Let’s Make/Play a Music Game!

Hi guys! Have you tried any homemade music games since we’ve been apart? For our music stations at school, I like to use these awesome games from Susan Paradis’s blog. If you have a printer at home, you can print and cut out the game pieces yourself to play at home! If you don’t have access to a printer, it’s easy enough to make your own music game at home.

You can use index cards or cut a sheet of paper into squares or rectangles to make simple flashcards. Then, you only need to write on one side of your flashcards to make this rhythm memory game, or you could create your own treble clef flashcards with a note on one side and its letter name on the other for these notes. All of my Fisher students know how intense the flashcard guessing game gets at school!

Or, you can try to create your own version of one of these music games at home!

Let’s Rap a Book!

Hi friends! Mr. Beekman and I have been loving these Youtube videos of a guy who raps Dr. Seuss books to Dr. Dre beats…do you think you could rap a book? I’ll drop a beat for you to rap to at the bottom. First, here’s an example of rapping the book Fox in Socks:

Here’s a beat from Flocabulary you can use to try rapping one of your books at home!

Let’s Experiment with Chrome Music Lab!

Today is the last day for Elementary Chromebook distribution, so I wanted to remind everyone about one of my very favorite resources on my links tab! Today, I hope you’ll take some time to play with Chrome Music Lab. Here’s a screenshot of what it looks like when you go to the site:

 

We usually experiment with this site during our 5th grade science of sound unit, but it’s really fun for all ages. Try out all of the different apps and see which one you like best!

Let’s Read a Funny Story!

Hi guys! I miss laughing with you, so I grabbed one of my favorite funny books to read with you today. (I know it looks like I didn’t brush my hair, but I promise I did lol. I’ve been out enjoy the beautiful weather in my garden this morning, do you love the hot weather as much as I do?)

I hope your day is full of imagination and improvisation!

Let’s Sing “This Old Man!”

Yesterday, I had the fun chance to be Ms. Wiederkehr’s Monday mystery reader! Reading the book inspired today’s post, you’ll see why when you check out the video here:

Now for the song…can you listen once, then make a list of the numbers and the rhyming words that go with them from memory? Then, try singing it!

Alright, now back to those jazz musicians I was talking about in the book! If you want to learn about the real people we read about, here are the musicians that go with each number, and some links to learn more:

1. Louis “Satchmo” Armstrong
2. Bill “Bojangles” Robinson
   • For my big kids, this video gives an in depth look at his life and career.
3. Luciano “Chano” Pozo y Gonzalez
   • For my big kids, learn about Chano Pozo’s home-Havana, Cuba
4. Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington
5. Charlie “Bird” Parker
6. Art “Bu” Blakey
7. John Birks “Dizzy” Gillespie
8. Thomas Wright “Fats” Waller His nickname always makes us giggle! You might recognize the waiter in that clip from earlier...here’s another clip from the movie that will help. Can you guess who it is now?
9. Charles “Baron” Mingus

If you want to learn more about jazz history, I really like this playlist of jazz history videos to help you dig a little deeper.

Let’s Look at Melodic Direction!

Hi guys! It was so exciting to see so many Fisher students at our Chromebook distribution yesterday! It’s going to make it so much easier to complete our RPS@Home lessons, and access lots of other educational resources online! Today, I’d like for you to learn a little bit about how melodies can move in music. Melodies can make lots of different shapes. Use your finger to point along with the different shapes in this video. Make sure your finger moves from left to right, because we read melodies the same way we read words in sentences, left to right.

Now that you’ve got the idea, let’s practice singing some melodies with different kinds of movement. I love this silly video to practice, and the dog in it is so cute!

Now, when you listen to music today, can you listen for the direction the notes are moving? I post a lot of listening maps that can help you see the direction while you hear it, so you might try watching these first. Then, as you listen to your favorite kind of music today, as you hear songs on your video games, Youtube videos, tv shows, or movies, see if you can listen closely and draw the shape of the song in the air with your finger. As you watch these listening maps, practice showing the shapes with a finger.

And a fun one for our composer of the month!

Let’s Go Fly a Kite!

Hi friends! It is too beautiful outside to hang out indoors today! It’s supposed to be cool and rainy for the next couple of days, so I hope you’ll spend as much time outside as you can. I am typing this from my backyard right now, and this breeze would be perfect for flying a kite. When you come inside to cool off, try learning to sing the song “Let’s Go Fly a Kite!”

If you haven’t watched the original Mary Poppins movie, maybe you could do that on one of these upcoming rainy days! Here are the song lyrics so you can sing along…

Think about how this song is organized, what happens first? Next? Then?

I hear Verse #1, then a chorus or refrain that will be repeated again later. Next, I hear verse #2, followed by an instrumental interlude. Then, I hear one last chorus or refrain to end the song. Can you make up your own dance moves to show how the song is organized? Remember that is called the song’s FORM.

After singing and dancing, make your own homemade kite to fly today. You can make kites from lots of different things around your house, for example, a garbage bag, paper, newspaper, or whatever other creative ideas you can come up with yourself!

May’s Composer of the Month!

Hi guys! We made it to May! Today, take a look at May’s composer of the month, Ludwig von Beethoven. Be sure to color his picture in your interactive music notebook if you are in K-2nd grade, or you can complete a listening reflection about this piece in your notebook if you’re in 3rd-5th grade.

Here are the 4 facts we would’ve read about him this month:

1. Beethoven was a composer and pianist born in Bonn, Germany. His dad was very strict, and made Beethoven wake up in the middle of the night to practice music.
2. Beethoven moved to Vienna, Austria in his 20s, where he became one of the first composers to make a living without working for the church or for royalty.
3. Beethoven wrote symphonies, concertos, chamber music, and just one opera.
4. Beethoven began to lose his hearing in his 30s. He wrote some of his most famous pieces when he was almost totally deaf, including his 9th symphony.

Check out this neat listening map that goes with Beethoven’s 9th:

And for my big kids, I can just hear all the questions you have about him bubbling up! This video will give you a little more information about him.

The incredible Kanneh Mason family performed a little bit of Beethoven on a Facebook live concert at home last month, check this out and get inspired to make some music with your family, too!