Hot Cross Buns
Recorders with the Grade 5s and 6s have gotten off to a good start! Motivation is high and I am going to be doing everything in my power to keep it that way. In previous years the 5s and 6s actually played band instruments but now that my school is K-8 that just isn't a possibility (as in I'd have 4 or 5 kids sharing each instrument. No thank you!). Sadly, recorders aren't perceived to be as cool as "real" band instruments. Go figure.
Last year was my first year teaching recorders and I pretty well just stuck to the method book. This year, I decided to spend some more time focusing on the songs the students were going to be playing for their Recorder Karate belts. I wanted to include some games, movement activities and other instruments. Here is my lesson for Hot Cross Buns. It took about two class periods to complete. I adapted a lesson from an Orff resource put out by my school board for Part 1 and the Boomwhacker/bass xylophone accompaniment was adapted from Fun with Boomwhackers by Chris Judah-Lauder.
Part 1
Part 2
Hot Cross Buns in "Fun with Boomwhackers" is designed for two Boomwhacker parts (melody and harmony) plus a bass xylophone bordun. I put the accompaniment on my Smart Board (pay no attention to my messy writing) with recorders playing the melody instead of Boomwhackers. I also changed the rhythm (half notes instead of quarter notes) to match the song in the students' method books. They always want to play Hot Cross Buns super quickly anyway so anything I can do to slow them down is a good thing.
Last year was my first year teaching recorders and I pretty well just stuck to the method book. This year, I decided to spend some more time focusing on the songs the students were going to be playing for their Recorder Karate belts. I wanted to include some games, movement activities and other instruments. Here is my lesson for Hot Cross Buns. It took about two class periods to complete. I adapted a lesson from an Orff resource put out by my school board for Part 1 and the Boomwhacker/bass xylophone accompaniment was adapted from Fun with Boomwhackers by Chris Judah-Lauder. Part 1
- Sing Hot Cross Buns while patsching the beat
- Sing while clapping the rhythm
- Play the "Switch Game" - have one half of the class patsch the beat while the other side claps the rhythm of the words. The teacher randomly calls out "Switch!" and the groups switch from patsching the beat or clapping the rhythm.
- While students are patsching the beat, the teacher draws quarter notes on the board to represent each beat. As a class, figure out how many beats each word gets from the song. Add bar lines and identify any patterns between the measures.
- Teach Hot Cross Buns from method book
Part 2
Hot Cross Buns in "Fun with Boomwhackers" is designed for two Boomwhacker parts (melody and harmony) plus a bass xylophone bordun. I put the accompaniment on my Smart Board (pay no attention to my messy writing) with recorders playing the melody instead of Boomwhackers. I also changed the rhythm (half notes instead of quarter notes) to match the song in the students' method books. They always want to play Hot Cross Buns super quickly anyway so anything I can do to slow them down is a good thing.
- Review Hot Cross Buns on recorders
- Teach Boomwhacker harmony part. (I put octavator caps on my B Boomwhackers so it would actually sound like the harmony is descending).
- Add bordun accompaniment on bass xylophone.
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