• March to the quarter notes in a circle or around the room. Marching provides a great break and a little exercise. It’s also helps young children to internalize quarter notes
• Circle dance

• Circle to the right for 32 beats (verse)
• March in place for 32 beats (chorus)
• Pretend to play the trumpet melody line – 8 beats
• Repeat, but this time circle to the left

• Teach the movements associated with the marching snare, crash cymbals, saxophone, trombone, piccolo, and trumpet. Then mimic the instruments as you stand in place OR as you march around the room OR only when you hear them

• First listen to the entire song to get the gist of the basic beat and the hand clap pattern. Then make up dance movements based on classic popular dances, such as "The Twist, The Mashed Potato, or The Jerk" for the refrain. Or simply do a two step (weight on left foot on 2, right foot on 4) with or without the hand clap pattern [rest – clap clap – rest – clap ].
• Make up a movement for each sound heard in the interlude. The lyrics are self-explanatory, but some are trickier than others!

• Make a list of sounds for students to find and go on a sound scavenger hunt. Make the list concrete ("find a clicking sound", "find a ringing sound", "find something made of wood that makes a sound") or more abstract ("find a sound that makes you happy", "find an angry sound")
• Challenge your students to find interesting "found sounds", ask them to bring them in, and then allow the students to share the objects and the sounds. A variation would be to have them share the sound from behind a screen; the other students can try to guess what the object is

• Circle Dance

• Circle to the right for 8 beats (Mama don’t allow no banjo playing here)
• Circle to the left for 8 beats (Mama don’t allow no banjo playing here)
• All take hands, four beats to the center ( We don’t care what mama don’t allow)
• Four beats back (We’re gonna play that banjo anyhow)
• Circle to the right for 7 beats (Mama don’t allow no banjo playing), stop on beat 8
• Banjo players move to the center and mime playing a banjo while students in the circle clap hands on the beat

• Sing with (zipper in) other words that go with movements, such as "Mama don’t allow no twist and shaking here"

• Stop and Freeze / Freeze and Move

• All you need to do is play the song on your boom box and have your pointer finger ready!
• At the end of each regular phrase, press the pause button. The children must freeze until you press the play button again
• Younger kids love the anticipation of this activity. This activity builds both listening skills and self-control. If you pause on regular phrases, children will anticipate phrase lengths
• For older students, pause the song at irregular intervals

• When students need a chance to move and stretch, play this song and have them create slow movements that stretch the body
• Play this song as a slow down / wind down from a vigorous physical activity. Play it and move slowly when students return from gym class

• In a circle or independently, do the following to the Bo Diddly beat:

• Pat Pat Pat Clap – Snap

• Try the following hand movements (that parallel the sounds)

• Bim Bim Bim Bim Right fist taps left fist on each word
• Bang Bang Clap hands on each word
• Bim Bim Right fist taps left fist on each word
• Wuggle wuggle Flattened right hand (palm down) moves back and forth over the

• Boing Boing Flattened right hand flips over (palm up) and the same for the

• Two Extend arms upward, raise hands with two fingers (think "peace or

• Whoop dee do! Extend all fingers and shake hands vigorously in the air

• Create your own hand-jive movements for each nonsense word
•  

• Create a circle dance for the verses

• Here’s one possibility, starting with half-note claps (and sometimes "gallops") and ending with quarter note peepy steps:

When you first walked all by yourself you started with a peepy step

Soon you were running and walking without any help because you

1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4

started with a peepy step

Just take a little step and you’ll have a start don’t put the horse before the cart

If you start out small you’ll end up big when you start with a peepy step

• When you get to the refrain (the part that starts slow and ends fast), take peepy, also known as small or baby steps, each time you hear the word STEP! For the very last line, take a step on each quarter note and finally on each eighth note, slowing down as the song slows down

You take a peepy step, a peepy step, a peepy step, a peepy step

Take a peepy step, a peepy step, a peepy step, a peepy step

Take a peepy step, a peepy step, each and every day

And after thirty-seven peepy steps, you’ll be on your way

Three songs from Mr. Sounds are sung from the viewpoint of another character, specifically 1) a slug (I’m a Slug), 2) a boy getting ready for bed (Me and My Pillow), and 3) a three-year-old (Baby Billy). Popular examples of this type of song are I’m Just a Bill from School House Rock, many songs from Sesame Street and the Muppets, including I Love Trash or It’s not Easy Being Green, and I am a Worm and The Platypus Song from Little Animals, my first CD of kids music.

• Play any or all of the songs listed above. Use songs to introduce and discuss the writing of monologues. Talk about writing from another’s perspective

• Have students write monologues. You may want to start with the writing of a monologue from the viewpoint of a well know book character (written after the child has read the book). Then move to writing a story from the point of view of a redwood tree or skyscraper, a salamander or a piece of gum stuck to the underside of a desk (more difficult). Help students focus on their monologue’s topic by setting parameters, ranging from the concrete to the abstract

• Tell about one specific event in a character’s life or one particular characteristic
• Retell the character’s life and cover all the major events
• Incorporate facts about the historical time or the geographic location in which character lives

• If you’re working on a theme, such as mammals or planets, write monologues and then perform them. Incorporate costumes, props and possibly sound and music.

