Upper Grade Rhythmic Concepts and Spirituals
I'm excited to be teaming up with some of my blogging friends to bring you some ideas for teaching rhythm concepts as we celebrate Music In Our Schools Month (MIOSM) during March.
So, I started my unit on spirituals. It is something I enjoy and once the students learn some of the songs they learn to love them as well. (Their favorite spiritual so far is Wade in the Water.) It is very soulful and it speaks to them. As we learn these songs, we discuss how spirituals often express a topic or topics that can be narrowed down into four categories: songs about work, freedom, religion and recreation (or play). I go back to these topics with each new song.I have created an anchor chart below that you are welcome to download and use in your own study of spirituals.
So, I started my unit on spirituals. It is something I enjoy and once the students learn some of the songs they learn to love them as well. (Their favorite spiritual so far is Wade in the Water.) It is very soulful and it speaks to them. As we learn these songs, we discuss how spirituals often express a topic or topics that can be narrowed down into four categories: songs about work, freedom, religion and recreation (or play). I go back to these topics with each new song.I have created an anchor chart below that you are welcome to download and use in your own study of spirituals.
As we begin the unit I usually start off with one of my favorites, "Somebody's Knocking At Your Door." I like this song to introduce the 'syn-co-pa' pattern because it is easily accessible both visually (in the notation) and aurally as the song is sung. I used the simple rhythms included below to have students learn and practice what syncopation looks and sounds like. We then learned the song and found examples of syncopation in the notation. The following week we reviewed the song and added a simple syncopated rhythmic ostinato (syn-co-pa ta ta) on tubanos- of course any rhythm instrument would be fine to accomplish this practice exercise.
Here are some files for you to use as you teach syncopation with your own spirituals unit. Frames by Paula Kim Studio and paper by Red Pepper.
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Lower Grade Rhythmic Ideas:
Character Education
The school district where I work has adopted six character traits in an effort to educate students about living with good character. Those traits are: Respect, Fairness, Citizenship, Caring, Trustworthiness, and Responsibility. In an effort to support, teach, and reinforce the six character traits adopted by the district I came up with this activity. Going forward I intend to use this again next year each time our counselor focuses on a new trait changing the rhymes to match each new focus.
I started the lesson with a fun warm up game from Kalani via Elizabeth Caldwell's blog Organized Chaos on circle drumming. It has some really great ideas to use with your students. It is game idea #2 and you can find Elizabeth's blog here. Following the warm up game I introduced the character affirmation verbally with students having them read the rhyme with me. Then we looked at the notation discovering the rhythms included, note names, etc. Students volunteered to read me the rhythms. Then we clapped them and finally played them on our drums. In order to give students a little something extra to challenge them I had them work on playing the eighth notes on the rim (high sounds) and the quarter notes in the middle of their drum to make the low sounds. This was both an effective and popular lesson to support our school's efforts to teach good character traits to our students. I hope you find it helpful to you with your own students. This lesson was a fun way to affirm our good character and could be used with any or all grades with minimal effort to tailor the process to fit your student's level of learning.