Sailor, Sailor on the Sea

I love this singing game!

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A post shared by Aimee Pfitzner 🎶 (@aimee_ofortunaorff)

Singing Games - WHY? WHAT? HOW?

 Have you ever wanted to try more singing games but are stuck in the questions that arise about which ones work well and how to manage students in the midst of games?  And why do we even do these?  

Well... here you go!! 

Victoria Boler and I sat down for a lengthy conversation around the what, when, where, why, and how of singing games.  Go have a listen to the podcast or watch the video HERE! 

Need more? 

HERE are all 23 tagged and labeled posts on the blog with singing games - scroll all the way to the bottom and click "Older Posts" when you have finished with each page and it will load all the other posts with "Singing Games". 

I will also be posting more in the next couple weeks on TikTok and Instagram so check those out, too! 

Enjoy,

Five Eggs

Spring is one of my favorite times of year - each morning on my walk I hear birds singing and see rabbits hopping on fresh sprigs of green grass.  And the flowers! Well, if you know me at all, you know how much I love flowers and especially irises.  I have so many flowers planted around my house and particularly love the 20-something varieties of iris I currently have!  

This is a perfect rhyme and fingerplay for spring.  

Fingerplays are so underrated! Teach them to younger students as a fingerplay but bring them back to teach or reinforce rhythmic elements in first grade and as a canon experience for second grade, or add a So Mi or So La Mi melody, eventually adding in an ostinato or two.  Transfer the rhyme and ostinati to non-pitched percussion, add timbre changes for each line and allow the students to decide how to perform it.  For older students, use these as a basis for melodic improvisation or to walk the beat while clapping the rhythm or add a B Section with the names of egg layers - birds, fish, insects, turtles, platypus, echidna, reptiles, and lizards.  Or have small groups of students create a movement story of one type of animal and perform for other groups to guess the animal.  So many possibilities!

For a better image, click here. 

Enjoy! 

See the Dragon Come

 See the Dragon Come has long been a favorite song and I finally got around to making two different sets of simple 2-beat building bricks for young students- one cartoon version, one traditional Chinese papercut version.  

Click here for the link and note this will force a copy. 

Enjoy!

One Dragon

 Most of you know my family is Chinese American- my daughter was born in China and adopted into our family when she was 18 months.  We celebrate Lunar New Year and love this special and festive time of year.  

This year is the year of the dragon!  My amazing friend, Melanie Kang, recently published her book, Lions, Lanterns, and Ribbons with Beatin' Path Publications.  It is a delightful book and makes Chinese and Mandarin-language songs accessible, playful, and purposeful.  I was honored to be her editor on the project.  Click on the picture to check out the book - available in print or as a download-able e-book!  

Melanie and I created this song based on the traditional Three Frogs children song.  

Click here to get the google slides and note this will force a copy! 

Enjoy!  

Lead Through That Sugar and Tea

 This is a favorite dance and I love using it to introduce syncopation!  There are (at least) 2 versions although I think Version 2 is probably more historically accurate.  The song and dance is a play party.  Here is more information about this song and more here from the University of Arkansas with a field recording from 1953.  The speech at the beginning of Version 1 is something I created with my students. 

Click here for the Google Slides. 

Bounce High, Bounce Low

 This is one of those games that is played many ways and has a myriad of concepts to focus on.  I love using this in Kindergarten as a beat game, then later in the year as a rhythm game, and then spiraling it up into first grade as an introduction into La.  

For the full slides, please click here and note this will force a copy.