CHILDREN'S LITERATURE - BOOKS TO SING

Fall Mixed Up
Written by Bob Raczka
Illustrated by Chad CameronISBN:  978-0-7613-4606-7

Here is another wonderful reminder of the Fall season -- but wait, something's not quite right with these verses.  After singing the song, ask your students to go back through the story and find the many autumn descriptors that aren't stated correct.  For example, do bears really gather nuts while geese hibernate?

The book can be easily adapted to the melody of the folk song "My Horses 'Ain't Hungry."  However, if you're not as familiar with this particular folk song, you can also adapt the book to the melody of "The Eency Weency Spider."  Both songs can be found in the folk collection "150 American Folk Songs" collected by Peter Erdei (published by Boosey and Hawkes) -- or you can simply adapt the words to sing the story to any other familiar song that has a 6/8 meter.

Enjoy and keep singing.

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MELODY

STEADY BEAT - LITTLE BO-PEEP

Little Bo-Peep has lost her sheep,
And can't tell where to find them,
Leave them alone, and they'll come home
Wagging their tails behind them.

I thought this poem might offer a fun opportunity to reinforce the sixteenth-note rhythm patterns we have been working on in class -- tika-tika, ti-tika, and tika-ti.  I took white shape patterns of a sheep and wrote a variety of 1-beat rhythmic patterns on each sheep.  The patterns included the 3 above patterns as well as those previously being practiced -- quarter note (ta), quarter rest, 2 eighth-notes (ti-ti) and the half note (ta-o).

Once each sheep had a 1-beat rhythmic pattern, I laminated each sheep and put a magnet on the back for easy magnetic board use and manipulative floor work.

To do this, I adapted the poem to allow one sheep to be removed.

Little Bo-Peep lost her rhythm sheep,
And can't tell where to find them,
Leave them alone, and they'll come home
Wagging their tails behind them.



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MELODY - BAA BAA BLACK SHEEP

Baa, baa, black sheep, have you any wool?
Yes, sir! Yes, sir! Three bags full.
One for my master, one for the dame,
One for the little boy who lives down the lane.

This week, my first grade students are starting to sing and create sol-mi melodies.  In a whole-class activity, I drew a line (fence) on the white board and then placed all of the sheep above the fence.  After saying the poem, "Baa, Baa, Black Sheep," we sang a 3-sol melody after reciting the poem.  As we said the poem again, I moved the sheep to create a sol-sol-mi melody.  When we finished the poem, we sang the new melody.  After a few more times, I was ready for the kids to create their own melody.  So we decided that the sol-sol-mi melody was the "class song" and that you had to create something different.  (Yes, I know there are only so many patterns you can create -- but they don't care -- to them, if they make it, then it's new!)

I put a piece of masking tape down on the carpet for each child (about 6-8 inches) and gave each child 3 sheep pattern pieces.  I kept the "class melody" on the board.  I then shared with the class that we would create a 4 melody (4 phrase) song each time we said the poem.  So we said the poem, then sang the three of the student melodies and ended with the "class melody" the fourth time.  They LOVED the activity!

To complete the lesson, I gave each child a 3x5 card and 3 stickers that I have previously cut apart into little groups of 3 (that I purchased at a local teacher store).  On each of the 3x5 cards, I had drawn a black line across the middle to represent the fence.  I asked the children to "write" or copy their melody using the stickers onto the index cards so that they could take the song home to sing to their family.  I reminded them to say the poem first before singing the poem.  They walked out of class as if they were carrying the Gutenberg Bible!!!

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STEADY BEAT - BAA BAA BLACK SHEEP

After the children have learned the poem BAA BAA BLACK SHEEP, I use to poem to prepare different meters.  I do this by taking die cut pictures of sheep and putting them on sentence strips.  After they have been laminated, I can use a dry erase pen to make a bar line after every 2, 3 or 4 sheep.

Make several strips, as I'm finding that 2 kids per strip is just the right number.  For extra fun, have the children draw the bar lines after every 5 sheep.

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