Holiday Group Lesson Idea

Roxane  http://www.leepianostudio.com/  not only sent me her idea for a great holiday group lesson, but she sent me a picture, too! I love to get pictures and PDF’s  of other teacher’s ideas, because I have a hard time visualizing things just by reading.  If you want to send me an idea of something you’ve made and don’t know how to make a PDF, get someone to take a picture and email it to me.

What is really good about Roxane’s group lesson is the planning she did in advance to have the gingerbread theme. I wish I was that organized. When I taught Kodaly, we had this little phrase we sang: The Rhythm is the Way the Words Go. So when we use different words with rhythms such as choc-0-late or blue-ber-ry we are actually teaching the beginning of composing. Tomorrow I’m going to post a 2 line rhyme with pictures for students to use for composing a Christmas song.

Roxane gave me permission to post her picture, and  the following is from her email. She took the picture early in the morning without good light, she said, but, Roxane, I think it’s great! Thanks for letting me post this.

 “We’re having a gingerbread man themed group class today and will be focusing on rhythm after the performance.  In early November I gave each student part of the gingerbread man story for which they composed a short piece.  We’re performing those compositions today.  After class we’ll do rhythm activities, using Cecilly’s rhythm chairs.  For a quarter note, I’ll say bread, for an eighth note, gin-ger, for a triplet, choc-o-late and for a sixteenth note, pis-ta-chi-o .  I also made gingerbread cookies starting at 4:30 this morning  and drew rhythms on them with frosting.  You’ll see in the attached picture. I may ask the students to count and clap the rhythm on the gingerbread man cookie before they get to take them home.”