See you in Omaha!

I hope to see all of you who frequently read the FOF blog in Omaha at the National AOSA conference. Stay tuned over the next several days for live blogging from the conference!

Three Posts In As Many Days

Dear Field of Flowers Readers,
I have been looking for a new way to get the word out about this site. I know that there are about 70 people (I know who some of you are... but not all) who check the Field regularly. I will start sending out an email to you who check this site to let you know when it has been updated. Since I post about once a week, expect an email about once a week. If you would like to be on the mailing list, please send me your name and email (and if you think that I don't know who you are, please let me know your location just for fun). Email me at djbeam@gmail.com

Thanks,
Douglas Beam

You've got to check out the new link...

Some of you may have noticed a new link on the right hand side of the screen. The link is for Andrew's Master copies. Andrew Ellingsen is one of my friends from Minnesota who is also in the University of St. Thomas Master's of Music Education program. He is a wonderful teacher and musician. He, like me, has a tiny obsession with all things Mac (as in the computer, not the comfort food). So, he spent quite a bit of time constructing a website that gives access to all of his master copies (the Kodaly people who actually read this blog will LOVE this one). There are MANY songs on the website, and they are all downloadable in PDF format. So, go explore the site and use what you will, but as Andrew reminds us, we always need to cite our sources and give credit where credit is due!

Enjoy!!!

The Leaves

Here is an abbreviated version of my notes from IOSA chapter sharing... Enjoy. I wanted to say as a follow up to the chapter sharing that my process for this piece, and the learning we experienced did not occur in one day, but over several weeks and several lessons.

The Leaves: by Arvida Steen (Exploring Orff, p. 109)
This simple tune uses the full diatonic scale, first descending and then ascending. The text is appropriate for fall and lends itself to all sorts of exploration. My students have explored the text and melody through speech, movement, singing and playing instruments (pitched percussion and unpitched percussion).

All the leaves are falling down
Falling softly to the ground
Now the wind will lift them high
Lift them gently to the sky

This is a combination of several lessons that I taught to my second grade classes. Our conceptual focus was half notes, and we tried to play sing and move half notes as much as we could in as many different ways as possible, while keeping the spontaneity of child-based creation. This presentation highlights some of the ways we explored music using the four Schulwerk media (singing, playing, speaking and moving).


I. Opening Activity
- T asks questions about seasons: “How many? What are they?” etc.
- S answer questions
- T asks what things change during each season.
- S respond
- S pretend to be trees in each season, and change following the calendar: spring, summer, fall winter.
- T uses finger cymbals to signal to S to change between seasons.
- S stop in fall pose, and T asks for S volunteer to be the wind.
- One S uses a scarf, and becomes wind, moving through the trees while S listen to music.
- S listen to Concerto No. 10 in C Major from John Feierabend's Keeping the Beat (track 1).

II. Presentation
- T tells S to let their leaves blow in the wind and then walk around as their leaves fall to the ground while listening to the steady beat.
- S walk with their hands out as leaves.
- T changes movement to walking words, and asks S “am I walking the way the words go, or the way the st. bt. goes?”
- S respond words
- S walk words.
- T stays stationary and says the poem while letting his leaves fall to the ground.
- S work in two groups to show levels of poem through movement, first part descending, second part ascending.
- S transfer words to hand drums and add other fall sound effects.
- S imitate as they say the poem
- At seats, T shows visual with no h, asks S to keep st. bt. while T says poem
- S decide that there are not enough st. bts.
- T shows visual with half notes
- T labels half notes
- S move to barred instruments
- S say musical alphabet starting with C
- S say alphabet from C to C forward and then backwards
- T doubles every note
- S practice and double all notes.
- S decide what would have to be changed in order to make the poem fit the notes.
- S practice new pattern
- S add in simple bordun
- S perform piece


III. Exploration
- T introduces new pattern “fall down, fall down, fall down to the ground”
- Each S walks word that they are saying.
- T asks S to explore different levels with their bodies while walking the words.
- S move to instruments.
- T switches from walking to body percussion
- S imitate body percussion
- S play low C on “to the ground”
- S may pick any two notes for the words “fall down”
- S perform patterns individually

IV. Culmination/Evaluation
- S perform entire song
- ABA : a section is singing song The Leaves, B section is improvisation.

Bee-autiful!

I don't know why some things work? But I can tell when the creative activity that takes place in my room is simply delicious. Thanks to Dean for introducing me to the following poem...

Here is the beehive,
Where are the bees?
Hidden away where nobody sees.
Watch as they start to come out of their hives.
One, two three, four, five!
Quick, quick run, they're out of their hives!

Well, this isn't the first time I have used this activity in first grade. Last year's first graders were bitten by the fun of this great finger play... but I decided to take it a bit further this year. In first grade (a reminder that I do not have my kids for kindergarten, and they don't get music class at the magnet kindergarten in our district) we are all about readiness... experiencing all of those things that we must before we can get to literacy issues, etc.

So, in preparation to talk about "same and different," my students and I have been doing a lot of echoing. I have been playing four beat phrases on the drum, and they clap them back to me (ta and ti ti rhythms mostly). At the beginning of this week, I felt like the students were ready to start drumming their own phrases and have the other students echo them. So, I use the Beehive poem as a transition, and choose a queen or king bee to come up and drum out a four beat phrase for the rest of the kids to clap back.

"Now Doug! Seriously! First graders who have never had a music class can't possibly be successful at drumming a four beat phrase with ta's and ti ti's." Yeah... I know. But they have heard me do this activity, and they have felt what a four beat phrase feels like through movement and singing, that for some reason four beats of ta's and ti ti's is what they choose to drum. I haven't explained how to count, or what a quarter note is, let alone what and eighth note is. But they FEEL it, and 90% of the time that is what they chose to drum.

