Three Things {John Kanaka, Target Practice & 2, 4, 6, 8}

I'm linking up again this week with Aileen Miracle at Mrs. Miracle's Music Room for Three Things (that I did in my classroom last week):

So, first with 5th grade we're reviewing syncopa and prepping tam-ti (we're a little behind- we usually get to tam-ti in 4th grade).  So we sang and danced John Kanaka because it isolates tam-ti so nicely. Here they are:

This is an easy dance to teach.  I teach just the stomp and hand pattern first.  They get that really quickly. Then once they have it, we turn and face a partner.  By the time my kids have had me for a couple years they know that when I turn to my neighbor they figure out who theirs will be.  I'm a big believer of consistent systems in the classroom- THEY SAVE TONS OF TIME!!!  So, at this age I don't spend time having them figure out their partners, they can do it without stopping their singing.  At this point, they know the song so they take over the singing.  I can call "concentric circles" and they make a double circle.  I can teach the rest of the dance with calling the moves as they sing because they know the vocabulary.  Really, the only other things to add are the do-si-do and the step the the left.  They love this song and have a lot of fun with it!

My 3rd graders are practicing tika-tika (and prepping ti-tika) so I made a target practice game.  I really wanted to stretch them and get out of the "4-beat pattern practice" that we easily fall into. So, I made cards with 8 beat patterns in 2-meter.  They got into groups of 4 and each set of 4 got a set of 16 cards that they set out so they all could see them:

Then I would call a card and they would use a Nerf dart to "shoot" the target.  This group all thought they were correct- again, it's 8 beat patterns so many of them were similar.  Once they shot a target they'd hold it up and I would check and let them know who was correct.

When using Nerf "shooters" you have to pick out the right kind.  They'll stick to laminated cards, it's a lot of fun. You'll need the kind with the suctions on the top like these:

I do have the cards in my TpT store, I'll be posting the rest of the rhythm files tonight, as well as a bundled set.

With my first graders we're prepping ta ti-ti (one and two sounds on a beat). One chant that I LOVE for this is "2, 4, 6, 8" because 3 of the 4 lines are rhythmically different:

With this, we did a mini-contra dance.  The students were in two lines, facing their partner.

1. On the first phrase they took 4 steps towards each other.  
2. On the second phrase they shook hands. 
3. On the 3rd phrase they pointed to their wrists where their watch would be (beats 1 & 2 of that phrase) and then pointed at the their partner on "don't wait."
4. Finally, on the last line they took 4 steps backwards to their starting positions.

To change things up we said it different ways: "high like Mickey Mouse," "low like Darth Vader," slow motion, super fast, robot style, etc.  This was my way of getting them to do it more than three times without getting bored with it. :)

Thanks to Aileen for hosting this weekly link up!!!  Make sure to head over to her blog this week, she's having a celebration for reaching 3,000 followers on TpT.  If you're not following her make sure you are as she's having a followers only freebie on Thursday!!!

Have a GREAT week everyone!