Frosty the Snowman

What can I say, I love the holidays and I love that right now, where I am in my curriculum with 3rd, 4th and 5th grades, there are many carols that support the rhythmic concepts that they are practicing. (And I'm lucky that my school population supports the singing of these songs.  I feel as a music educator that many of these carols are part of our American Heritage and students should have exposure to singing them.  Again, I'm lucky to be in a population that supports them).  That being said, I spend maybe 10 out of 45 minutes of my class period singing some type of carol or seasonal music (including Hanukkah) in the 2.5 weeks I see them in December.  

With 5th grade practicing tom-ti, I thought "Frosty the Snowman" would be a good to support that rhythm.  The other thing that I really like about it are all the anacrusic phrases hidden within.  We have worked a lot on pick-ups/anacrusic notes this fall and this practices that concept very well.  

Here's the song:

I will use the lyric slides from this PowerPoint with both 4th and 5th grades:

With 5th grade, we'll read the rhythm.  Here are a couple preview slides:

My hope is someday my students will have the ability to read the entire solfége of this song.  They aren't able now but I made the solfa slides so that "they are ready" when I have a class that's able to read them.  Here are a few preview slides:

I thought this song would lend itself well to a meter sorting game.  There are 2/4, 3/4, 4/4 and 6/8 snowmen, with the meter being on their hats.  I'll print the cards out on card stock, laminate them and cut them along the dotted lines and make packets that contain a few 2/4, 3/4 and 4/4 snowmen.  (My kiddos haven't read 6/8 yet.  Again, hopefully someday!)  I'll choose the rhythmic concept that is most difficult for them so that there is a total of 9 full snowmen, cut into parts in each packet.

The reason I made so many "levels" of snowmen rhythms is so I can easily tailor it to my students' needs each year.  I do plan on using the 2/4 ta ti-ti cards with my 1st graders to practice 2/4 meter, but we'll do that in January and chose different song literature.  (We'll also use the 2/4 meter blank snowman composition card below so they can "compose" their own snowman)

Here are ti-ti, ta and ta-rest snowmen:

 Here I added tika-tika to the snowmen:

These I added ti-tika to the snowmen:

Tika-ti is added to the snowmen:

Here syn-co-pa was added to the snowmen:

Here is tom-ti, but with 2/4 it's hard to add to more then one snowman. ;)

For every 2/4 rhythm concept snowman there's also a 3/4 and 4/4 meter version:

And here are the two 6/8 slides I created:

Additionally, I made blank snowmen so that student can compose their own snowmen.  Once they write their snowman, they can read it to the class or partner.  Working in pairs, they can also make a "taller" snowman by stacking their snowballs and reading their snowman that way.

 You can find this file on my Teachers pay Teachers page.