Susan’s class finished recording their poem, Shel Silverstein’s “Tree House” last week. I was impressed with how quickly many of the kids were able to memorize the words. They decided to use whispering, shouting, high-pitched, and “adults telling you what to do” voices for contrast and to convey the meaning of the poem. See if you can pick them out! Elliot inspired us with a rendition of Taio Cruz’ song Dynamite (turns out it’s the favorite pop song of SK K-2, who knew?), and I challenged the kids to put that same energy into their recitation. They obliged:
The kids also made some great decisions about different instruments/timbres to use to accompany the poem. However, we found that when kids had the instruments in front of them, all their concentration went into playing, and they weren’t able to give the poem its due. If we had had more time to rehearse, it could have happened, but they chose to finish and move on. They had a great time and were absolutely in love with how they sounded throughout the process; after hearing their first take, one student said, “There’s no way we can do better than that!” Then they did.
Elaine’s class is taking a bit longer to record their poem, as there was some disagreement about which poem they should do, and they are adamant about using instruments. The students were initially excited about recording their own poems, but ended up voting for Shel Silverstein’s “Magic.” Similarly to Susan’s class, the students are fascinated by hearing their own voices coming out of the music room speakers, and can’t wait to hear how each take comes out. Here’s their December 7 recording, for posterity:
Elaine’s class is taking a bit longer to record their poem, as there was some disagreement about which poem they should do, and they are adamant about using instruments. The students were initially excited about recording their own poems, but ended up voting for Shel Silverstein’s “Magic.” Similarly to Susan’s class, the students are fascinated by hearing their own voices coming out of the music room speakers, and can’t wait to hear how each take comes out. Here’s their December 7 recording, for posterity:
The 3/4 class is also working on recording “Slithergadee” by Shel Silverstein, to complement our study of triple meters (the poem has a 6/8 feel). They came up with hilarious ideas, but we’ve been so busy working on human body and recorder improvisation studies, we only had time for an informal first take so far:
I love the "parent voice"! Ha! Great stuff!
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