Wait! Wait!!!! (Finally) A Musical Monday?!

Ack!!!! Could it be?! I finally have a reason to post a Musical Monday?

I gave up on this well-intentioned weekly post back in October, oh man, SEPTEMBER! but I was super excited about finding this gem at the library this weekend.

I introduced Martin Luther King Jr. today and used the book to elaborate. I haven't put on a show for my kiddos in a while and when I sung the text to them I had them HOOKED. When we finished they went on and on about how we should be kind to one another and be thankful that we can be a family at school and what a hero Dr. King is and UGH!!!! Then they sang/hummed/made up their own songs about the beauty of differences during free choice centers. It was wonderful. 

Now if you're not up for singing yourself there's always the video: 

And if you're like me and want to get your kiddos away from staring at a screen and staring at EACH OTHER, you could always download the song by pasting the YouTube url in KeepVid.

I hope we can practice the song enough to sing to our 5th grade buddies on Friday! :)

Musical Monday: Why did I make this commitment for Mondays?

Feeling a little uninspired for today's Musical Monday... and blogging in general, for that matter! I have so much catching up to do here, but I still feel like I'm always running around, no time to sit down at the computer! I did get a tip from Jennifer at Herding Cats in Kindergarten about these quick handwriting videos:

I made a channel on YouTube to keep 'em all together! Not very musical, but it'll have to do for today.

Musical Monday: YouTube!

I finally got my YouTube channel up and running in an effort to organize the videos I've been using and beef up my classroom blog.

Click here to visit it!

Click on the ABC's thumbnail to rock out to the alphabet like we do! We'll be watching this one from Have Fun Teaching this week:

Musical Monday: Jivin' Gestures!

I did it! After one workshop or another (I forget!!) I wanted so badly to make my favorite classroom songs into movies. So I finally did! Took the better part of my day, but I just finished it! I needed this song to have visuals to remind us of the gestures I want to use.

Here's the Powerpoint I made, too. Just click through the slides as you sing along! I'm going to make posters of the letters as I introduce them. 

*update*
Ah! No sooner than I make this post do I find HarryKindergarten's version! AND AND ANNNND he uses SFA's Fast Track Phonics like our campus, too! Not as fun for gestures, but at least it's consistent with my mini-lessons!

Musical Monday: The Learning Groove!

Everyone has something they "geek out" about... mine happens to be *cool* children's music.

My train of thought went like this...

Needed to download this video for my kiddos on Friday:


But I (finally) noticed the song Pete chose to dance to was from this album:

Rockin' Red by The Learning Groove

Upon investigation I found out who was responsible for such a cool tune!

Eric Litwin!

I mean... duh! It's on his website! But I fell in love and immediately bought the album. HELLO brain breaks! My favorite tracks are "I Love It" from the Pete video, "The Good Stuff," "Dance, Freeze, Melt," "The Number Dance," and "Hip Hop Body Rock."

Musical Monday: Thank goodness they love to sing!!!

First day with the kiddos!!! We sang "Together" this morning for our I Love You Ritual as a whole group. About half will willingly sing to anything; the other half are a little more reserved but seem to enjoy it just the same. Tomorrow I'll pair them up to sing to each other!

I sang the "Walk in Line Rhyme" without music. The lyrics are so cute! Best of all they love it!

Peanut butter lips,

marshmallow toes,

hands glued to your sides

and follow your nose!

Right before dismissal we sang "See You Later Alligator" and I'm so happy they love to freestyle dance! We just made up the moves as we went along.

All of the songs are from this album... which quickly becoming my favorite! Gonna need some tea tonight if I want to do it all over again tomorrow! :)

Musical Monday: A Wonderful Woman

Still on I Love You Rituals because my first day with my new kiddos is next Monday! I may wait to show them this song until we get to nursery rhymes and folk tales but it's one of my favorites from this book:

(I don't know if I like this thing... I may take it off...) 

I was all ready to record myself singing this song for you and posting it on youtube... but that little copyright reminder scared me off. I'll just jot it down for you instead... it's on the back of the book, anyway!

A wonderful woman

who lived in a shoe.

She had so many children,

she knew exactly what to do.

She held them, she rocked them,

and tucked them in bed.

