Bluebells, Cockleshells

When I was little, my mom taught me many skipping rope songs.  This is one of them, you probably know it:

Now, growing up, we would sing "Bluebells, cockle shells, eevy, ivy, overhead" while two people were swinging the rope side to side.  On the word "overhead" the twirlers would make the rope go over and we would keep jumping while chanting:

"Here comes the teacher with a big fat stick,

Better get ready for 'rithmetic.

One plus one is two;

Two plus two is four;

Four plus four is eight;

Eight & eight is sixteen;"

etc., as high as we could count or until we "messed up" with the jumping.

Now days, teachers don't carry around "big fat sticks," do we, lol?!

Some kids growing up would follow the sung part with this instead:

"My mother said that I was born in January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December."  With this one, you would run out from jumping on your birth month.

And then there's the way I do it in my classroom (learned from Jo Kirk):

Once upon a time there was a little girl who went to visit her grandparents in the mountains, she stopped at her uncle’s cabin.  They would often sit out on the porch and drink hot chocolate.  They enjoyed looking at the beautiful wildflowers right in the front yard. 

A gentle breeze sometimes would come by and cause the flowers to move back and forth.  Sing the song slow and move arms slightly back and forth.

Then the wind got stronger.  Sing a second time, this time faster and move arms back and forth even more.

The wind was really picking up now!  Sing again, faster, and move arms back and forth even more.

Now a storm has arrived!  Sing again, and move arms back and forth so fast that you spin around.

Pair students up.

Game:

1. Children in groups of two should be facing their partners holding hands.

2. Swing hands to the steady beat.

3. When the wind is gentle, gently move hands back and forth.

4. As the wind picks up and the song gets faster, move hands back and forth

    faster and higher.

5. When the storm comes, students “wring the dishrag” on “overhead.”  

Heres' the PowerPoint that I made to go with it and from which you can teach different rhythmic an melodic elements:

Here's a lyric slide:

A beat slide:

An iconic rhythm preparation slide:

A symbolic/traditional notation slide for practicing rhythm:

Now, there are a few melodic slides. This song can be used for presenting and practicing so-mi but it's also great for introducing and practicing the mi-la interval.

Here are the so-mi preparation slides:

Here's the so-mi presentation slides:

Now, Sr. Lorna Zemke has a whole story that goes along with the solfége house.  In fact, you can order darling Solfége houses from Silver Lake College or West Music.    And my friend Tanya LeJeune has a cute, elaborate story for the houses.  I'll admit that I don't have that great of a story.  It's basically summarized on the slides below, but you can make up whatever you want.  The most important thing is that you "sell it" to your students:

And here are the preparation slides for la.  Now, I use these after they already have learned la in the so-la-so-mi turn so I don't use these slides but skip down to the practice slides:

 Here's where I start in the la slides.  When we use this for reading we're now working on the so-mi-la-so turn and the interval between mi-la:

This is available as a PDF at my Teachers Pay Teachers store.  Additionally, I have included directions on how to make the PDF into a PowerPoint.  I would post these as a PowerPoint if I didn't have such a hard time with the graphics converting correctly.  But, that's why I sell them for $1. :)

Hope you have a GREAT weekend!