Aug 13, 2024 | Activities
Making a rain stick is easy and a bouquet of flowers (rainbow streamers!) is quick and simple! Here’s how easy the streamers are to make:
Gather your old, frayed scarves. This is the only thing you need!
1. Pull on both sides of the tear on your used fraying scarves to make the strips of fabric.
2. Line up the long narrow strips of fabric in assorted colors.
3. Knot the strips on one end (this is what the children “hide” in their hands).
At the end of this video, you see us using the streamers to Carmina Burana, activity from my book/CD Kids Can Listen, Kids Can Move.
Here’s a video playlist of activities that are enhanced by the use of rainsticks and rainbow streamers. The first video is how to make the rainstick.
Here are two more songs that are great with rainbow streamers:
Aug 13, 2024 | Activities
“Who’s that tapping? Who’s that scratching?”
From our toddlers, preschoolers, and K-2, everyone loves singing “Who’s That Hatching” and playing with their hatching babies! Each child picks a baby animal for the game, and depending on the age of the class, children use ribbed rhythm sticks, tone blocks, or Orff instruments to accompany. Grade 1-2 has fun creating their “egg” rhythms with the babies tapping their way out of the shells!
Take a peek at a clip from one of my Live Teacher Trainings for a lesson on “Who’s That Hatching?”. In this video, half of the class plays Orff instruments while the others sing for the babies. The other half of teachers listen, then match their pitches.
We have so many hatching animal puppets in the Music Rhapsody Store! You can also make your own with the pattern on page 58 of the In All Kinds of Weather, Kids Make Music Book and CD.
Please note: We just learned my books with Alfred Publishing will be increasing in price soon. If you don’t have these yet, check out the Book Pack Special for the best value.
Aug 13, 2024 | Spring Music
Happy Spring! Music Box is full of ideas for Earth Day, Easter, and Spring!
A teacher asked if my lessons plans work in elementary schools, since the videos I share are from my small studio classes. YES! Our elementary schools don’t allow video recording, so in our Music Rhapsody Studio Classroom it’s much more convenient to set up cameras. (Just remember, if you see wiggling and squirming, the children have just come from a full day of school! Ha.)
This week, my Rhythm Readers classes and I had a great time playing “Pease Porridge Hot”. Take a look at some of the props we used as notation! The porridge cups are used for the beat, spoons for the rhythm, and rhythm sticks are used for barlines.
The student’s work below shows the rhythm for “Pease porridge in the pot, nine days old.”
Here’s a fun game we played with the rhyme in a first grade class. Half the class placed the children in the order of the rhythm of the rhyme. A pot holding one spoon is one sound on a beat (“pease”), two spoons is two sounds on the beat or eighth notes (por-ridge), and sitting down is a rest. So much fun!
Watch one of our studio classes playing the instrumental part of the lesson:
Typically we use Rhythm Readers for Grade 1, Melody Makers for Grade 2 and Recorder Rookies for Grade 3 for elementary curriculum.
Music Rhapsody Members, you should access these from your members only store in your teacher area.
Reminder!! The price for SUMMER LIVE TRAINING increases after April 15. (Returning Teachers are half tuition). Hope you can join me for 4 full jam-packed days!
