Old Brass Wagon.

We have been having a lot of fun learning this song in music class. This year, I have been spiralling it through my K-2’s. I thought I would share with you my process for introducing tika tika. I introduce this rhythm in grade 2.

• Intro the song and the dance.

My students have been loving this. I am taking it as an opportunity to reinforce maintaining a circle. Not easy with K-2’s. There are so many verses for this little tune. My favourites come from my daughter’s kindermusik class.

Circle to the left

Everybody Clap

Circle to the right

Everybody Jump

Everybody Swing

I think their favourite part is Everybody Swing. They shake hands and then they hook those elbows. I ask them to make sure they are looking in different directions.

• Draw the phrases in the air. How many are in the song?

For my purposes, our phrases are 4 beats long. We draw rainbows in the air. When we mirror phrases, I make sure I am moving right to left, so they are moving left to right. Love those early literacy skills. Then we draw them on the board.

I define phrases as musical sentences. I tell them the beginning of the phrase is like an upper case letter and the end of the phrase is like a period. All the notes within the phrase were put together to make sense. I think my Reading Recovery roots are showing.

• What do we need to put at the end to show the song is over?

Why, a double bar line of course! I follow this same process when we are notating any songs in music class. It has just become second nature for my students.

• How many beats are in phrase number 1?

If they say 2, I notate 2. If they say 3, I notate 3. Then we check. If they make a mistake, I give them an opportunity to correct their response. I am hoping it will help them self-monitor their own work.

• How many beats do you predict will be in phrases 2,3, and 4? Remember music likes patterns.

Once this is notated, I invite a student to point while we sing to double check that we were correct. It’s a great moment to check steady beat, reading left to right, and remembering the return sweep.

• How many sounds do you hear on each beat?

This song is great for tika tika because it is the only new element in the song. When we discover we don’t know a rhythm with 4 sounds on 1 beat, we label the sixteenth notes. Sometimes, a student will know them from other music enrichment opportunities outside of school.

• Notate the rhythm and sing the song with the rhythm syllables.

Now some rhythm exploration fun! I work with a super talented music teacher. These next few ideas were inspired by Dorothy. She had introduced me to these cute generalization activities and I created the visuals. I want my students to play and just practice the new rhythm.

• Roll a Rhythm

We just ordered these great re-usable dry-erase pockets. They arrived yesterday!!!!!

I am going to slip the Roll a Rhythm sheet in the pocket and they play the game with white board markers.

• Write your own copy of Old Brass Wagon.

I love this idea. Thank you Dorothy!!!! They write out their phrases, beats and rhythm. When they fold the sheet it becomes a little book they can take home. So sweet!!!

All of these visuals are on my PDF page. Let me know what you think about my process. Would it work for you?

Take care,

Syndi