Come On, Girls

This song is just too much fun.  It is great for reviewing do pentatonic and for practicing the "tika-ti" rhythm.  I use this with 3rd grade, although you could use it with 2nd or 4th, depending on their skill level.

You can download it here for free: Come On Girls

 First, we discuss three words found in the song: "hoecakes", "hominy" "sassafrass tea"

My students are familiar with "posole" - a soup made from hominy

For the next slide, have student predict which rhythm will match the text.  To do this, have them read each line of text while tracking each rhythm pattern.  When you click, the rhythm patterns will go to the correct lyrics in order.

This slide has the melody, not on the music staff obviously.  I have my students sing this slowly with hand-signs while I accompany them on the piano.

The students love to make up motions.  To do this, I'll sing a line of the song and let them make motions while I do this.  Then, I'll choose a student's motions and perform it for the class.  They'll copy me.  Then, we repeat the process for all the lines.  This way, I'm not calling on one students to make up the motions, I'm looking at all of them.  You'll get better participation that way.

Here's the melody on the staff.  Try having students come up and point to all the pitches (for example, all the do's, then re's, etc).

If you're hooked up to a Smart Board (lucky, I used to have one), they can label it with the pen tool.

 These two accompaniments are fairly easy to teach.  I have the students stand up and sing their part.

For the bass xylophone, the students squat lower on the word "cake" and stand on the word "fate".

For the recorder or alto xylophone part, the students do the same on the word "and".

I'll assign 1/4 of the class to the bass, 1/4 to the recorder/alto, and 1/2 to sing the song.  We'll switch.  We also do this while the students pat their
legs - easy transfer to the instruments.  Recorder players also move their fingers on the correct notes before playing.

This part lines up with the "If you do your fate will be" part of the song.  It is fairly easy to add in later.  Have the students clap then transfer to instruments.