Lynn Osborne shared this lesson in our “Back to School Lesson” contest from last year, and was the first runner up from our entries. In this lesson she shares her process for getting to know what her students like about school and a variety of ways to explore sing, say, dance, and play.

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PROCEDURES:

Opening Warm up: Students enter classroom for warmup; Students stretch and create movements to rhythm of various rap recordings; (NOTE: when playing RAP music in the classroom, always be sure to check it first for appropriate language and subject matter)  

RHYTHM ACTIVITY:    

Step 1                                                                                                                                                             

• S’s in front of SMARTBOARD with new Notebook page opened, with title “What’s Cool for Back At School?”  This is a 4-beat musical phrase as shown below: What’s Cool for Back At School?  

• Teacher speaks this phrase several times to a RAP rhythm, clapping a 4-beat RAP steady beat as the phrase is repeated; Simple 4-beat RAP-clap rhythm below:  

• S’s echo Teacher several times.
• Teacher points around class with question eyes until a Student raises a hand and says something “NEW” about being back in school (for instance: “Friends”; “Recess”; Science” etc…)
• Teacher or a student scribes the ideas onto SMARTBOARD onto the Notebook page and keeps repeating the process, adding new words but always going back to the “What’s Cool …?” chant between ideas. (NOTE: NOT REQUIRED for every student to contribute an idea!)   

Step 2     

• All Students clap RAP beat and speak chant, then three different words or phrases, then back to chant, then three more words/phrases, until all have been spoken.
• Next to each word or phrase, students take turns writing out the notation rhythm of the word/phrase, until ALL the ideas have been notated.    
• For example: Play-ing at re- cess

Step 3  Move/Rhythm Rondo

• Students in groups of 4-5 choose 4-5 words or phrases
• Each group creates a body-percussion pattern for their words, and practices it together. Create a circle so that each group follows the last
• On REFRAIN: Students create movement for the refrain, What’s Cool for Back At School? Chant it several times in unison, everyone using the movement; (Can be locomotor or non-locomotor
• After each REFRAIN: Each group gets a chance to perform their individual word chant with body percussion;  

Step 4  Extensions For Following Lessons   

• Students set up xylophone instrumentarium in G pentatonic scale  

IMPROVISE: Using these notes, students choose a word or phrase to play the rhythm; Improvise using these 5 tones and explore possibilities;  

TONIC: Teacher asks each student to end their words/phrases on the “G”, or tonic, “do”;  

MOVEMENT:  Students in each group decide on one specific “cool” thing about being back at school to create pantomime scene for C part of RONDO. Using chosen xylophone(s), have 2-3 students from each group act out the “cool” thing while the 2-3 others create a pentatonic ostinato to accompany their IMPROVISED SCENE.  

PERFORM RONDO: ABCABCABCABCA

A =ALL perform REFRAIN
B= GROUP performs BODY PERCUSSION
C= GROUP performs PANTOMIME SCENE with accompaniment 

REFLECTION:  Students discuss this process, what would they do differently, new ideas for next time, more themes.  

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The Deep Blue Sea
by Audrey Wood
ISBN-10: 0439753821

Grade Level: 1^st
[Adaptable to Kindergarten]

Objectives:

• Sing Sol-Mi-La patterns from icons.
• Perform beat accompaniment (chord bordun) for a pentatonic song using appropriate mallet technique.
• Use instruments to represent characters or special words in a story.
• Dramatize a story with movement; use creative movement to represent characters.

Process: 

• Read story to group. Review sequence of events with class or summarize story.  (Be sure to point out the cloud’s progress on each page.)
• Teach song “In the Sea” 1) by rote, or 2) use the following process using fish icons to represent Sol-Mi-La on a two-line staff:
  • Present a visual such as below:

• • Fish icons contain text of song
  • Teacher sings/plays first melodic phrase, students move fish to notate melodic contour. (The Smart board is perfect for this activity or you can make your own by using pre-cut fish and writing the text on fish.)
  • Add steady beat chord bordun accompaniment on D and A.

• Add melody on the recorder for the A¹ Students explore swimming through space like fish.  Extend to using fish finger puppets (different colored scarves would work great too).  Perform A A¹A.
• As a class, practice experimenting moving to demonstrate each color word, i.e., “How can you move to show the sea?” “How can you move to show the sea differently?” Explore all colors, and then proceed to next step.
• Add the following props, puppets, and special unpitched (for storm and colors) to the story:

“Blue”       – blue and white scarves wave/ocean drum

“Red”        – red scarves pop in the air/rocks click together once

“Green”     – flutter green scarves/wind chime

“Brown”    – brown scarf circles/woodblock plays one time

“Purple”    – purple scarf “swoops” down/voices swoop high to low (or use slide whistle)

“Orange”   – using orange scarves, move through space like a butterfly/cabasa

“Black”      – gong or cymbal

“White”     – Use a two-sided “cloud on a stick.”  It begins by moving across the space taking small sideward steps.  It continues across the space during story, with the cloud flipping over to the gray side on the word “gray.”  (In the classroom, use two pieces of white card stock, cut out a cloud shape and attach to a ruler “popsicle” style.  Color one side of the cloud gray.”)

“It’s raining on the rocks” – rainstick (or ad lib notes played on SX/AX in D pentatonic)

“Ocean/sea”  – Ocean drum (3x)

Final Performance:

• Begin with song (Form: A=song, A¹= recorder plays melody/fish swim, A=song) followed by three “waves” conducted by narrator/teacher.
• Read story. As each new color is introduced in the story, the correlating scarf, instrument, or prop performs each time it occurs in the story.
• Song is performed on the pages where the following text occurs: 1) “The fishies come up to play,” and 2) “It’s raining on the rock.”
• On last page as accompaniment plays, students hum melody of song. Students with scarves gather around fish, hold hands up high (with scarves in hand).  The cloud is in middle of circle held up over fish.
• Coda – Ocean drum plays 3x.

Extensions:

• Consider adding more instruments to create a storm such as a bass drum, temple blocks, thunder tubes, etc.
• Allow students to choose the instruments to represent the special words.
• Add a creative writing/arts element after the final performance; students can write about their experiences performing the story and then draw/color a picture to illustrate the performance. Another possibility would be to provide questions such as “My favorite part of the story was when ______________.”  “My special job in the story was ________________________.”

The post Engaging Children With Literature: The Deep Blue Sea first appeared on Teaching With Orff.

Download the lesson here:

Chord or Level Bordun Assignment

The post Lesson: Chord or Level Bordun Setting for Pentatonic Melodies first appeared on Teaching With Orff.

Download the lesson here: Roots Lesson 1

The post Exploring Our Roots, Expanding Our Future: Lesson 1 first appeared on Teaching With Orff.