Melodious Carols: New Ideas

Well, summer's drawing to a close and I'm getting excited (and admittedly a little nervous) about the coming school year. Brandon and I are finally in our new house and, now that we're somewhat settled, I'm ready to start lesson planning, organizing, and preparing my new classroom. I have only seen it once (when I interviewed) and, though I've been by the school several times since, I have not been able to go in. Gah! I want to get started!

In the meantime, I've been gathering my things, and finding some super cute manipulatives and new ideas. My two favorite things that I'll be going in with are from Ikea and Bobby McFerrin (of all things). :D

With my younger kiddos, one of the biggest things I work to develop and identify is "steady beat." I use heart icons a lot for this (since a heart "beats") and the kids really seem to relate to it. When I went to Ikea a few days ago to get some kitchen stuff, I just had to look around the kids' section. I found the most perfect thing for steady beat! It's a huge plush heart pillow with arms and big plush hands! I can just see my little ones hugging the heart and using its hands to keep a "steady beat"! It couldn't be more perfect if a music teacher had come up with it! It's my own version of Emily's "Steady Freddy"! Now it just needs a name . . . what do you think?

My other new idea came from a video posted from the 2009 World Science Festival. Bobby McFerrin demonstrates how anyone, anywhere can have a basic understanding of the pentatonic scale. I just saw this today, but I'm already working on a way to incorporate this into one of my choir programs this year. How cool would it be to have my choir sing a little solfege melody while the audience provides the accompaniment! I can't wait to try!

Here's the video.