So there it is... a first grade Bee adventure.

Have a great week-end!

Vocal Exploration

Here is a discussion that some of my Kodaly friends have been having about vocal exploration, thought you might find it interesting.

Megan S. said:

I want to spend a lot more quality time this year with vocal exploration in all grade levels, and need some cool "props" to use (especially for my older kids). If you have some things that you love to use to warm up voices, would you send some ideas my way? Thank you!

Leigh Anne G. responded:

My older kids love the slinky, koosh launcher (sling shot), and if you can believe it, bubbles!

Cindy B. responded:

I have choirs, so we use these ideas for vocal warm-ups and singing in head voice as well as vocal exploration.

With my preschoolers and younger elementary, I use props, but also a lot of imagery - in the fall, leaves falling from the trees, winter snow falling, Halloween ghosts, roller coaster (I draw a squiggly line on the whiteboard), fire engine siren etc. and we do motions with them - for the leaves and snow, hands up high and drift down with their voices. Then the wind comes up and blows the leaves around so we swirl our arms and voices. If there are leaves outside, we actually go outside and do this with real leaves! I also have a picture of a playground slide. We slowly climb with our voices and slide down.

With the older kids, I have a small, squishy, but real-looking basketball that we "shoot some hoops" with. I throw the ball up, and the kids pretend they are shooting a ball with motions. We also pretend to throw Frisbees across a football field on the sound "fah". The throwing motion really gets their voice going and they have their voices gradually come down as the Frisbee comes down. They hold their hands above their eyes to shield them from the sun as they watch the Frisbee land. We also use this for breath control and increasing our breath. If someone peters out too soon - "Oops! Your Frisbee didn't go very far." or doesn't get into their head voice -"Your Frisbee didn't go quite high enough." I also have a Beanie Baby type animal that I toss in the air. The kids like to see how high I can toss it and still catch it. It can get pretty high in a big church sanctuary!

Dean Maniakas and I were having a similar conversation via cell phone. He was telling me about a discussion he was having with one of our colleagues in the district about how important it is to sing with your children. Finally, after 18 months of work at John Strange, I can hear my students are starting to "get it" as far as their singing goes, but I appreciate the discussion because vocal exploration shouldn't stop after 1st grade (or kindergarten for some). It improves the quality of music making, and gives students a greater capacity for self expression. This information may not be news for many of you, but I can always use the reminder about just how important vocal exploration is.

Are You Ready?

Wow... another year. I hope you're as excited about this year as I am. After a 2 month vacation, we here at Field of Flowers are ready to kick off another year of blogging. We are especially looking to expand the staff. Currently, our bloggers include myself, Dean Maniakas and Cyndee Giebler. If you are interested in joining the FOF regular bloggers, please send me an email at djbeam@gmail.com.

This year will officially start on Saturday with the first IOSA workshop. I will spare you the details on here, and specifically refer you to the new IOSA website, www.indianaorff.org. There, you will find all of the details you need to get you to the right place at the right time. Suffice it to say that our first clinician is Robert Amchin, and I am sure that everyone will take away some valuable information!

Upcoming posts in the works will be on topics such as "Sing For Your Children" and "Leaves in the Fall."

I hope you will stay tuned, and keep checking back regularly. Now that things are off the ground, and we are back in school, blogging should occur at a regular pace of once a week. So, check back often!

Let me hear from you if you have questions, comments or snide remarks!

Viva la musica!

Gardening

Greetings one and all!

Here is a fun activity that my 3rd graders performed for their spring program. I call it "Gardening." We started with the following poem:

Whistle and hoe,

Sing as you go.

Making our garden ready for the

Flowers to grow.

If I had my MFC volume 1 in front of me, I could tell you which little rythmic exercise this is, but since I have no book and since there's a wealth of information in it, I'll leave it to you to find it. Or better yet, have your class make up their own!

We did all manner of exploration with the poem, making up a stick passing game, practicing body percussion, making up simple melodies, inventing a very simple dance. Then the fun began!

The class brainstormed all the different spring flowers that they could think of. This part was easy since many flowers were in bloom. We then made up our own poem using the flowers. Here's what they came up with:

Tulips and daffodils,

Lilacs and pinks,

Pansies and hyacinths,

Pretty things that sprout

In the spring!

After coming up with this poem "structure," the kids experimented on the barred instruments and we came up with a group melody. If I can figure out how to import a Sibelius score, I'll add it. (Help me out here!)

For the performance, some of the kids did our simple dance with large plastic gardening implements. Any dollar store is a good source for these at this time of year. I'll probably use this activity again since I now own a zillion plastic shovels! Here's our dance:

Tap - Tap your implement on the floor

Click - Click implements with your partner

Whirl - Turn around with the implment held over your head.

Find a partner and perform the following while saying the "whistle and hoe" poem:

Tap - click - click - tap - whirl

Tap - click - click - tap - whirl

Tap - click - click

Tap - click - click

Tap -click - click - tap - whirl

For the performance, we strung things together in arch form, thusly:

"Whistle and hoe" dance

Spring flowers song

Vocal Improvisation

(yes I had a 3rd grade boy willing to so this.. NOT the norm!!)

Spring flower song

"Whistler and Hoe" dance

Song and dance together.

(Yes, it works!)

It's an idea that you can tuck away for next spring. Our school year is over, and this very afternoon I am heading out of the country to Sweden where my youngest daughter is an exchange student. She graduates Friday. How cool is that?

- Keetwoman