Native American Drum Game

Grades: 2^nd - 5^th grade

Context: This game can easily be tied to a history or social studies lesson about Native Americans, or used seasonally around Thanksgiving time. Teaches rhythm and about Native American music.

Supplies: (3-4 students per set)
-one die, two dice for an advanced variation
-a drum for each group member (hand drum, craft project, or their laps,
floor, or desk)
-game board and a feather for each player, to mark their spot
Before Playing: Teach/review the note values of a quarter note, half note, whole note, and quarter rest. Emphasize how many beats each note gets (in 4/4 time). Talk about Native American culture and music, maybe listen or watch a powwow. 

Game Instructions:

Simplest version
1. Students sit around the board with their drums, or room to drum. Each chooses a feather and places it on the Tipi to begin. The goal is for each Native American to get from their home (the Tipi) to their tribe's powwow (the fire).
2. The first student rolls the dice, and moves that number of squares.
3. He will then play the rhythm of the notes from those squares on his drum, and the other players will “answer” with the same rhythm after him.
4. Repeat steps 2 and 3 for all group members until someone reaches the Powwow and wins. 

Variations-Have students move and play the number of BEATS they roll, not simply spaces. If the note value is longer than the number they rolled (ie: a whole note when they rolled 3, etc), they still go to that note and get the extra beats. This emphasizes note value along with rhythm.
-Have students roll two dice for each turn. They will need to play longer rhythms, but the game will end more quickly.
-Extremely simple version: have students only play the note they land on.

Geometry in Real Life

Made this video for my Math for Elementary class, teaching perimeter and area of rectangles and triangles. Sorry about the wind noise and poor video quality. I'm not suggesting you use this video in your classroom, but maybe take your kids outside and find shapes on the playground or around your school, or even in your classroom.

Teaching English Body Parts and Clothing

           When deciding on body vocabulary to teach, I highly recommend first teaching the body parts from the song “Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes.” There are no extra words in this song, it is pure vocabulary and the students really love it if you speed it up each time! Make sure you clarify that “toes” means toes, not feet. Even after pointing and counting off all five toes, when I asked my students the Spanish word for “toe,” they emphatically shouted “!pie!” (foot!). I had to explain that toes were “dedos de pie,” not feet. We also had one student who told us that “kneesandtoes” was one body part, so explain “and” since it is used in both parts of the song.

After this have the students create a paper doll and write the body parts they already know on their doll and teach new vocabulary:

- "hand" and "foot"

- "right" and "left"

Providing that your students already know colors, now you have all the vocabulary you need to play Twister! The teacher should call out instructions the first time so that students can get used to hearing the words, then eventually let the students take over. We also wrote

"<------left, right-------->"

on the board to help during game play.

"The Hokey Pokey" song is good practice with right and left, and combines all the body parts learned so far. We did the following verses: "put your (right hand, left hand, right foot, left foot, head, body) in." Our students really enjoyed it because they already knew the song in Spanish.

It's really easy to transition from body parts to clothing. We used the paper dolls the students labeled while learning their body parts, and added clothing! It depends on the grade you are teaching, but we went ahead and cut out all the clothing ahead of time. We showed them a piece of real clothing (which we brought to be used in a later game), wrote the word on the board, had them repeat it numerous times, then passed out the paper equivalent and had them write the name on it. We chose the following vocabulary: shirt, pants, shoes, jacket, and hat. We also taught "dress" for the upcoming game. The kids really liked their dolls and played with them all week:

     

 

The last activity we did with clothing was a relay race. We had two piles of clothing at one end of the classroom, each consisting of a t-shirt, jacket, jeans, sundress, pair of tennis shoes, and a baseball hat.We reviewed the vocabulary by holding up the items, but the students were already familiar since we had taught using this same clothing. We then split the students into two teams and made two lines at the other end of the classroom. The teacher then says an article of clothing, and the first person in each line runs to their pile of clothing and holds up the item. The team that does this first gets a point, etc. After playing through the entire class this way, the second time around we blindfolded the student and had them kneel in front of the pile and find the clothing based on touch. This was a fun variation and the kids enjoyed cheering on their teammates.

 

What are your ideas for teaching body parts or clothing in English? What has worked well for you?

Music Around the World Video

     I created this video for my Music for Elementary class. I thought it would be a neat way for students to hear music from different countries while broadening their cultural perspectives. It would be really neat if you could bring various instruments into the classroom and let students see and play them, talk about the role of music in culture. You can also tie this to Geography by having the students trace the path of the video on a globe or map while watching.

Meet Miss Taylor

Hello everyone! I'm an Elementary Education major at Kansas State University. My emphasis is English as a Second Language (ESL), and I have a Spanish minor to go along with that. As I near graduation, I felt it would be good to create a resource to organize and compile all of my teaching projects and experiences, both for my later reference and to perhaps inspire or give ideas to others. I figure there are quite a few seasoned teachers out there as well, who can give me advice and help me along in my journey. If you have any advice or questions, please never hesitate to comment. I'm very friendly, I promise!

I've always loved working with children: I've worked in church nurseries for over 6 years, babysat quite a bit, and helped with numerous VBS programs, children's camps, science days, carnivals, puppet shows, craft days, sunday school....you name it, I've done it. This last summer I went with the ESL program at my university to teach English at a school in Guatemala City. It was an incredible experience, and although it definitely stretched me, it made me more passionate about teaching than ever before. My dream job would involve teaching English or Spanish a bilingual school, either in a Hispanic community or in another country. I also have a Bachelor of Arts in Bible, so perhaps I can combine my passions on the mission field with an organization in Latin America.

If everything goes according to plan, I hope to student teach in the Fall of 2013 and graduate in December. Until then, I will use this blog to post various teaching ideas, categorized by subject in the right column. Please let me know if you link to my blog or share my ideas. Thanks!