Having put on my program just last night I think it is the perfect time to reflect on it! My school is all about traditions and patriotism so naturally a patriotic program would be a great annual event to start! I have to be honest though...I am not the biggest fan of patriotic music, BUT actually through this program, I think I might like it a bit more. What sold me was watching and listening to my kiddos sing some of these classic songs. They had so much fun and learned a lot!
The break down of my concert:
I based it off of the book "A is for America" by Tanya Lee Stone.
This adorable book had short little rhymes for each letter featuring numerous important places, people, and things to our country. Each letter became a speaking part for the students which meant 26 parts.
I selected about 8 letters to connect a song with.
A is for America- America (My Country tis of Thee)
- We sang the song and performed sign language for some select words.
- Beth's Music Notes has a great post about how to add in the sign language!
B is for Baseball- Take me out to the Ballgame
- In the book it actually had something different but I changed it to baseball and created my own rhyme.
- I used a cute version of the song from Music K-8
- I had half of the students use kazoos and half strictly sing.
- It became a playful battle for the song between the singers and kazoo players. We had fun with it.
- I purchased Kazoos from Party City that worked pretty well.
F is for Flag- Oh When the Flag come Marching in
- This is clever song that a colleague created.
- She based it off of When the Saints go Marching in
- Each student had a small flag and performed some movements with each verse.
I is the Independence- Aim High as a Hawk
- Independence is the name of our school so we sang our school song.
- Perhaps instead this song could work, Oh I Love America
K is Martin King Jr- Sing about Martin
- This song is featured in the Silver Burdett series.
- This song is actually a Kindergarten song but so adorable and easy.
- It is a call and response song so either you could sing with the recorded singer on the CD or have student solos.
- Motions:
- Martin- Sign language M
- Caring- Two hands over heart
- Peace- Peace sign (so creative, right? ;)
- All around the world- draw a circle in the air
- Loving- Make a heart with hands
S is for State- Fifty Nifty
- This is another one that was not in the book and made my own little rhyme.
- This is by far the favorite of my student! It is such a classic!
- We learned the states by chunks. I put about five to seven states at a time on the board depending how they are grouped in the song. We sang them in order a few times and one by one I took the last state away until we had all of them memorized. It became a fun challenge for the students.
- I used the movements from the video above.
Y is for Yankee Doodle- Yankee Doodle's Pony
- This is another Music K-8 selection.
- I took inspiration for movements from the video above.
Z is for Israel Zangwill- This Land is your Land
- Another one that I found a good video to take inspiration from!
The possibilities are endless! I had fun putting this together and enjoy the ABC's format. As for communications, reminders, and the program I used www.canva.com. This site is an easy to use graphic design platform. I created so much on this site and I felt so polished and cool yet I have zero design skills!
Here is the program I made:
Fancy, right? ;)
Invitation:
Reminder sent out the week before:
It is fun as I teach more and more, things start to become more fun and less stressful! I really enjoyed how creative you get to be putting together something like this. Now I have the blueprints and a starting point to tweak and improve for years to come!
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