Week 2 in GamePlan

***Updated Week 2****

5th Grade
Rhythm review – we worked the suggested rhythm patterns. Some of the syncopated rhythms were tricky for the kids.
A section – add the words “don’t rush take your time” while they pat
B section – use du, du-de and dugadega syllables
C section – I’ll use the words “clap your hands then keep it steady” to the rhythm notated and talk about dotted quarter.
Perform with the music!
Dis Solda didn't make a lot of sense but the kids really enjoyed the lesson! I just focused the lesson around low sol and had half the class play the ostinato and the other half sing. It took just a few minutes but it was a great activity! I was able to assess the students that had trouble with the patterns.
Boston Tea Party is a dance they already know from last year so it will be good review after a structured Orff lesson!!!

4th Grade
I will do “I Want to Rise” as written in the process/arrangement. With my instrumentarium I’ll probably put the CBB/BX/BM on AX and SX as well. On the AM/SM I’ll also add AG and SG and then the rest of the kids will be the cabasa and hand drum parts. If we do it for parents I’ll have some kids be designated singers so we can hear everything! We didn't do the B section. Instead we just did the instrument parts as a little interlude before singing again.
The movement activity was a lot of fun!!! They loved working on an 8 beat pattern for the B section!
We sang the staff song and briefly talked about the lines and spaces before lining up.

3rd Grade
We did a steady beat activity and rhythm flashcards to start class.
1-2 min. of solfege echo singing
1-2 min. of reading SML patterns (smartboard)
“Golden Rule” activity – I love how it’s processed out but I am going to transpose it to F pentatonic to stick with the 4th grade lesson. I don’t want the kids taking up time switching the bars around – they know what pentatonic is and how to set up in various pentatonic but it still takes a bunch of time. It’s easier for me to transpose a lesson. (As long as they’re not singing too low.)
For the Moving to the Pulse activity I’ll use the online metronome and set it so that the beat they need to step on is red. (http://webmetronome.com/)
I’m not sure how much time I’ll have for the telephone game so we might do poison rhythm if there’s not enough time to teach how the game works. And, I’ll only do 3 rhythms to start – ta ta titi ta, ta ta ta rest, and titi titi ta ta.

2nd Grade
I thought about skipping “I Can Keep the Beat” and going right into singing a few So Mi patterns but we tried it and the kids really had fun!
I’ll teach Clap Your Hands as a song and game first and then we’ll look a SmartBoard visual with hearts for the beat and words. Students will add ta or titi to the appropriate heart beat.
We’ll do more rhythm reading with the rhythm cards
We’ll do the Moving to the Pulse activity and finish with the Charlie activity as it’s presented in the book.

1st Grade
For time’s sake I’m going to skip Two Little Apples and go right into the Clap, Clap, Clap Your Hands lesson. I’ll also add a SmartBoard visual for them to drag the verses to perform in the order of their choice.
Moving to the pulse as written in the book – we’ve done stuff like this before and they love it!
I’m going to teach Hickory Dickory with extra stuff so I’m skipping I Think Music’s Neat.
There’s an online resource with nursery rhymes that I’ll pull up on the board
http://ngfl.northumberland.gov.uk/Foundation/nurseryrhymes/resources.htm
We’ll learn the poem from this, do the motions suggested, add various vocal qualities and then add instruments. I’ll play the pulse on the Temple Blocks and I’ll set up several glockenspiels for glissandos that 4-5 can play at a time. We’ll rotate “train” style until everyone can play all the glissandos.
We’ll end with Monkey See and I’ll play the guitar while they sing instead of the BX.

2nd week of lessons

Today was the start of my 2nd week and I'm reviewing from week 1 and adding in the instruments as a "Mallet Madness" style of rotation.
5th - used "Out Goes the Rat" to divide between woods, metals and skins
4th - planned to use "Listen" but time did not allow for today.
3rd - used "Go! Go! Go!" and "Fuzzy Wuzzy" to play and rotate around the set up.
2nd - today my 2nd graders came in super fidgety so we actually started class with "Jump Jim Joe" from the New England Dancing Masters. After getting our wiggles out we reviewed the Orff instruments and rotation and used "Go! Go! Go!" to rotate.
1st - we used "Welcome Back to School" as the rotation and playing song as well as rhythm echoing and other basic Mallet Madness warm ups.

I decided that I'm going to wait until next week to introduce "Listen" with 4th and 5th grade. (Maybe 3rd????)

September Week 1 notes

5th grade:
I love the Good Morning song and the kids really enjoyed this activity all week!
I put this rhythm on the board - ti ta ti ta ta
After having students clap the rhythm I had them come up with other ways they could use their body percussion to play that rhythm for me. Some kids were really creative! I had a lot of mouth sounds in addition to stomps, claps, pats and snaps! haha!
After sharing with each other we put the syncopated rhythm into a 4 measure phrase. The first three measures were the syncopated rhythm -1st all stomps, 2nd all pats and 3rd all claps. The fourth measure was ta ta ta rest and we "air partner" clapped. Students got with a partner and we put it together with this speech:
Put it in your feet
Put it in your lap
Put it in your hands
Partner Clap (rest)
I labeled it as the B SECTION (this is a modification from the rhythm in the book)
Then I played guitar and taught them the A section by rote.
We put A and B together with our partners and then played the game (each time A happens we find a new partner!)
We then went to our seats and I displayed the poem "Out Goes the Rat" on the smart board with the rhythm notated. Students found the measures with 'ti ta ti ta ta' and we worked out the body percussion with the rhythm of the words. I taught it basically right from the book but we used drums in the A section, woods were the syncopated rhythm parts and metals were the half notes.

Just those 2 lesson parts along with making a seating chart took up the 45 minutes in my class. Next week I plan to use the poem "Out Goes the Cat" in Mallet Madness style.

4th grade (we did the same lesson as 5th grade.)

3rd grade - I used Jeff and Randy's "Welcome Back to School" (from one of their holiday books) as our first activity and Artie Almeida's Rhythm Rockets as our 2nd activity. Sometimes there were a few minutes left so we practiced our rhythm flashcards.

2nd grade - I acutally used the 3rd grade "Up the Ladder" song/game with 2nd grade and they really enjoyed it! They had fun when I would spontaneously change "one by one" with "two by two," etc!
We used the Chapelle track "Rock and Stop" to demonstrate non-locomotor and locomotor steady beat.
Some classes did the "Fuzzy Wuzzy" poem with instruments and some classes did the "Go Go Go" activity with instruments. I have both on smart board to show the accent on the specific beats and we played our unpitched percussion on the accents. We passed them on the B section

1st grade - After the seating chart we got in a circle and kept the steady beat while I played the drum. Students would take turns finding a new way to show the beat and we would "follow the leader." After several student rotations we used "All the Way to Gallway" (RM) as the music for our steady beat.
I taught them "Welcome Back to School" (from the 1st grade book) and they picked their own unpitched percussion and we worked on passing and playing.
We came back to our seats and looked at the visual I made for "5 Little Monkeys" - as I read the book we played with our vocal exploration and after the story I had a slide with different line shapes and we did vocal exploration on "oooo" - a student volunteer or two got to come to the board to draw their own shape for the vocal exploration.

Stay tuned in a couple weeks for how I adapted and used September week 2!!!!