Wacky Do-Re-Mi's

I don't know what it is about 2nd grade, but I just love them. I thought for sure that I loved them last year because we had a fabulous group of kids, but it turns out that I really love this years 2nd graders as well. It must be the age. Some magical maturity happens, you can begin to trust them just a bit more, and well, at least musically, there is A LOT that happens in 2nd grade!

One of the things that has kept me sane as a music teacher has been the discovery of our schools subscription of Music K-8. No, this is not a promotional blog post, this is me just stating that those songs have saved my life way too many times! Fortunately, they also produce a lot of songs that not only span across curriculum, but they also help teach music concepts too---like solfege!

My 2nd graders are preparing to perform the "Wacky Do-Re-Mi's" at the fall concert next week. It was a great opportunity to teach them many opportunities like

-Solfege hand signs

-Following along with a lead sheet

-High and low pitches and flipping from chest voice to head voice

It also was a great way for me to introduce them to some of the instruments they'll be using lots of this year, like the boomwhackers! Here are some of my 2nd grade classes as we played along with the Wacky Do-Re-Mi's. The youtube video can be found here (of course, they loved imitating the dancing mouse the best!)

Getting our "So's" ready to start the song!