Whistle for Willie: vocal exploration lesson

Vocal exploration is so important in elementary general music as students develop their singing voices, but it's something I often forget to consciously include in my lessons. This book was a perfect way to get in lots of vocal exploration with a story that my younger grades loved hearing- even my shy singers were using their voices with gusto for this one!

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This year I used Whistle for Willie by Ezra Jack Keats for the first time with Kindergarten, but this would work well with 1st or even 2nd grade as well. Not every page has natural opportunities for vocal exploration but a good portion of the story does!

Before I begin the story, we do a little vocal exploration practice. I model how to follow the contour of a line by drawing a line in the air in my finger and following it with my voice, then have students practice following my line with their own voices. Then I tell students that I am going to have them make different sound effects to go with the story.

In the beginning when the book describes Peter spinning in circles and then up and down, I draw circles, hills, and valleys in the air with my finger and have students follow the line with their voices as I read the words. Every time it mentions Peter trying to whistle, we blow hard like we're trying to whistle.

Later when the book shows Peter drawing on the ground with colored chalk, I trace the line in the pictures with my finger and students follow with their voices. I draw a curvy line for when Peter is following the crack in the ground, and go up high when it says he jumps.

Eventually Peter is able to whistle. This is when it's fun to stop and have the students try to whistle- depending on the age this can be quite a challenge, but there's usually a few who can!

After reading the story, I give each student a pipe cleaner and have them make different shapes and lines, then trade with a partner and sing the other person's line with their voice. The book is a great starting point for any vocal exploration lesson!

I love Ezra Jack Keats, so I was thrilled to find a meaningful way to incorporate this book into my lessons. What other ways have you used this or other stories by Keats? I'd love to hear more ideas in the comments! If you'd like to see all of my book-based lesson ideas, you can see them all in this post.

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April Favorites 2019

April is always a fun one with spring break, birthday, and some of my favorite lessons to teach- here are some of my highlights from this past month!

1. Spring Break

Normally I choose one picture from my Instagram feed to represent each of my highlights but I couldn't pick for this one so here's three! ;)

My daughters and I had so much fun visiting my grandparents and extended family in California for spring break. We've never traveled anywhere over spring break before because I'm usually in full-on get-ready-for-all-the-events mode at this point, but it was great to put some things on pause for a week, take life a little more slowly, and soak up some sunshine. Most importantly, it has been a while since we've seen my grandparents so it was really special to have that extra time with them!

2. Birthdays and Cherry Blossoms

One of the best parts of having an April birthday for me as always been the sakura. If you don't know, I grew up mostly in Japan, so going to see the cherry blossoms has always been a very important event each spring, and they often bloom right around my birthday! I'm not living in Japan right now but luckily we have some sakura right here in Connecticut that I try to visit each year.

I was well-loved for my birthday this year and because we were traveling the day of my actual birthday I got to stretch out the festivities a good bit this year- bonus! The wintertime can often be tough on the emotions and sometimes as a single parent and lone music teacher in a building that combination can lead to some deep loneliness. Being reminded of all the amazing friends and loving family members I have surrounding me is the best part of my birthday, let me tell you! I was especially grateful for the deepening friendships I have begun to build here in CT, and the old friends that I haven't been the best about keeping in touch with who continue to be so committed to our relationship.

3. Literature Lessons

I've been able to try out several new books with my kindergarten classes this spring and it has been so much fun! I've loved sharing these lesson ideas on the blog this month, so if you haven't yet I'd encourage you to catch up on these- they are all perfect for the end of the school year as well if you need some fresh ideas to keep you and your students engaged when you're all feeling DONE.

4. Music Education Articles

I always love reading and learning from the insights of so many other fantastic music teacher authors. If you don't already, be sure to follow me on Facebook- I share new articles I find each Friday over there! Here are the ones I shared this month if you need to catch up :)

I hope you found some inspiration and fresh ideas to motivate you for the month ahead- May can get pretty busy so I think we can all use a little time to reflect on the highlights from our lives :) If you want to stay up to date on everything Organized Chaos, be sure to sign up here for the email newsletter.

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Max Found Two Sticks: elementary music lesson plan

I've loved adding more lesson plans based on children's books to my Kindergarten classes this year! One that I've been meaning to use for a long time and just never got around to until now is Max Found Two Sticks. It was a great way to introduce rhythm patterns and get students to transfer speech patterns to instruments, as well as talk about sounds they hear in their daily lives.

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I've had the book, Max Found Two Sticks by Brian Pinkney, on my bookshelf for a while now. It's an obvious choice for elementary music, but for some reason I just never got around to actually using it in my lessons until this year! But I'm glad I finally got to use it, and I'm sure I will be bringing it back next year- it was a great introduction to rhythm.

At the beginning of Kindergarten we spend a lot of time working on steady beat, so it's a bit of a switch when I start asking them to perform rhythm patterns partway through the year. Using speech patterns, then transferring to body percussion and then instruments, has been a helpful way to introduce the concept, and this book lends itself to that process perfectly. 

In the story, Max finds two sticks and starts drumming out rhythm patterns (represented by onomatopoeia, like "pat... pat tat" and "cling, clang, da-bang" in the story) on everything he can find. Often he hears a sound around him, like the passing train or pigeons flying by, and imitates them with his sticks. He uses all kinds of objects as his drums- hat boxes, garbage cans, the sidewalk- to make different sounds with his sticks.

The first time through the story, I had students practice saying the sounds in rhythm after me. I said each one as a 4-beat rhythm and then had the class repeat the pattern several times by speaking the sounds as we went through the story. After reading it once, I told the class we were going to read it again, but this time we were going to try to play the rhythms like Max. Of course we need to use our rhythm sticks! But first we need to be able to play them instead of saying them (because, as it says in the story, Max doesn't really feel like talking that day). 

We went back through the story and found all of the rhythms, practicing first saying them, then saying while clapping/ patting, then just with body percussion. Once we practiced doing each rhythm without saying anything, we were ready for sticks! As I always do with instruments, I made sure students remembered that they will lose their instrument if they play out of turn- I had students set their rhythm sticks down on the floor while I was reading.

Then we read the story a second time, but this time after I said each rhythm, I had students pick up their sticks and first play it while saying it, then play it without using their voice. We went through the entire book this way, saying and playing and then only playing each rhythm as a repeated pattern.

While students were putting away their instruments at the end of the story, we had a brief discussion about found sounds: "What sounds do you hear when you sit outside your house?", "Can you tell me what it sounds like with words?". It was a great way to connect back to the sounds they hear in their daily lives. I also pointed out at the end that in the story, Max didn't have a real instrument- he just used what he had around him to make music. Then students discussed items they have at home or outside that they could use to make music. 

There are so many ways to extend this lesson into more exploration of found sounds, or having students create their own rhythm patterns! I'm sure there are other ways to apply this story to elementary music concepts as well- I'd love to hear your other ideas in the comments!

If you want to see more book-based elementary music lessons, be sure to head over to this post where I have collected all of my lesson plans in one place. I'm adding this one to the list and will continue to add as I publish more lesson ideas!

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Dance Playlist 2019

I love finding new music to add to my playlist for dance parties, slideshows, field day, and general merriment, and I'm excited to share this year's finds with you today! I always look for music that is age-appropriate for elementary students before editing (so no "kid version" stuff for me) that my older students will also think is cool. If you're looking for more music, be sure to check out all of my lists from previous years linked at the end of the post. Enjoy!

What songs would you add to the list? If you're looking for more tracks to add to your playlists, here are all my previous playlists- I still use these songs all the time and they don't seem to get old!

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