Frère Jacques

I'm excited about this one! My first graders are representing France in the Multicultural Day Festival. 

There are several cute French songs, the catch is I only have five weeks to completely prepare them for the show. I really don't like the idea of simply teaching for concerts. That type of scenario can become the music teacher's version of Teaching to the Test, if we aren't careful. I really want my kids to learn about what they are singing, the historical context, the theory, the solfege, the meaning, etc. 

French Flag

So I put together a power-point on France, you know- famous landmarks, sample phrases, clips of people speaking french...Then I taught them how to say, " Hi, how are you?" then I said, " music class is fun!" (Of course they need to know how to say THAT in french *smiles*)

Sample Phrases

We discussed...

• "What is a monk?" 
• "What does a monk do?"
• "Why do they call each other, brother?"
• "Why are they ringing a bell?"

The hair was the favorite part...

Next, we talked about quarter notes and ties. "Dor-met-Vous------" We discussed the note values and why we would tie two quarter notes together. This was a lively discussion, they identified all the ties in the music (there are four.) (The below example uses a half note, this we also discussed.)

Then I added the the ukulele and the foot tambourine. Once they learned to sing it, we added the xylophones, the "bells."

Playing "F's" on the down beats.

Playing the bass xylophone.

So fun!