What's New in Musicplay with Denise Gagne

Find the Easter Basket

A fun lesson for Thursday/Friday of this week, would be to teach your classes, Find the Easter Basket.  This has always been a favorite lesson for me to teach before Easter.  It's a great opportunity to review dynamics, including crescendo and decrescendo or diminuendo.

Reading or Rote?  If the students are reading rhythms and solfege (or letter names) they should be able to learn the song by reading it.   Have them read the rhythms first, using the rhythm names that you use.  I use ta and ti-ti, but use whatever system you prefer.  If your students have learned solfege, show them the small staff on the upper right hand side of the song to learn which notes are la (l), so (s) and mi (m).  Have them sing the song using the solfa notes.  Then, sing the song with words.  You could teach the song by rote, but your students are learning a valuable skill when you have them learn a new song by reading it. Game Directions: Choose one child to hide the Easter basket and another child to look for it. The child who is going to hunt for the basket leaves the room while the "hider" hides it. When the finder returns, the class sings the song, singing softly when he/she is far away from the basket, and singing louder as he gets closer to the basket. The basket must be hidden in plain sight. The game continues until everyone in the class has had a turn to hide the basket or to find it.If you have a really large class, and kids are getting wiggly waiting for their turn, play the game over two classes. Keep track on your class list of all the students that have had a turn to hide or find the basket. In my classes, the kids get to hide OR find --- not both.

Videos of the song can be found on MusicplayOnline: Find the Easter Basket

If you use the lesson this week with your students, feel free to comment or post questions, pictures of your students or video of your students.  Check back to see how the lesson went for other teachers.

For an older class, show them how a simple game song like Tisket a Tasket can be turned into a jazz classic.  Search on YouTube for Ella Fitzgerald's version of the song.

Discuss how the Ella Fitzgerald version differs from the game song given here.

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Musicplay Workshops

Check out our latest webinar on activities for April, including Easter and Spring activities AND Bunnies: The Musical!

Musicplay Minutes Podcast

Listen to our newest podcast on ideas for St. Patrick's Day and Earth Day!

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October is a fun month - even if you don't have Halloween at your school. If a song in Musicplay talks about Halloween, options are always given to adapt it so that all students can participate. Pumpkin Stew is a simple chant that you can use to create a rondo, and create ostinato accompaniment. BATS is a kids favorite song, with cool sound effects created on balloons.

Canadian Thanksgiving falls on Monday, October 10th. For my American friends, save this newsletter until November!

Staff Lesson

There is a new interactive staff lesson attached to Songs 1-6 in K-6 at www.musicplayonline.com.  When I teach the staff, I use several tools - the floor staff games, hand staff, cookie sheet staff, and now there's an interactive tool to help students learn about the staff. If you have a SMART Board or IWB, you or your students can drag the lines to make the staff or drag the treble clefs to the staff.  If you don't, you can do this with the mouse on your computer or on an iPad. The first four activities are suitable for all grades - even your kindergarten students can learn that the staff has 5 lines.