Penguin Songs

My first graders are beginning to work on "La".  They are a little behind schedule due to a huge Winter Program we finished in December, but we'll be back up to speed in no time.

I love owls, of course.  I happen to also love penguins nearly as much.  On of my favorite penguin is"Penguin Polka" (another one from D. Gagne).  You should check it out at her website Music Play.  It is song 73 in the KinderPlay book.

Another one we use goes along with the tune of "I'm a Little Teapot".  There's a cute version of it on my Pinterest board.  I use different words (although I think I like those better) and  I call it "The Penguin Song" and the words go like this:

I usually let the students make up the motions.  Cute cute!

The next song is to the tune of "Five Fat Turkeys".  I rewrote the words and used it in a Winter Program once.

I select five students to wear penguin signs and one to wear the shark and they get to act it out.  When they finish, they give the sign to another person.  I have some students on triangles and chimes to create an "icy" sound while they play this (good time to pause and point out and discuss sounds metals make).

We also discuss facts about penguins and check them out on a video.

Next, we learn the song "Bounce High, Bounce Low".  We talk about making snowballs (that's what penguins would use) and what would happen if we threw them (SPLAT).  It makes the song kinda silly, but I think it still fits.  We also label the name "Shiloh" as the name of one of the penguins.

First, we learn the lyrics:

Second, we add the steady beat (I reinforce this by playing on a hand drum):

Third, we add "snowballs" to represent the rhythms.  I switch to the claves and play the rhythms.

Fourth, we label the rhythms and chant them on "ta" or "titi".  The we use the lyrics again.  I point out that so far, we've been using our "speaking" voice.

Fifth, I move the levels of the snowballs.  We discuss which are high, which are in the middle, and which ones are low.  I tell the students that we can now begin to use our singing voice.  We practice touching our heads (la), shoulders (sol) and stomach (mi) while we sing.

Sixth, we label the snowballs using So and Mi.  We already know those pitches.  We sing them using handsigns.

Seventh, we take a look at our Music Street wall or a handy pitch ladder to label La.

Music Street

Pitch Ladder - snowflakes are from Target

Eighth, we put the pitches on the music staff, their home.

And last, we add some Boomwhackers.

The students also play a short game that goes along with this song.  We can also use the penguin signs (#1-4) to create melodies on my floor staff.  (The penguins you see here are cut-outs I made out of construction paper a few years ago).

You can download the file here: Penguin Songs