Miss Donna 4 Music

A fun book about the alphabet!

“Chicka Chicka Boom Boom” is a vibrant, rhythmic book that’s perfect for introducing musical concepts to young learners (K-2) during the first weeks of school. The book’s repetitive, catchy phrases and rhythmic patterns make it an ideal tool for engaging students in active listening and musical exploration and helps to reinforce the letters of the alphabet.

Incorporating “Chicka Chicka Boom Boom” into Music Lessons

I have alphabet letter posters that I display around the room, usually in order, though it might be fun to mix them up as well. Half the class has maracas and half the class has drums. I instruct the students that every time I say “chicka chicka” the maracas shake and every time I say “boom boom” the drums play. As I read the story and call out the letters of the alphabet, the students move around the room to find the letters. Every couple of pages we repeat the phrase “chicka chicka boom boom” two times as the students play their prospective instruments.

Tempo and Dynamics with a Hopscotch Rug

A few years ago I found this cute “hopscotch” rug at a yard sale and I knew there had to be a way for me to use it in my music classes. I came up with a music trivia game to use with it when I first got it. But this year I wanted a quick, low-prep, low-materials game to reinforce Tempos and Dynamics we had just gone over with the 3rd-6th graders. What could I use that I already had?

I pulled out some cards with the words “tempo” and “dynamics” as well as cards that had some of the specific tempo and dynamics words we had gone over in class. Then I remembered my hopscotch rug and though it would make the perfect “game board”.

I split the class into teams and gave each team a different colored bean bag as their game piece. For one team at a time, I held up a card. Since we had just learned the various tempos and dynamics, I knew they wouldn’t remember what they all meant that quickly. So, if the card had the actual word “tempo” or “dynamics” they had to tell me what those words meant. But if it was another tempo word (i.e. adagio, allegro) or a dynamic word (i.e. forte, mezzo piano) all they had to tell me was if it was a tempo or dynamic. If they answered correctly, the got to move their bean bag up the hopscotch squares. The first team to 10, won!

This game went along with my floor staff game from the previous week. You can make a quick and cheap floor staff by purchasing some inexpensive canvas fabric, cutting it to the size you want, and use colored electrical tape to create a staff, a treble clef, and some notes. Use the bean bags and have students toss them onto the staff and name the note it lands on. You can break the class up into teams and see which team gets the most correct. You can even assign different point values to the different colors or lines or spaces.

Incorporating “Chicka Chicka Boom Boom” and simple games that don’t require a lot of time or materials to put together into your elementary music curriculum provides a lively and educational start to the school year. The combination of storytelling, rhythm, and interactive games like the hopscotch tempo and dynamics activity or floor staff bean bag toss creates a memorable and effective learning experience.