#MusicWithMini

When I put together a booklet of songs for Black History Month, I originally thought to myself "Allright Miss Mini, get ready for some serious classroom management issues...these kids are going to sing for 50 minutes."

Let's talk about a surprise of the century.

My fourth grade students have never been more engaged in anything! They are eating up this unit on Black History Month songs, fighting and begging to sing solos and asking if they can take the booklets home.

I am fortunate, my school has a decent collection of the Music K-8 songs and magazines so I spent some valuable time with their song index, compiling all the Black History Month songs that I had available to me. These songs included:

Get On Board (Vol 17 No 3)

Yonder Come Day (Vol 25 No 3)

Michael Row The Boat Ashore (Vol 15 No 5)

Down By The Riverside (Vol 15 No 3)

Go Down Moses (Vol 22 No 3)

This Little Light Of Mine (Vol 8 No 3)

For each song, I did a little research and printed up some song histories which I included in the front of each booklet. Before we learn a new song, we spend time reading about it and discussing it as a class. Teaching these six songs took about 4 50-minute classes, of which we would go back and review older songs before learning new ones (and letting different people try the solos). There were some other things that I included as well. With Yonder Come Day, we talked about the Gullah Sea Islands, and showed this documentary clip on Gullah Culture. This Prezi presentation gave us a nice lead-in into that. After we worked our way through Down By The Riverside, I ended class with this clip, as to how this song has made its way around the world [they thought it was the coolest thing].

A fun way to end the unit was talking about gospel choirs, how they are often only SAT instead of SATB, and the use of expression and repetition in gospel songs/gospel choirs. I used this clip for Go Down Moses, and this one for This Little Light Of Mine, which a lot of my students could relate to (as they are familiar with America's Got Talent).

As a teacher, I've learned to never underestimate the power of singing, and how sometimes just simply singing can be "enough." It is rich with history, and things to discuss, and the students have things to share. This will most definately be a unit to repeat next year!

We may be entering the 3rd week of school, but this is still serious review time for students. Last year, I had this brilliant idea to teach my students something super important at the end of the year:

reading the staff.

I know, what was I thinking, right? Turns out once your students know how to read the staff and rhythms there are a bazillion more activities and songs/instruments you can do with them. No worries, ya'll, I am hoppin' on that train a lot earlier this year. In the meantime, my current 4th grade is in need of some review of how to read the staff, so behold, I give you this weeks game: Staff Match. Now, I've seen things similar to this around several other blogs, matching instruments to pictures, or parts of English, or numbers or whatnot. For 4th grade though, I've decided to spice it up a notch, incorporating an additional math component.

Step one: Create twelve Staff Match Discs (or six sets printed twice--click here)
(Also, our copier copied them funny so I have a funky line on all of them---oh well) I printed them each on card stock and then ran them through the laminator. I also wrote "Set 1, Set 2, etc" on the back so that the kids can switch for different rounds.

Step two: Label appropriate number of clothespins.

Step three: Set up the game in classroom. Have clothespins available for students to grab (for extra challenge, don't put them in alphabetical order). Set up a number key as well, as seen below. The students will have two dice. They must add the dice together to get a specific number before they can come up and grab the clothespin they need. For example, if the students need a "G" (G=4) they must roll a 3+1 or a 2+2.

Step four: Divide students into pairs, one being a roller, one being a runner.

Step five: Say "GO!" and let the chaos begin. The pair that rolls and matches all 8 on their disc first is the winner

Step six: Have students shuffle discs and get ready for round two (because they will want to play again and again)!

This game was immediately loved by my 4th graders as one of their new favorites. Working in partners also played in my favor because we obtained some new students in 4th grade who didn't know the staff. They were still able to participate in the game without being completely lost. Try it in your classroom and let me know how it goes :)