Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Music Aid - Singing Shapes



These are my singing shapes. Each shape represents a different way to sing a review song. For instance, the monkey indicates that we begin singing a song in the regular way, but then sing “ahh” whenever the monkey is held up. The kids usually choose these shapes from the pockets of my apron but sometimes I bring them in the surprise sack, or some other container for variety. I can use these shapes to review a song that I’ve recently taught or use them with several songs on a week of Choose and Review. We can use one shape throughout the whole song, or, sometimes I put them together in pairs with a rubber band and then we change from one to another in the same song. However we use them, the kids always respond well to singing shapes. This is what these shapes currently mean in our primary.

Monkey - sing “ahh”
Owl - sing “ooh”
Turtle - sing slow
Rabbit - sing fast
Lion - sing louder
Lamb - sing softer
Bee- hum
Bird - regular singing
Cowboy boot - boys sing
Princess crown - girls sing
Purse - teachers sing, or child's teacher leads
Team pennant - your class sings
Hand - choose a hand action like snapping fingers, clapping, etc.
Hammer - pound the rhythm or the beat
Parrot - echo singing with myself and the kids, or I divide the room in half or between boys and girls.
Octopus - child conducts with a sideways figure eight
Heart - sing your favorite song
Frog - everyone uses their hand to "hop" from note to note (pitch level conducting)
Snail - another shape for singing slow

3 comments:

Jane said...

Where did you get all of these darling shapes? I love this idea. Thanks! JHamblin@aol.com

Kathleen said...

Most of these came from Hobby Lobby in their wood shapes aisle. The hand was a plain wood shape that I painted but the rest were already painted. I got them on sale, otherwise it might be a bit expensive to purchase all at one time. If expense is an issue, one could always use pictures or make felt puppets.

The Wood Family said...

I picked up some shapes similar to these at Michael's craft store. The children loved them! We have a very small Primary, so I left some shapes out, and added some of extra shapes I thought would work for our Primary. Thanks for the great ideas!

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