Patriotic Program

This year has really been a year of growth. Especially in learning how to put on a concert!  I had my first choir concert, attended my first choir festival, and created my first program from scratch.  Man, I am glad some of those milestones are behind me ;)

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!  

Three Things: A Book, Movement Story, and Rhythm Game

 I am linking up with Mrs. Miracle's Music Room this week to talk about three things that worked well in my classroom currently!  For more ideas, click the picture below and check out other bloggers three things! 

 1. Little Bunny Foo Foo 

Kinders and 1st graders love this silly story.  First, I sing the story for them.  The following class they like to sing along. Sometimes I don't know about this story...a little bit violent! We always talk about what Bunny Foo Foo could do instead!  Was he making a good choice?  Never the less, it is such a classic and especially, Kinder enjoys it so much.  I read it last year and I had students request to read it again consistently for months! 

2. Bunny Story

This is such a great way to work on listening skills while the students get some wiggles out.  This is one of those lessons that is just pure joy and the students have so much fun they don't even realize they are learning so much! Click here for the bunny story script!

3. Summer Rhythms Freebie

The Yellow Brick Road blog is full of goodies including some recent freebies!  She just released quite a few and her Summer Rhythms one, is a perfect quick activity for practicing ta and titi.  It also gets students moving and there are many ways you can use this set! Click on the picture above to check it out! 

Star Wars Lessons

Star Wars seems to be everywhere these days and my music room is no exception!  I just recently did round two of some of these movie based lessons and thought I would compile a post about the activities I use!

1. Star Wars Mirroring 

Its testing season so I am trying to keep lessons light, moving, and a lot of review!  To get our bodies moving I decided it would be a good time to introduce mirroring.  We talked about what mirroring is as a class and what we are trying to accomplish through this exercise.  I explained that we are expressing the music through our bodies, we are learning to improvise, using teamwork.  We are not trying to trick the person copying.  We are working together to show how the music makes us feel and move. 

Once we were all on same page of what it is and what are goal is, we began practicing.  First, I was the leader and the class stood scattered in their own space, standing, and facing me.  A teacher in my district played some music from the recent "The Force Awakens" movie in a mirroring activity and what an amazing soundtrack to move to.  I started with "Rey's Theme" and the students mirrored me.  There were a lot of giggles at first, but soon a hush came over the class and you could tell they were really focusing, trying to copy my movements.  

To end the activity for the day I had the students split into pairs, sitting and facing their partner.  I told the students to decide who would be the first leader and when I tap the triangle it would be the other partners turn to be the leader.  We discussed that if you are truly successful in mirroring that I should not be able to tell who the leader is.  We started off with just upper body for the day by sitting.  I continued using the same music so that the students could really get comfortable with it and build ideas to it. 

We will extend through a few classes by adding full body movement, movement across the room, and lastly adding scarves.  Also, for a final wrap up I plan to use scarves and movement across the room by splitting pairs into four different groups.  The four different group will move mirroring their partner at different times signaled by a triangle tap.  They must freeze when it is another groups turn.  I would pre establish this and write it on board and call out the form before performing.  

2.  Parachute Form 

This one I actually did outside and I split the students into two groups to use two parachutes.  They really enjoyed it! Teaches form and teamwork. The bubble part is the hardest part to get.  Students always want to yank the parachute down too quickly!! 

3. Rhythm Wars 

There are two posts I would recommend when researching this idea: 

Music a la Abbott

Ariosos Studio

One tip from me: When making the pool noodles I used red, green, and orange.  Looking back I would have just made them out of red and green.  Then I could have a group of "Light Side Jedi's" and "Dark Side Jedi's".  It would be easier when saying who's turn is first or keeping track of which groups turn. I don't even think there is an orange light saber in any of the movies!