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Tuesday, March 1, 2016

Native American music in elementary music

Although I use music from a variety of cultures and traditions regularly in all grade levels throughout the school year, I spend about a month focusing on the music from a particular culture in each grade. Today's focus: Native America! I'm including links to all of the articles I've written on music of other countries / cultures at the end of this post, so be sure to read to the end for more world music lesson ideas!


I study Native American music with my kindergarten students. I always choose which cultures to focus on for each grade based on the content I can reinforce through the study, and in this case I am able to use Native American music to focus on steady beat, same and different sections, and basic movement such as left and right and circle formations.

The first song I like to teach is Wee Hee Nah. You can find an audio recording and game directions for the song here. I love this song because there is so much you can do with it! First I have students march in a circle on the steady beat while I play the song on the recorder. Then I have a small group of students play the beat on hand drums (I break out the bigger ones for this for extra cool factor!) while the rest of us continue to walk while I play the melody. This is a great way to get them to practice moving with the beat and listening to the music, since they aren't singing along yet! Once they can all keep the steady beat and keep a circle formation while walking, we sit down and I teach them the words to the song. At this point they have already heard the melody many times, so it's pretty easy for them to learn. Then I ask them if they notice any patterns in the song. This is a great way to talk about same and different phrases, because the first two measures are different and the last two measures are the same as the middle two measures. Then we repeat the circle formation, walking on the beat, while singing. If students are doing well with the steady beat, I will break out a few shakers, and I have a couple of students play the shaker on steady eighth notes while continuing to walk in the circle and sing. This provides an extra challenge for the more advanced students! Once they can do all of that, I teach them the game. It is very similar to London Bridge, so we usually play that game the class before and I make the connection to that game when we learn Wee Hee Nah. The students love it and everyone gets lots of practice with steady beat and instruments!

After they have learned the song, I talk with the students a little bit about the different tribes within Native American culture, especially focusing on the tribes that were/are native to our area. I would encourage you, if you are considering incorporating this in your own classroom, to look into the native traditions in your area (or whatever is closest to you) if you are in North America. It is a wonderful way for students to connect something that can seem so foreign to their own lives.

I like to show students a little bit of what a pow wow looks like. You can find tons of examples on YouTube- you might want to try to find an example of one from your area- but here is one example:


Then we talk about how these cultures are being preserved today, and we watch snippets of some videos that show more current examples, like the ones in this playlist. Afterwards, we watch an example of a modern Native American musician like this one (these musicians are from Canada- I include examples from all over North America but it's important to always note the specific area/ tribe they are from when you share examples with students). I have used several different videos for this in the last few years but I always look for one that has clearly distinguished sections in its form. After we watch and discuss some of the elements of the music and visuals that are modern vs traditional, we listen to the music again and I have students move with the steady beat, telling them to switch to a different move when the music changes to a new "part". 

Those are some examples of lessons I teach for Native American music. Do you teach Native American music in your class? I'd love to see any additional ideas and resources you have in the comments below!

1. Brazil
9. Japan

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17 comments :

  1. Yes. In the district I was in, we taught Native American music in the 2nd grade. My kids loved the Navajo Puppy Song (https://youtu.be/LS2F1qz7BSA?list=PLVu7kOEOrhRhfLo5jkG1nbfQycR-COJcg) and Land of the Silver Birch (https://youtu.be/7zDTdKRqZ9g?list=PLVu7kOEOrhRhfLo5jkG1nbfQycR-COJcg), which I had an Orff Orchestration to go with.

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    1. Thanks for sharing- that puppy song is so cute and I'd never heard it before! I love Land of the Silver Birch- I always understood it was from Native tribes in Canada, not the United States though.

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    2. It is, but since Native American literally means people who originally inhabited the Americas, and not just the US, I go ahead and include it. I do, however, acknowledge that that would be a judgement call.

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  2. Hi,
    I'm so happy I found your blog! Few bloggers share anything meaningful about teaching kindergarteners about Native Americans. I wish I'd found the wee hee nah song earlier...anyway, perhaps you'd like to read what I have figured out about teaching this subject in my 40 years as a teacher. See https://goodbyekindergarten.blogspot.com/ November 16, 2017. thanks!

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    1. I love the honesty of your post and you have some wonderful ideas and resources! Thank you so much for sharing- these lesson activities would be great to add to a music unit to further immerse students in Native American culture! https://goodbyekindergarten.blogspot.com/2017/11/native-americans-kindergarten-and-me.html

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  3. I go to the pow wow you referenced in Idaho almost every summer when I’m visiting my family. It’s an amazing experience!

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    1. That's amazing! What a cool thing to be able to share with your students as well!

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  4. I’m sorry if I missed this, but do you know the origin of this song? What tribe sings it, and in what language?

    Thanks!

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    1. Great question! The (very basic) background information for each of the 2 songs I mentioned are listed at the links I shared for recordings and directions.

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  5. We are doing Native American History this week and we have been working on Epanay. Many students have asked what it is about and I can't find any translation anywhere. Do you happen to know?
    Beth Hall

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    1. Great question- I am certain I had found the background somewhere before because I remember sharing it with my students when I taught it, but now I cannot seem to find it, and the sources I'm finding now don't seem as reliable. I am going to do some more research and perhaps replace this song with another that I can confirm the background for more reliably- it's always important to keep checking sources and this may be a case where we need to shift gears! I'll update the post with either the background of this song or with a different song once I do some more digging. In the meantime I do know that when I taught it, I had found what I thought to be a reliable source explaining the origin of the song- if you look and come across anything let me know!

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  6. You mentioned that you focus on a particular culture for a month in each grade level. Woudld you mind sharing which grades/cultures you do and which months? Thank you!

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    1. Sure! I reference which grades I use them with in each of the specific posts, and I do swap things in and out sometimes, but currently I teach Native American with K, Bolivia in grade 1, Maori/ India alternating in grade 2, Philippines in grade 3, China/ Japan/ Korea alternating in grade 4, Mozambique in grade 5, and Brazil in grade 6. Those choices are based primarily on the curricular objectives that I can naturally reinforce through the lessons I use with each of those. I do my deep-dives in every grade primarily in May, culminating in an international music festival where each grade performs for the rest of the school at the end of the month.

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  7. I'm wondering if those of you who have used "Land of the Silver Birch" in past years have found an authentic song to replace it? If so, could you share it, please? Thanks so much! Becky

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    1. I used to use it and have stopped. It depends on what concept you were addressing with the song before- what were you using it for in the past?

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  8. I teach it as a "camping" song, then use Inkpataya as an authentic Native American song (Silver-Burdett Grade 3 book).

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    1. I would encourage you to reconsider using "Land of the Silver Birch" at all- it is very much a caricature of Native Americans and therefore not appropriate to use regardless of origin.

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