"I love you, I love you,"

is what she said.

The book I mentioned above is GREAT for parents of little ones, but makes an awesome opportunity for eye contact, touch, and fun in the classroom, too. Children can sit facing each other and one child will rub their partner's hand deeply (which feels sooo good... the presenter sang this song to me, I'll never forget it) for the first 2 lines. Then they count the fingers on both hands for the next two and hold their hand, rock it, and put it against the receiving child's chest. The last two lines is a sweet, sweet hug. 

In my recording I showed you with Pete the Cat... I love that guy! :)

Musical Monday: I Love You Rituals

Let's face it: as teachers, we are pros at pre-season training... more so than those helmet-head NFL boys! We work so hard at getting the room, lesson plans, and various other things ready before the game begins, but there's a HUGE thing missing in our game plan... THE KIDS! Now, don't get me wrong, I wish I could've started in my room WEEKS ago and will certainly worry about what border I should use here and what basket to place there, but ultimately, those babies (and their parents) don't care about how your room looks. They care about if you will be caring.

I want to place a strong emphasis on developing a caring classroom this year. I was lucky enough to attend a workshop on Conscious Discipline and read this book over the summer:

Dr. Becky Bailey empowers her readers with an understanding of the brain so that we may be conscious of how our inner state influences our behavior and how our behavior serves as a model for the students in our classroom.
She speaks a lot about developing connections not only with our students but between the children themselves. She calls these "I Love You Rituals" because they are done everyday to build a sense of unity in your classroom.

I would love to show you a song I plan on using as an I Love You Ritual, but it's not available online. It's called "I Wish You Well" on this CD:

I was, however, able to find this video of Dr. Bailey and the song is in it! Here she is speaking about using I Love You Rituals with older children and explains her thinking on why it works. If you're interested in the song it's at 2:08.



So...
My heart to your heart, I wish you well!

Musical Monday: Pete the Cat!

Ok, ok... this might be old news for some, but Pete the Cat is AWESOME! I can't wait to read this to my new batch of kiddos in... oh geeze, 3 weeks!!!

Thanks to Chalk Talk for sharing this great deal to both books for $19.99 and free shipping!

I love books that I can sing and how Eric Litwin bops his way through the text in the recordings and in  live tellings.



I've got a new tune stuck in my head today!

Musical Monday: Just... so... CATCHY!

I love the idea of using a day of the week for a specific topic on your blog. Music is kind of my thing, so I present to you: Musical Mondays!

There are some songs that I've come across this summer that I can't wait to use in the classroom!

They're just so CATCHY! How can you not crack a smile and hum the tune?

The Penguin Dance is a fun song on Jack Hartmann's Transition Train

Remember that training I paid for myself and went by myself? Well, I wasn't really alone. The keynote speaker that day was Jack Hartmann and he had us doing the Penguin Dance from his latest album in no time, much like these teachers!

It's hilarious when you get to the end! I showed it to my 5 year-old cousin (she's my guinea pig for a lot of things lately) and she loved it! We sang and dance in the grocery store that night!



It seems that behind every teacher is a partner that not only puts up with all of our teacher-talk but gets into it a little, too! I was up far too late one night eating up old They Might Be Giants podcast episodes when my boyfriend leaves his computer in the other room to find out what on earth I'm doing. We watched a few and fell in love with this song. We regularly sing it on Mondays... and Tuesdays... except not Thursdays, 'cause that's a holiday!

If you like this one be sure to check out E Eats Everything, Seven, and Letter Shapes!

I used videos like these as (gasp) a reward some days. On others it was worked into my lesson plans as a quick little brain break! I don't have the YouTube problem on my campus, but I did have one when the internet was down!

One solution is to type "save" after the "www." and it will take you to saveyoutube.com where you can download it in a couple of minutes. Or you could go there and copy/paste the YouTube url as shown:

I chose to download it as a .mp4 file because it's pretty versatile between PC and Mac (I have a Mac and have to be aware of these things). The .FLV format is fine, too. Don't pay attention to the ads that come up about other downloaders, unless you want them, of course. I don't think they work on Mac computers so I don't click on 'em.

What songs do you find yourself humming all day?