October in the Music Room
As I mentioned in a previous blog post, October in the music room is easily one of the best times of the year: routines have been established, trust has been built and it’s the perfect time to dive into some meatier activities.
While much of the work in music each year is informed and guided by performance repertoire for concerts, there are several traditions that I carry from one year to the next and October holds many of them. Here are some (not even all!) of the highlights:
In Kindergarten, my students are introduced to:
Pass the Pumpkin (from The Singing Classroom): a passing game (I use a small pumpkin that I grab at the farmer’s market) of hide and seek; this song gets students singing in a minor key while feeling and demonstrating the steady beat
Five Batty Bats (from The Singing Classroom): a silly song of misunderstanding where bats are fearful of a witch who, in turn, is equally afraid of the bats–leading us to discover that neither had any reason to be afraid of the other–how silly! This one has some great non-pitched instruments added to create a spooky feeling: sandblocks and a thunderdrum
Skin and Bones (a classic that can be found in many places Gameplan 2nd grade book, Quaver, YouTube): in order to create a spooky vibe, we turn off the lights and close the window shades to make the room a little darker. We sing through this song several times and students get to act out the movements. Dramatic play is always a class favorite!
In First grade, I repeat these favorites, but add:
In the Hall of the Mountain King, is an instrumental piece written by Edvard Grieg. This song is extremely repetitive (the melody of the song is a loop that occurs 18 times!). There is no shortage of activities to accompany this piece and a 1st grade favorite is to do a version of it like “Head Shoulders Knees and Toes,” starting with a single student and then adding another person every time the melody repeats until the whole class is doing the movements. The waiting and watching for their entrance is a fun way to mimic and practice “watching the conductor.” This piece is also a great way for students to understand tempo and dynamics changes as it accelerates (accelerando) and gets louder (crescendo).
Five Batty Bats: gets the addition of Orff instruments and some challenges to play on certain off-beat words. This is super hard and requires a lot of concentration and repetition (we rotate instruments so students have multiple opportunities to practice).
In 2nd, 3rd, & 4th grades students demand to play the games from earlier years, but don’t know all the awesome extensions in store!
For Pass the Pumpkin, after someone has had a turn in the middle, they leave the circle and create an accompaniment on a series of Orff instruments
For In the Hall of the Mountain King, we add playalongs. There are great ones on YouTube (boomwhackers, rhythm sticks) as well as Musicplay Online.
I typically have students use rhythm sticks when practicing precise rhythms. It allows for practice in sight reading quarter and eighth notes + quarter rest or half note (depending on the version you use).
After the rhythm ones, we move on to a boomwhacker playalong—students select a pitch and practice creating the melody in time. They would do this all-day-every day if they had the option!
For Skin and Bones, we add xylophones: the boniest sounding instrument in the music room! After we’ve practiced a few times, one of our favorite things to do is to bring in some audience members and try to scare them. We add a fast flicker of the lights on the final “boo!” Depending on the grade level, the instrumentation is adjusted to create appropriate challenges:
Steady beat on the call
Octave jumps on the call
Broken borduns (steady beat split between two notes, rather than played simultaneously) on the call
Crossover borduns (hands must cross over each other and back) on the call
Tremolos (fast and repetitive reiteration of a single note to create a shaking/nervous sound) on the response
Playing the melody of “oohs” on the response
Thunderdrum on the response
In addition to these favorites, we can’t forget about Pumpkin Bones (Quaver)–one of the biggest earworms of the year! We sing this song, add some movements, and, time permitting, add in some rhythmic playalongs.
PS
Don’t forget about Hispanic Heritage Month! We read books (Drum Dream Girl is a fave where we add instrumentation as well as read the book in English and Spanish), sing songs, and play games.
My students are obsessed with the game song, Al Citron. This is a similar passing activity to Pass the Pumpkin, (we use a lemon shaped shaker) where the student who ends up holding the shaker at the end of the song steps out of the circle to create accompaniments on bass metallophone and bass xylophone.
Whew! That’s A LOT! Hope your October has been full of fun activities and perhaps you’ll find time to check some of these out and add to your class traditions going forward!
Take care,
Joanna