What a wild ride!!!! In January, I wrote a post entitled “Come What May”. I certainly didn’t think we would be living through a pandemic. And teaching REMOTELY. WOW!!!!!

In our school district, the role of the specialist during home learning is to promote health and well being. Our Department of Education did not want to overwhelm parents so I am posting choice boards for my K to 3 students. They are still based within our core music curriculum but it offers some choice and wiggle room for the parents. They do what they can.

The concept of a spiral curriculum is really helping me with time management. I use the same ideas, songs, activities and poems with different achievement indicators. I thought I would share my process.

I try to post choice boards on my blog as follow:

Monday – Kindergarten choice board

Tuesday – Grade 1 choice board

Wednesday – Grade 2 Choice Board

Thursday – Grade 3 Choice Board

It is A LOT of work. But very satisfying. I post the board including the mini lessons, and links that are needed for each activity.

My Orff roots led me to add categories.

Let’s Read

Let’s Sing

Let’s Move

Let’s Play

Let’s Create

Let’s Experience

Let’s Listen

Let’s take a look at what I create for this week. All the PDF’s are on the grade level pages at the top of the blog.

Kindergarten

Presentation2 Kindergarten PDF

Let’s Create

I made these little buggy cards for them to use for some rhythm practice. For my K’s, they are at the stage in their development where they can successfully put the words into their hands. It also is really easy for parents to understand when you explain rhythm in this way.

I made a mini lesson using Flipgrid. (Super easy, by the way). I asked the students to pick 2 cards and clap the rhythm. What would happen if you chose 4 cards? Can you create an AABA pattern?

Let’s Sing

I am a little uncomfortable being on camera. Middle age and all!!!! So… I started to explore a new program called Doodly. I created a little doodly video of a story I wrote to go along with the partner songs “One Bottle of Pop” and “Don’t Throw your Junk in my Backyard”. My students can sing along with it at home.

I also included this visual with the numbered bottles. My K students can touch the number of each bottle as they sing.

Let’s Move, Let’s Play, Let’s experience ABA

For this week, I used the poem “Roly Poly”.

Moving is so important. I like this poem because after they perform the poem with their hands, you can ask “How would you do it with your feet?” Can you do it loud, quiet, fast, slow?

I created this little mini lesson to go along with “Roly Poly”.

I am so sad that we won’t get to continue our exploration on the instruments. But … we can find sounds at home!!!! I asked my students to find something they could use as a drum. I chose a book. I directed the kiddos to play on:

Up, Up, Up

Out, Out, Out

Tap, Tap, Tap

Lap

In the visual, I made these words stand out to support playing these rhythms.

Let’s take it one step further. Can you perform an ABA pattern?

A – Say the poem with movement

B – Say the poem and play the drum on those special words

A – Say the poem with movement

Let’s Listen

I love this performance of “Hornpipe” from Handel’s “Water Music”. I asked the students to listen and draw what they see in their imagination.

Grade 1 and Grade 2

       

Grade 1 Choice Board PDF

Grade 2 Choice Boards PDF

So… I mentioned spiral curriculum – Same ideas; different achievement indicators.

Let’s Read Rhythm

I used the same “Buggy” theme but created rhythms that were more suited for my grade 1’s  and grade 2’s.

         

           

Let’s Sing and Let’s Listen

These both stayed the same as the K choice board.

Let’s Move

“Roly Poly” was a little young for the grade 1’s and 2’s for moving. I also want them to be working on doing a cross body hand pattern so they get to work on “Head and Shoulders, Baby”. I LOVE how much creativity comes with the creationg of new verses!!!!. I made another little mini lesson to help my students explore the possibilities.

Let’s Play and Let’s Experience ABA

I used the same idea of finding a drum but developmentally the grade 1’s and 2’s can handle a little more.

This week, it took a lot of time preparing these materials. I didn’t get ot my grade 3’s. Am I beating myself up over it? Yes, a little. But we all run out of time and the scary part of working from home is there is no set end to your work day. Remember to be gentle with yourself. All the PDF’s and links are on the grade level pages at the top of this blog. Feel free to use them. And I will post again soon.

Take care,

Syndi