• Present the monologues as a Wax Museum, which is simply a line of students who are frozen in position (in a line with other frozen "wax dummies") until a visitor enters the museum and presses the wax figure’s "ON" button. Half the class can be in the Wax Museum and other half can attend, or have the class present a Wax Museum to another class.

• Videotape the biographies and air them on your public access channel (or at least on VCR in your classroom)!

• Teach a lesson on onomatopoeia and then challenge the students to write a story that incorporates at least three onomatopoetic words. Both Dooflicky Machine and Bim, Bim, Bim use onomatopoeia, with words such as "bang", "whiz", "boing" underscored by sounds that parallel or mimic the lyric

• After the students have written a story using onomatopoeia, allow them to find or create objects that make the story sounds. The students can then pair up and give a dramatic reading of the story, one students reading and the other making the sound when each onomatopoetic word is read (sound-effects person)

• Write the spoken sections of the song I Love Pancakes on a large easel pad and point out the rhyming words that occur at the end of each sentence. Then read the rap out loud to the class and finally together with the class. Collect various raps, chants, and rhymes, such as "Twenty-four Robbers", "Possum Came a Knockin’", "I’m Being Swallowed by a Boa Constrictor" and "Here Comes a Shark" (from my CD Little Animals). Put each rhyme or rap on a separate sheet of a large easel pad. Allow the class, small groups, or individuals to select, practice and orally read aloud a rap or chant each day. Raps, chants and rhymes are great for teaching rhyming, spelling lessons, and fostering a love of reading and language

• After listening, singing and moving to the song Bim, Bim, Bim, zipper in (substitute) other rhyming couplets for each verse. Allow the children to create rhymes for their own names. A rhyming dictionary could come in handy for the hard-to-rhyme names!

Listen to the following songs in their entirety: Mr. Sounds and Dooflicky Machine. Re-listen to the songs and draw attention to the many sounds found within in each song, then discuss how the sounds are used to keep the listeners attention and compliment the meaning and story line of each song. Finally, consider these activities:

• Discuss how objects are made with assembly lines, machines and robots. Pick an object or product made by a machine (such as bubble gum or steel). Then discuss what steps are needed to produce the product (such as chopping, crushing, mixing, heating, pressing, extracting, etc.)
• Decide on what product the class wants to make and discuss / brainstorm what the machine would look like and how its parts might move together to make the product. Demonstrate how movement and sound got together. For example, if you need a cutter in your machine, you can swing your arms back and forth and make a sound like air being pushed (fff..t, fff…t, fff…t) and materials being cut (shhwit, shhwit)
• Ask the students to create movements and sounds that are specific to what is being made. Give them time and room to experiment
• Start building the machine one part at a time. Each student that is added should make a sound and a movement that goes with the machine being made
• Speed up the machine and slow the machine down

• Decide on a particular environment that would normally include many sounds, an environment such as a city pool, a forest or a construction site
• Brainstorm what sounds would occur in this environment, such as banging, clanging, rumbling, steel screeching, rocks cracking, etc.
• Brainstorm possible ways to re-create each sound
• Assign students the responsibility of finding particular sounds
• Bring the sound objects to the classroom, put the sounds together and re-create the environment
• Record the sound environment and start a library of different environments. For each environment, list the separate sounds and the methods and objects that were used to create each sound

• Start with a popular book that has story line that would support sounds and/or music in the background. Examples are books such as Ty’s One-Man Band by Mildred Pitts Walter, which could include thumping sounds, clanking sounds and harmonica sounds, or Pearl Moscowitz’s Last Stand by Arthur A. Levine, a book which could support thunder storm sounds, latin music, and the sound of heavy machinery
• Read through the books and decide on places where background sounds and music would be appropriate
• Brainstorm a list of ways that the sounds could be created
• Assign students the responsibility of finding and/or creating particular sounds and music
• Bring the sound objects and music to the classroom, then put the sounds and music in the appropriate places as the teacher reads the book
• Record the sounds and music as the book is being read. Start a library of your own books on tape (with backing soundscapes). For each book, list the separate sounds and the methods and objects that were used to create each sound or the music that was used

• Start with a story that is short and has repeating characters throughout. Fairy tales, such as Cinderella, are usually good, as are short children’s books, such as Educating Arthur (by Amanda Graham)
• List the 4-5 main characters and repeating events (such as Rapunzel letting down her hair or a prince riding on a horse) and discuss what might be a defining sound or phrase for that character or event. The sounds should be based on the meaning of the event and action or the trait of the character. The students should focus on words and prhases that are repeated throughout the text. Here are some examples:
  • King = trumpet fanfare
  • Magic troll = "hee, hee, hee"
  • Waved his sword = "sswwisshhh!"
• The teacher reads the story aloud. Each time the characterk, action or event is read, the students must make the sound that has been assigned. Here is an examples:

You can find more great ideas for using music, movement, drama, and sound at home and at school, in the book The Dramatically Different Classroom by Christine Laitta and Mark Weakland. To find more information or order the book, go to www.springwatermusic.com or to www.kagononline.com.

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