I feel like I just wrote a post about the end of school and now here I am writing about going back to school! In my defense, my school goes year-round. We get three weeks off in June/beginning of July and then we’re back to it. So we are already in our third week!
The first few weeks of music class have been full of fun and adventure! We have already started recorder with the 3rd-8th graders and all the classes have learned two folk dances already.
Since this week was Shark Week in TV land, I decided to do a bunch of ocean-themed activities. I created a few new resources for myself (more on that later!), borrowed a resource from a fellow teacher that I had purchased last year and forgot about, and I took a couple traditional folk dancing songs and changed the words to fit out theme.
First, we did Shark Attack Solfege! The students had to choose which solfege pattern matched the notes on the staff and then sing them. Then, we learned the song Sea Shell and I created a few Orff instrument parts to go along with it. We used drums, glockenspiels, triangles, and maracas to create a whole ensemble piece. The 3rd-8th grades practiced some recorder notes and rhythms using Fishin For a Melody by David Rowe.
For the K-2nd grades, we moved to the song Old Brass Wagon, but we changed the words to Little Red Sailboat. And for the older grades, we danced to Alabama Gal but changed the words to Little Mermaid Gal. The older kids are always a little squeamish about dancing with each other at first but they always end up loving the dances and begging for more when we’re done!
**Fishin For a Melody is a recorder resource created by David Rowe at Make Moments Matter and can be purchase in his Teachers Pay Teachers shop.
Miss Donna 4 Music 