2, 4, 6, 8 and the Featured Item of the Week- click to see!

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Don't forget to enter my April Giveaway to win any item your choice of any item from my store. The winner will be drawn on May 1st. 

I just finished some really adorable slides for the song "2, 4, 6, 8." This song is awesome for teaching rhythm as the "way the words go" or in your prepare/present/practice of ti-ti.

Here's a preview of some of the slides and student worksheets:

Title Page

Lyrics

Icons for steady beat- I use these before I introduce the heart beat, if I am preparing steady beat.

Lyrics added: 

Now with heart beats:

Heartbeats plus lyrcis.

Icons for "the way the words go", rhythm, and visually preparing ta and ti-ti.












I have also come up with the following student worksheets that are great for tracking the steady beat, and pre-reading ta and titi with "long and short". Print one for each student or print and laminate a class set to reuse. 



Thanks for stopping by!

Preparing Steady Beat: Johnny Works With One Hammer

I can't wait until next year when I will see Pre-K and Kindergarten (woohoo!), but my first grade babies this year are working so hard! I am getting very close to presenting steady beat with them (probably next week). When I was in my level 1 training, my teacher Jo Kirk had these wonderful hammers with bells inside that we used to tap the steady beat. I couldn't afford to buy them and don't currently have the time or know-how to make them (although that is on my list), but last year at Target, I did find some hammers in the dollar bins so I picked up about 25 or so to use with a few of our favorites for preparing and practicing steady beat.


They sure do take up a lot of storage space, but they are awesome to have!

I first pull them out when using "Johnny Works With One Hammer." First we sing the song as an action song. 

After we know it pretty well, we form a circle and I go over procedures for the hammers, what it's resting position looks like, and what happens if you don't take care of the hammer (you will have to put it away and just use your hand!). 

We pass them out so that everyone has a hammer, and we sing the song again tapping the floor:


Mending our shoes:


And tapping our neighbor's knees, which they love! 


Then we move back to our seats and I put up the hammer icons on the board. I usually find that my beat visuals are the most successful after the kids know the song really well, so the visual preparation is usually the last thing I do. I use one of the hammers or a pointer to tap the beats while the students pat their knees.


Once they get the hang of this and know how I move from one line to the next, I invite them to come up and try to be the pointing maestro: 

(Notice, my projector screen is too high, I think I am going to put in a work order this summer to have my projector point down so that I can use the board and not the pull down screen. There's lots of times that I would like to write on the slides and the screen doesn't work too well for that, plus it's a little high for my kids. When my kids point to this one, I erase the top two lines of hammers and say that when they get to the end, they go back and do it again. So we learn repeats early! :)

Sometimes I have my students who are not pointing at the board point to their own beat sheet or play "the hammers" on their rhythm sticks.




Steady Beat and Ta/ Ti-ti Student Sheets

I am always looking for quick meaningful ways of assessing my students. One super easy way of seeing if your kids are ready for the presentation of steady beat is to use beat tracking charts. When I pull out a beat tracking chart during the prepare stage, I never label it as the "steady beat". I simply say "help pat our knees while I point to these pictures of the snails" 





 or "Watch me point to the trains as they leave the station!" 

I call their attention to how I point from left to right and where I go when I get to the end of the first line (the beginning of the second line). All of these things help or reinforce what the classroom teachers are doing to teach these young ones how to read.

After they have watched me point lots of times over a period of time, and they seem like they are able to keep the beat in their laps, I ask other students to use my pointers to help us follow the trains. They all want a turn to use the fancy pointer and be the leader and so I usually have to spread it over several class periods so everyone can get a turn. While one student is pointing at the white board, the rest of the class can watch and pat, play classroom percussion instruments like the sand blocks or rhythm sticks or they could practice pointing at their own beat chart (like my student beat charts above). 

After we have labeled the steady beat, I use heart beat charts for a while to reinforce the terminology:

These heart beat charts from my beat charts packet on TpT. It includes hearts and a variety of other clip art to go along with songs from your folk song collection.


When practicing, student beat charts make for a fast assessment. I can walk down each row while we sing and watch to see if students are able to keep the beat by pointing to the icons. 

