, you’ll want buckets of varying sizes.

https://www.homedepot.ca/en/home/p.19-l-5-gal-orange-home-depot-logo-bucket.1000143871.html

Sticks: You can use rhythm sticks, dowels or drum sticks to drum on the buckets. If the noise gets to be too much for you (or neighboring teachers) cut pool noodles into 12-14” lengths and drum with noodles.

Resources: Easy Bucket Drumming is an excellent resource to start with. The resource includes a teacher’s guide, PDF projectables with embedded audio, MP4 videos of all 18 selections (no page turns!) and the audio recordings. It’s available as a Book/Disk resource and as a download. The projectables and embedded audio make this really easy to use in the classroom.

Canadian Teachers: http://shop.musicplaytext.ihoststores.com/productinfo.aspx?productid=002

USA Teachers

http://shop.musicplaytext1.ihoststores.com/productinfo.aspx?productid=002

Hand Position: The first thing you need to teach the students is how to hold drum sticks. We illustrate in the projectable PDF the  correct / not correct ways to hold the sticks. If you have Orff instruments, you’ll want the students to hold drum sticks the same way they hold their mallets.

Parts of the Bucket: We illustrate in the projectable PDF the parts of the bucket that we’ll be playing on: sides, top, rim, click sticks. We’ve done the music notation in that order – it’s big, clear and easy to read, and makes logical sense.

Our 18 exercises begin by teaching the students to read the notation playing on just one part of the bucket at a time. Even though the first exercises are simple, the accompaniment tracks make them fun to play! The first performance piece is Dance of the Reed Pipes from the Nutcracker. It’s simple, but a a very effective arrangement you could use in a holiday concert.  To play along, just click the play button twice.  OR – you can play the MP4 video so you don’t have to turn pages.

What Grades/Ages can Bucket Drum? We taught the lessons in Gr. 3-6 classrooms, so ages 8-12. Younger students can learn to play bucket drums, but you’ll need to spend more time on each section. I find it harder to engage older students, so like to “save” something fun and different for the kids that are harder to engage. For that reason, I’d suggest saving bucket drumming as something special for your older kids.

The second performance piece, Liberty Bell March, uses accents, and both hands playing together. This piece would be a great assembly performance. If you set up a projector at the far end of your gym (behind the audience) and project as large as you can, you could have the students follow the movie as they perform. It would look kind of like this:

Bucket Drummers                             Audience                            Projector – projecting onto back wall

Alternately, the arrangements are so intuitive that your students could memorize them, and you could lead them through.
Here’s a link to a performance of Liberty Bell on YouTube:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxD6uRBK8II

Sticking: The sticking in bucket drumming is similar to the sticking on a drum set. Bucket drumming is great preparation for playing a drum kit. In this resource, we wanted to develop some hand independence. Bat Rap sets this up.

Teaching the parts first with body percussion, then with sticks helped our students to be successful.

Click sticks = snap
Rim of the bucket = clap
Top of the bucket = patsch
Sides of the bucket = stomp

We used body percussion to teach the Music Rules, then had the students transfer the body percussion to buckets.

Improvising: Buckets are a great instrument to try improvising. In songs 11-14 opportunities to improvise are given. You could have the whole class improvise, but it tends to be very loud, so we suggest inviting smaller groups of students improvise and have them switch off with other groups.

Pop Songs: Playing with pop songs is fun for the kids. Songs 16-18 are arrangements of original songs by Craig Cassils. Teach these new arrangements using the Projectable PDF or the MP4 video. Then, go to the PDF one page form chart and you can play the same arrangement with a pop song. We can’t include the music for the pop song, but you can download on iTunes or play it on YouTube. The 3 pop song arrangements included in this resource are Freedom Flag – can be played with Wavin Flag, We Love Dancing – can be played with Better When I’m Dancing and Can’t Stop the Feeling.

If you’d like a workshop on Bucket Drumming, contact Denise Gagne – denise@musicplay.ca

Denise does workshops on many topics for elementary music teachers: PreK-6 curriculum, singing games, listening, recorder, creating/composing, ukulele and more!  Denise has given workshops in every Canadian province/territory, and all 50 states.

Musicplay – Should I Get the Digital Resource Package or Just the Website?

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I received a question this week, and think this is a good forum to post my answer.

I am very interested in preK-2 curriculum.  I was originally interested in the K-2 School Complete Digital Resource Package, and just created a one month sample trial of your on line resources!
www.musicplayonline.com .  As a new teacher, this is a gold mine!  What great resources!  Can you explain the difference between the K-2 coomplete digital resource package and the MusicPlay on-line subscription.  I want to best understand how they are different and what each resource entails.

Answer:  

The K-2 Digital Resource Package includes printed teacher’s guides, the Listening Resource Kit 1-2, the Digital Resource for Listening 1 and the Digital Resources for Musicplay.  This print and disk resource includes all the lesson plans, song suggestions, sequence and the projectable to teach the lessons for K-2.

This material is all included in some form on the online site –www.musicplayonline.com.   The projectables from the Digital Resource Disk are found in the song movies and Concept slides.  The recordings that are on the CDs are embedded in the movies and concept slides, and the ACC tracks are just above the Concept Slides on the site.  

The print material that is in the teacher’s guide is found in various places.  The monthly lesson outlines are in the Lesson Plans section.  The song suggestions are found in teacher’s notes along with each song.

I like to have the printed guide to refer to, I like have the recordings available as stand alone.  (You can’t download them from the site).  I really like to have the Digital Resources – the song movies – available to me when I teach in rooms where wifi is intermittent or signal is poor.

With the package, you’d get a 1 or 2 year subscription to the site – I think a 2 year, so you’d have 2 year access. 

And if your teaching situation changes and the school won’t fund the site ($16 / month USD) you will still have the materials to use in your new teaching situation.

That said, the site –www.musicplayonline.com – has much more than what’s in the digital.  It has 1000+ interactive activities – many units and activities that have been created especially for the site.  It has note highlight videos for all reading songs and for beginning recorder.  It has many new units:  Star Spangled Banner, O Canada, Instruments of the Orchestra.  It has games to teach the comparables:  high/low, fast/slow, loud/quiet, smooth/separated.  Games are in development to help develop ear training:  Which Rhythm Did I Hear and Which Melody Did I Hear.  The students in your classes can play these games using the student login.  The Rhythm and Solfa practice sections are really amazing.  The site includes printable that aren’t in the package – many worksheets, piano, guitar, ukulele, Orff arrangements.  The online site – www.musicplayonline.com  – is incredible value for $16/month (USD)

Best case scenario for a teacher using Musicplay for the first time is to have both the Musicplay Digital Resource package and the website access and use them hand in hand.

Denise

Musicplayonline