Gonna make it, gonna make it…. Only a few weeks left and the kids have summer fever…as do we! So, to help all of us survive, here are 5 ideas to make our time count!

1. Review ~ I know, a bit obvious, but… What were the major concepts and songs that were covered this year that you need them to remember for next year? Drive it home!! This is also a great opportunity to have the kids tell you what they really enjoyed and what they weren’t so crazy about! (an informal end of the year course evaluation)

2. Games ~ these can be singing games such as “Doggie, Doggie, Where’s Your Bone?” or “A Tisket, A Tasket” OR “learning” games such as our “The Rhythm Game”. Click HERE for this lesson and a few others!

3. Take Care Of Unfinished Business ~ The fourth grade had started working on their compositions based on their artwork some time ago, but never finished. So, we are finishing them up now. The kids are really getting into it and having a blast tweaking and tinkering with different rhythms, pitches and orchestrations to see what they like best. It is so fun to see them trying out an idea and then the look on their face as they decide whether or not they like it. So excited about the final draft!!

4. Take Ideas For Next Year Out For A Spin ~ I love this time of year to try out some ideas for next year. What if I have them come in this way? What if I teach this concept in this new way? Can PreK handle such and such?

5. See How Far You Can Push The Kids ~ If you have been reading my blog for some time, you know I love to see how far I can push kids. Can they handle a certain concept when our community says otherwise? Truth be told, I value research, but I don’t see it as the end all be all. I STILL think we greatly underestimate our students and their capabilities. I think it is us that needs to change how we teach to get as much out of them as possible. This is why I created Note Knacks.

I hope these help you decide what to teach in the time we have left! We are going to make it ~ I promise!! If you have tried and true activities that you use, please share it in the comments below. Our community will certainly be grateful!

Last week was our spring concert and we were not all that prepared! Between field trips, snow days and sicknesses (nothing like getting the flu the week before), I was not optimistic about what we were going to present to parents. …and I need to confess that I had BIG ideas of what I wanted to do, but simply ran out of time (right…must plan better). So, I needed to figure out how we were going to have a great concert despite the setbacks. Here are the 5 strategies I used:

1. Cut Out What You Can
I wanted my kids to sing/ play more songs, but since there was only so much time left to really learn a couple of pieces well, I cut out the rest.

2. Rondo Form Is Your Friend
I LOVE rondo form! Kids can easily come up with the A section (either 2 mm repeated or 4mm) and improvise the rest (or create 2 mm in small groups for the B, C and D sections.) Note Knacks makes this simple, as you give them the frames and they create!

3. Simplify Wherever Possible
For second grade, I wanted them to create an 8 mm piece for the B section, but opted to have them create 4 mm instead. We used body percussion for our rhythm, and it sounded perfect! No one knew the difference!

4. Rely On Standard Repertoire
First grade had been working on “In The Woods” for fun since the beginning of the year. I wouldn’t usually add a call and response song to a concert, but it worked really well! …and everyone was so impressed that the kids could remember and sing the last part without an issue! (The last part being; “Well, the smile was on the germ, and the germ was on the bug and the bug was on the wing” etc.…. )

5. Ask The Kids
The fourth grade was working on their compositions based on their art, as well as “The Star Spangled Banner”. It came down to choosing one or the other, so I asked the kids and they wanted to sing our national anthem, as they are studying American History. No problem! We sang it for the concert, and we are picking up right where they left off on their compositions this week. I am hoping to perform them at some point, but they had the choice.

We received rave reviews and the kids felt good about what they presented ……and isn’t that what it is all about anyway?

Let us know what you do when time is an issue in the comments below!

I LOVE this song! “Hop Old Squirrel” can be used to solidify concepts that you have covered in the lesson, will encourage them to participate, and will get them up and moving!! (Which is always a plus!) As you know, we have been working on fast/ slow and high/ low with our “sound roadways” and “animal crossings” in Pre-K. We used toy cars and animals to introduce these ideas, but I also want my students to experience them firsthand …. and what better way to do that then to act them out!

Enter “Hop Old Squirrel”.

This song is simple to sing ~ thus, simple to change! Here’s the basic lesson:

• Introduce the song by singing it and doing the movements in place
• Create other actions, still staying in one spot
  • Run Old Squirrel
  • Munch Old Squirrel
• Have kids do the actions moving around the room (usually in a circle around the rug)
• Ask kids for different animals and the actions they will be doing
  • Waddle Old Duck
  • Scurry Old Lizard
  • Stomp Old Dino
  • (I will often ask kids what animals they have on their shirts, to help them)
• Kids can sometimes have an easier time remembering animals, but the actions sometimes take a while, so I will play an Alberti Bass pattern while they think about it!