After I present ta and ti-ti I use a student sheet like this so that they can practice writing the rhythms on each beat. I tell them that each bar is one beat.





I could even have them write the rhythms to a new or familiar song without telling them the title using my dictation sheets:


This set is 32 pages and includes beat and rhythm pages for the following songs:

Apple Tree
Bee Bee Bumblebee
Bounce High Bounce Low
Engine Engine Number Night
I Climbed Up the Apple Tree
Lucy Locket
Queen Queen Caroline
Rain Rain Go Away
See Saw Up and Down
Snail, Snail
Starlight, Starbright

Plus four pages for dictation/mystery song.

I have also added the student rhythm writing worksheet for Bounce High Bounce Low as a freebie in my store. Click here.

Just one more thing: I hit a personal goal yesterday selling my 100th item on TpT. To celebrate, I will throw a 15% off sale- TODAY ONLY!

Hope you have a great weekend!


Featured Item of the Week: La Bundle

I have started doing a featured item of the week in my store. For that week only the featured item will be 20% off. This is the biggest percent that TpT will let us take off of our items, so it's a great time to grab it if it's a product you've been eyeing.


This bundle of songs and resources for teaching "la" contains:

PDF of slides for
-Naughty Kitty Cat
-Snail Snail
-Johnny's It
-Bounce High, Bounce Low
-Lucy Locket
-Ickle Ockle

All are set up for use during prepare/present/practice to allow you to use them however it works best for your concept plan.


I have also included a powerpoint of the Solfa  Street.

Repertoire list for La Songs

Hand Sign Posters for mi, so, and la

Monthly Freebie



This freebie is open to those who follow me on Teachers Pay Teachers, my blog or who have "liked" my Facebook page:  Lindsay's Kodaly Inspired Classroom

https://sites.google.com/site/teacherspayteachersfreebies/

This month my freebie includes two beat charts- one in color and one in black and white. You could project these onto your board, or print student copies. If printing copies, I suggest card stock and laminating so that you can use again and again!

Thank you for being my follower!

Please feel free to share my blog, TpT page, or Facebook page with others, but do not share this freebie directly.

This product is for your classroom use only, it cannot be repackaged and sold.

Thanks!

Lindsay

Rainy Day Rhythms

My first graders (I don't see kindergarten) are practicing their high and low sounds and getting ready to learn about steady beat and rhythm as "the way the words go" pretty soon.

We are having some great fun with rainy day activities and the timing is perfect as we have been getting some rainy days here in Kansas.

I read a book "Rain Talk" with my kids and I get out my rain sticks and have students help to create the rain storm using the rain sticks. You could use any rainy book. I found this one at Goodwill. I always love to rummage through the cheap books to find ways to tie in literature with my songs. Kids are not read to at home very much anymore, and I feel like this is so important for developing reading skills and imagination so I do my part to help out! This book has some opportunities for vocal exploration and I usually add a sol-mi melody to parts of the text. I sing the song "Rain Rain Go Away" every other page turn and that is their cue that they need to pass their rain stick on to let someone else have a turn.
The kids really enjoy this and I have found that it's a fun way to introduce the song "Rain Rain". 


We put "Rain Rain" on our body scale- "high" on our heads and "low" on our shoulders.  I have these slides like this that I use for high and low:


They are available in my "Rain Rain" collection , my Songs for Spring, or my Sol-Mi Bundle on my teachers pay teachers store. 

I also use my flashcards for this: 

My Sol-Mi flashcard kit had flashcards like this and with the solfege under the icon. This kit is also in the Sol-Mi Bundle.

Next we prepare for steady beat by practicing tapping to the rain drops on the board: 


Once we know I will bring this song back for "The way the words go", "long/short" sounds, and ta/titi.

Once we get to ta-titi, here are some fun activities I have created to go with it!









Team clouds:



I cut out these little rain drops and stick tape on the back and we tape it to the team's cloud every time they get a point. The team with the most raindrops on their cloud wins!
Other ideas:

Match iconic rhythm to real rhythm



You can purchase this game from my tpt store and download a preview of it here.

Lindsay