Instead, I am turning my thoughts to something I have noticed foe the past few weeks. As the weather has finally started to change, I have been noticing the acorns that have fallen onto the pathway as I walk my dog in the evening. Since I was much younger, I have loved a good crunch as my foot stepped on a wayward acorn, dry leaf or even crisply frozen snow. The musician in me just cannot resist purposely stomping them to hear the sounds that nature provides.
Then a couple of weeks ago, I saw this picture:
and I just had to laugh! All of those squirrels busily gathering food for the winter must definitely be going "nuts' right about now, but I never imagined they would be singing about it. It seemed that nature was conspiring to inspire my teaching and I devised a way of allowing my students to go nuts in a fun, productive way. First, we learned the song "I'm An Acorn ("I'm A Nut)." Notation is here:
The little dance is inspired by this segment from Wee Sing Sillyville. I have students suggest different parts of the body to do the dance with: hands, fingers, eyeballs, tongues (that one's fun!), etc. In keeping with the nutty theme of the music, I looked for different types of nuts that could fit into some of Keetman's rhythmic building bricks. Here is what I chose:
Students worked in groups to create patterns of four nuts: e.g. al - mond hazel - nut al - mond beech --.
In a nutshell (HA!), this is how it all fit together: the whole class sang the song while doing the dance with whatever body part was suggested by the next group. When finished, that group went to drums and played their nutty rhythm. Then they returned and we repeated the process with the next group. This was a lot of fun and a bit different than the usual pumpkin games we have played in the past.
I have you enjoy this idea and have the chance to go nuts with your own students!
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