Extension 1

In the roadways and animal crossings lessons, we discovered that cars and animals can go slow/ fast and high/ low. We can apply these concepts to “Hop Old Squirrel”!

Sound Roadways:

• We sang the song as always, the first time around
• Just like in Sound Roadways, I asked the kids to tell me which cars, or animals in this case, move quickly, and which move slowly
• They yell out the answers and I play the song faster or slower depending on the animal 
• We move around the room slowly or quickly, depending on what we decided! 

Animal Crossings:

• Again, we sing the song without changes the first time
• As kids are choosing animals, we can decide if they need a high sound or a low sound. Birds, butterflies and other small animals/ insects are high and typically, dinos and sharks are played in the low register. 
• Although we sing the song in the correct register, I play the piano octaves higher or lower to reinforce this concept

The kids have a blast, and they are using their whole body to reinforce these concepts!! Love this!

Extension 2

In Kindergarten we are getting ready to rewrite “Over in The Meadow”. We have read a few versions (Like “Over in the Ocean”) that I was able to get at the library (although there are a ton more!) and we will decide what habitat we want to use and go from there. To get the kids moving and thinking about what animals they want to include in a certain habitat, we will play “Hop Old Squirrel”! 

This is the kind of song that you can pull out at any time! You can keep this going as long as needed! It can be a great filler when you are finished with your lesson early or want to plug in a movement activity in between 2 sitting ones. 

Let us know in the comments below what you do with this song! We are always looking for more ideas!!

Last week we explored length of sound in Pre-K! I just got a new set of NK magnets (I was still using my prototype set from way back when) and wanted to take these out for a spin! So I put one of each of the sound side and asked the kids what they noticed.

Kids noticed different colors and sizes ~ perfect! I first asked which was the longest one. “GRAY”, they all shouted! …and which is the shortest? “Orange!”. Yes! …but I did mention that it is actually a funky kind of orange called “terra cotta”. They said it, but forgot almost immediately. Oh well….that’ll come 🙂

I knew asking them to put them in order from shortest to longest was a bit to ask, so I placed them out of order and asked if they looked like stairs in their house? (The step xylophone helped!)

“Nooooo”. OK, so what if I change them around a bit? I switched them a couple of time until they looked like this:

OK! So now we went right into the first phase of the Note Knacks lesson plans and sang while we I dragged my finger across. The goal was to have kids start together, continue together and stop at the end together. They did a great job! (I also made the stopping point VERY obvious with a large arm wave gesture!!) We made all kinds of sounds! One kid made a car sound so the next time we did it, I “drove” the car across on the board. They thought that was hilarious!! (I should mention that I had the cars ready to go. I knew that if we talked about different sounds, someone would certainly come up with a car sound)

To take it to the next level, I placed the magnets on the floor and made a “roadway”…

…and then another one….

One of the kids said that the car looked like a race car. “Do race cars go fast or slow?” “FAST!” SO we said our car sound very fast as I drove the car across the gray very fast. We did that a few times, as they loved it!! Then we took the large truck and because it would drive slower, I drove it across slowly and we said our sound slowly.

I hadn’t even thought about bringing up tempo until a student mentioned it. This is what I LOVE about teaching. You never know what they are going to come up with and how they will help teach themselves!!

Let us know your brilliant children stories in the comments below!!!!

Today we tinkered. I added a step before #4 of the worksheet (see last week’s post HERE) so that the kids could have a chance to explore before they made final decisions.

We looked at the notes that they were able to use. I encouraged them to repeat notes and add neighboring notes, as stated in the directions, but I also showed them that they could add several notes in-between what they had already written. Each student was able to use a xylophone, metallophone or glock to try out their ideas.

As you can see, they were just working in quarters with and without stems. Before we get to changing rhythms, it seemed to make sense for them…. one step at a time. We did speak about rhythm and how you could change it, but they all just tinkered with adding notes. ….next time!

The great thing about this lesson is that it gives you a chance to step back and observe. I saw kids working very hard trying a lot of different ideas, kids trying only a couple of ideas and just sort of “hanging out” and those kids who were lost and wandering around just wasting time until this could all be over.

Today I didn’t intervene; I really wanted to step back and see who did what. The cool thing was that I saw kids who generally don’t try a whole lot in music step up and try very hard in this exercise. Other kids who usually shine, didn’t necessarily do so in this case. It is a reminder to give kids lots of different experiences so that everyone can have a chance to shine.