String singing is another variation of "who sings". The idea is to tie different colored string or yarn together in varying lengths, roll the string into a ball and put this into a can. Then pull the string out through your fingers. Different children sing according to the color changes. This is a fun way to review a song several times.
The picture shows the can for boys and girls singing. The blue string instructs the boys to sing, the pink indicates girls singing and the green color represents everyone. I've made the string start with green so that everyone begins singing. The children have to watch closely and keep the song going in their mind to be ready to sing when their color comes up.
One advantage to the string idea is that because you control the length of the string you have some control of the timing. Even though the children are manipulating the string, the singing can be more smooth and the review is more effective. When the children use the boy/girl puppets, for example, they love to shift quickly from one to the other and it can become a little confusing. While this is fun for the kids, it obviously doesn't review the song as well.
I also have a ball with green, yellow and red string. The green yarn indicates that everyone should sing, the yellow yarn tells us to hum and the red yarn says to stop singing. The piano continues to play, so the children need to keep the song going in their mind in order to come back in on the right words.
There are probably other ways to set up the colors. If your primary assigns class colors you could have the classes sing in turn.
6 comments:
What a great idea! While I'm not a chorister, or even in primary, I can't wait to use it with my kiddos! Are you a professional school teacher?
Sofia, I'm not a professional teacher. I have learned to glean and adapt ideas from everywhere though, including school teachers. I often look through game books or idea books designed for teachers and try to think if there is some way that I could adapt the process or content to what I'm trying to do. Sometimes I can't, but often if I think about it long enough I can see a way, or it sparks another idea in my head.
LOVE this idea! I am looking for new ideas for reviewing songs for the next 2 months before our program. THANK YOU!!
I am a brand new primary chorister, and I want to THANK YOU for sharing your ideas! Thanks to you, I feel like I'll be able to keep all 100 primary children's attention while I teach them the songs.
Do you have problems with tangles during string singing??
I've not had any problems with tangling as we sing. You can see in the picture that the yarn starts out rolled up in a ball, inside the can and it gets pulled out through the little hole in the lid and the kids just drop it and keep pulling. I usually use it just the once as a way to review a song, although there is enough yarn to sing the song a couple of times before we run out - if I wish to repeat it. Then I just gather it all up and put it in my box and rewind the ball later. Sometimes it is a little tangled, but I haven't had too much trouble.
P.S. Good luck with all those children. 100 is a lot to handle!
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