Go Pack Go!

It is that time of year... Football season! Though, I myself am not a particularly devoted football fan, I spent most of my life in Green Bay, Wisconsin. This means that I probably bleed green and gold whether I would like to or not. This weekend I actually went to the Packers vs. Saints game, which made me even more excited about my latest composition project. I can't take all the credit for it, I got the original idea from a book a retired music teacher gave me. It allows students the opportunity to take chants they would hear at a football game and turn them into rhythm ostinatos! This was perfect since my grade 3-5 classes have been working on rhythms and ostinatos! :)

I broke this project into just two 30 minute music classes (which in my opinion is a rather quick composition project compared to some others I have done). The first day is a brainstorming day. I pair the students into groups of about 3 or 4 students. These groups then brainstorm and come up with at least 10 chants they have heard or would cheer at a sporting event. (Note: I said sporting event to reach some of my students who do not like football, but may enjoy other sports)



The second day was devoted to writing the rhythms that go with the chants. We talked first as a class about how to figure out the rhythms. We talk about where the beat lands and how sometimes we stress different parts of a word or phrase. I give them a couple examples of my own (I chose non-sports related things so they weren't just using my examples). The groups then worked on their chants. I had the 3rd graders have 3 final cheers, 4th graders 4 cheers, and 5th graders 5 cheers. I was really impressed with some of the cheers that they created and how well they put the rhythms together. The ones that had a little bit more difficulty, or just added quarters for all of their chants, were easy to help. I just read through their chants as written and they told me if it was right or not. If it wasn't we figured out how to fix the problem together.

I found that just like with many other group activities you have those groups that get done in 10 minutes and then the other groups that work the entire 20 minutes. For this situation you should probably have some extra game or work for the groups that are done quickly. This stops students from wandering around the room or just chatting about nothing in particular.

For my quick finishing groups, I created a simple game to work on for the remainder of time. Each group got a baggy with 3 sets of music letters and 3 sets of treble clef staff notes to match. One teammate would create a word using the music letters (i.e. DAD) and then the other group members would work to match up the treble clef staff notes. This way they were working on treble clef note reading without getting bored and distracting their teammates.




After the compositions were finished I brought students outside to share their chants with the class. I chose to go outside, not because it is particularly a loud process (though it can be) but because the snow will soon be coming here in Wisconsin and my students love being outside. That and I am really working to reach all of the multiple intelligence's in my classroom this year and one that I am particularly weak on is the nature intelligence. You will probably see more nature based lessons in the coming week as I prepare to bring my little ones outside to explore the music of the fall!





If you are interested in this project you can get the document I created --->HERE<---

You can also use --->my rubric<--- that I created for grading the compositions.

Happy composing!

Rhythmic Repitition

I decided after our review the first couple weeks that ALL of my classes (mostly 3-5 graders) needed to brush up on their rhythms. I wasn't sure how I was going to do this at first because it really seemed like we needed to go back to basics on this. I noticed the most difficult part for students was remembering, which note is which and how many beats it gets.

Solution? New rhythm game using quarter notes, quarter rests, and eighth notes. Once students get good at the game I'll add in other harder rhythms and hopefully get us back onto track. I call this new rhythm game Rhythmic Concentration. It was based off of a music concentration that many of you probably have heard about.

Here is how it works:


Everyone in the class sits in a circle on the floor.


Each student is given a basic rhythm that was written on an index card. (I used only quarter notes, quarter rests, and eighth notes, however you could add in other rhythms your students know)

I then put a piece of tape or something to mark the 'beginning/end' of the circle. The person on the right of the marker is #1. The goal of the game is to be #1 at the end of the game.

The #1 person claps their rhythm and then #2 claps their rhythm immediately after. This continues all the way around the circle. During the first round, I normally just let them practice their rhythm. However, after that it gets harder.

Students continue clapping their rhythms as they continue around the circle. When someone misses their turn or hesitates that student has to go to the end (to the left of the marker). Their rhythm stays where it is and then students fill in the spaces. For example: if #5 of #10 misses their turn #10 shifts to #9; #9 shifts to #8; #8 shifts to #7; #7 shifts to #6; #6 shifts to #5; and #5 shifts to #10!

For those visual learners like myself, a model of the switch!:


After that it gets even more difficult. I start sending people to the end of the circle for clapping the wrong rhythm, not doing it in beat, and I have even added the metronome for some of my older students and they have to stay in beat.



My students really seem to like it. What I like most about it is it is fast paced, so those that get frustrated with waiting for everyone to get a turn don't feel that way during this game. I also like it because they are practicing their rhythms without feeling like they are practicing rhythms!



If you try this out, please let me know how it goes or any changes you made to make the game run smoother! Also feel free to ask me questions about it, I'll do my best to answer them. Have fun!