Toronto Musicplay Workshop - Nov. 5-6, 2017
Would you like additional lessons like this one? If you're in the Toronto area, Denise is doing 2 workshop days: Sunday, Nov. 5th and Monday, Nov. 6th where she'll share lessons like this where the students sing, play, read/write, create, listen and move.
REGISTER for Toronto Workshops - Nov. 5 and/or 6th. Participants will get 2 free months subscription to the online site AND will get great lessons to use in your classrooms.
Halloween Lesson - Old Mother Witch
by Denise Gagne
This is a great lesson for the weeks leading up to Halloween, for Grades PreK - Gr. 4. It's found in Musicplay 2, but because the game is fun, and there are many extensions, you can use it with younger and with older students! When the game is fun, your 4th grade students will still enjoy playing it, especially if you take them outside where they can run. In the kids demo of this game, there were students in Grades 1-5 playing the game. If you are in a school that doesn’t talk about witches, change the word “witch” in the song to “Fitch.” Old Mother Fitch fell in a ditch. Picked up a penny and thought she was rich.
There are many extensions given at www.musicplayonline.com! If you have 4 lessons until Halloween, choose 4 of the extensions. Use some of the extensions with K-1, and some are better suited to Gr. 2-3 or Gr. 2-3-4. There is nothing wrong with playing the same game with multiple grades - saves you planning time!
The interactive activities are found at www.musicplayonline.com. If you don't subscribe to the online site, you can do the same activities without the interaction. Many of us have taught before technology and with technology - you can teach all these suggested activities very successfully without technology. It's just easier for you and may be more engaging for your students with the technology.
If you haven't used the online site . www.musicplayonline.com, you'll get a free month when you subscribe. If you tried it before these activities were created, and would like to try it again now, email denise@musicplay.ca to get a free month to try again. The beat and rhythm activities illustrated below, have been created for over 150 reading songs in Gr. K-6. New activities are created each week!
Process:
Game Directions:
Formation: The children are lined up on one side of the gym. One child (or the teacher) is chosen to be the “witch” and is in the middle of the gym.
Directions:
The children sing the song.
The witch asks “Are you my children?”
The children reply softly “No we’re not!” (piano)
The witch asks “Are you my children?”
The children reply in a louder voice “No we’re not!” (mezzo piano)
The witch asks “Are you my children?”
The children reply in a loud voice “Yes we are!” (forte)
The children try to run past the witch to the other side of the gym without being tagged. When they are tagged they become “witches” also, and try to tag the rest of the children as they cross the gym. This game works best
in the gym or outside between soccer goal posts. In a small room I restrict the witch to tagging only one child each time, and instruct the witch to tag a child who’s really trying to get away. If you are in a school that doesn’t talk about witches, change the word “witch” in the song to “Fitch.” Old Mother Fitch fell in a ditch. Picked up a penny and thought she was rich.
Interactive Beat and Rhythm Activities
We've created interactive beat and rhythm activities for more than 150 songs in Musicplay k-6. Use these activities to teach, practice or assess your students understanding of beat and rhythm.
1. Press Play - as the song is sung, point to the Beat and the beats pulse.
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2. Press play - sing and clap the words. This is the "rhythm."
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3. Beat and Rhythm switch game. Use this game to observe and assess if your students understand the difference between beat and rhythm. Students pat or step the beat when you point to the heart. When you point to the hands, they clap the rhythm.
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4. In this activity press play, and you'll hear a drum playing either the beat or the rhythm. If you answer correctly, the box goes green. You could do this as a written assessment of student understanding of the difference between beat and rhythm.
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 5. Is it one sound or two? (Icons). Do as a class activity, or have students do it individually on iPads or Chromebooks. (email denise@musicplay.ca if you're a subscriber to the site and don't know the student login)
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 6. Is it one sound or two? (notes and rest) . You notate the rhythm of the song. |
Rhythm Sort: This is another way for students to figure out the rhythm of a song. You can do this as a class activity OR individual activity on devices.
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 Rhythm Erase: I like to do this a few weeks after I've taught the song. No song title is shown, so after you've completed the Erase activity, ask the students to identify the song. I call this "Mystery Song. |
This activity can be used with any Halloween song. With student input, create a word rhythm with Halloween words. Then, transfer the word rhythm to body percussion or unpitched instruments. When you decide how to play it, you can use it as an introduction to the song. You could use the song as your A section, the word rhythm as a B section - then decide how to perform the song: ABA or AB, or ABAB. You could use the word rhythm as an ostinato. These extensions turn a simple song into a springboard for many creative activities.
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 The song Old Mother Witch uses only the notes so and mi. Select those notes on the tone ladder, and point to so and mi as the students sing the song. (Click on a letter to make it disappear) |
Note Name Challenge: Drag the letter to the basket to name the note. The "basketball" needs to touch the upper left edge of the basket to "stick" there. If you teach letter names, do this activity. If you teach solfa notes in K-3, do the Solfa Challenge instead.
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Solfa Challenge: Name the solfa notes in the song. If you haven't learned solfege, press Play Song, and the song will be sung in solfa notes
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 Orff Arrangement: The Orff arrangement is found in the Printables Box online. Teach the Orff arrangement, and create B sections using the Halloween word rhythms.
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 This assessment is in printables of the online site. It's intended to use as a quick so-mi practice exercise. The Checkup can be used to assess if your students can identify a rhythm pattern and/or a solfa pattern that you play for them. Don't use this assessment until you've taught your students la, so, mi - so grade 2-3-4, not gr. 1.
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Toronto Musicplay Workshop - Nov. 5-6, 2017
Would you like additional lessons like this one? If you're in the Toronto area, Denise is doing 2 workshop days: Sunday, Nov. 5th and Monday, Nov. 6th where she'll share lessons like this where the students sing, play, read/write, create, listen and move.
REGISTER for Toronto Workshops - Nov. 5 and/or 6th. Participants will get 2 free months subscription to the online site AND will get great lessons to use in your classrooms.
Easy Bucket Drumming is an amazing resource! In addition to the Music Rules activity, there are 18 sequenced activities that will teach your students how to play the parts of the bucket, how to develop hand independance so they can play two parts at the same time, and has arrangements of three pop songs.
The projectable PDF AND the videos of all the pieces, make this really easy to use in your classroom.
View a class lesson where I teach Liberty Bell March from this collection on YouTube: Liberty Bell
Canadian Teachers Easy Bucket Drumming
USA Teachers - link to Easy Bucket Drumming
with body percussion, movement etc, discuss and decide on the final form. Perform.
Link to Poster Packs on Canadian Site - WWW.MUSICPLAY.CA
Link to Poster Packs on USA Site - MUSICPLAY.CA
Link to Poster Packs on Canadian Site - WWW.MUSICPLAY.CA
Link to Poster Packs on USA Site - MUSICPLAY.CA
Orff or Kodaly Chapters: Would you like door prizes for your chapter workshops? We'd be happy to send you a gift certificate for a year's subscription to www.musicplayonline.com . Just email denise@musicplay.ca . Denise may be available for chapter workshops!
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The ukulele and guitar arrangements are online for every song in the program. If you don't subscribe, the arrangements for all of Musicplay are available in 7 volumes:
This app is based on the warmups book, "Strictly Warmups" by Kerry Heisler. The warm-ups in this collection are organized into five sets. Each set includes a physical warm-up, breath awareness, then five minutes of a variety of mid-range warm-ups.
Learn and Play Recorder has everything that you need for your beginning recorder classes. 
Learn and Play Recorder 2 is now available for iTunes and Android devices!