Halloween Syllable Clapping

There are many ways to teach children the natural rhythm all around them. One of these ways is to engage them in thinking about the rhythm in words.
When you break down words by syllables, it's easy to create a rhythm activity geared to the interests of your child.

Our guys are into all things spooky and Halloween-y currently, so my music-nerd mind thought "Bingo!!" - it's another opportunity to practice rhythm while having a Halloween activity (love those two-fer's).

So, this one needs a little bit of prep.
Your materials are:  construction paper, print-outs of Halloween (or fall-themed) pictures, coloring or painting supplies, scissors and glue.
Oh yeah, and one or two (or more!) adorable children.

To find images, do a search for whatever Halloween or Autumn pics you'd like by looking for coloring pages. Those are usually large enough and are usually free to print. Look for ones with nice, solid lines.

These are the ones we looked for:
3 syllables: skeleton
2 syllables: pumpkin
1 syllable: ghost (actually we called the ghost Boo! because both boys love to say that word whenever possible right now)  and bat.

If you don't want Halloween images, you can search for seasonal things like candy apple, pumpkin, scarecrow, candy corn, apple, leaf, etc...

1. Gather your pictures on your computer, adjust sizes, print and cut them out.

   2. Have child color or paint pictures. I printed mine on cardstock thinking they'd want to paint them, but they got a hold of these pictures before I knew it and started using markers. Whatever!

 3. Go over the name for each item and clap by syllables as you name them to get the child into hearing the rhythm of each word.

4. Tell child to arrange 3 in a row and clap the names in rhythm. It's helpful to point along as they go. Alternate this with clapping along also. Some may need one more than another.

5. Have child rearrange and clap as many times as their interest holds. Mom/Dad can help them to incorporate words with different patterns so there's a good mix.

These pics are blurry because K was jumping around back and forth doing his clapping, which I thought was hilarious. You can see my finger trying to keep him on track as he flies back and forth.

 6. Before they're spent, have the child arrange all the pics on the page, glue them on and then make a story about the pictures, and encourage them to clap along for the special Halloween words as they go. You can use your rhyming agility to make the stories rhyme if possible to continue in the musical component if you'd like.

 For example, J's story was something like.... "Along came Boo who saw skeleton too, and said "howdy Do!" Look, let's go scare pumpkin one and pumpkin two!" Not the most fluid, but it was something like that...

Proudly display their fine work and then go get a Halloween treat. :-)

Syllable Clapping with Flowers

Spring is just wonderful... Just when I think I'm going to cave in and go cuckoo from winter, spring has come to the rescue. :-)

So, celebrate the season by rhythm practice!

Today, we used flowers. This one is great because we'll:

• Learn or review flower names.
• Incorporate rhythm by chanting the syllables of each flower name.
• Create our own colorful "gardens"

You'll need either pictures of flowers, or you can use silk flowers, if you have enough varieties laying around (we don't...).  I printed off some various flowers with different syllable-length-names by doing an internet search for coloring pages of each flower.
If you want to print them out in color, look for free clipart images of each flower.

Here are the ones we used....

One syllable: Rose, Fern (<-- I know it's not a flower, but I needed another one-syllable one that the kiddos were sort of familiar with...)
Two Syllables: Tulip, Lily, Daisy
Three Syllables: Daffodil, Buttercup, Sunflower
(If you want a four-syllable one, you could use Dandelion, or some other one... but we just used the ones above.)

You can paste each into a Word Doc, adjust the size, and type the flower name.
Print off, cut out and you're good to go.

Other materials: construction paper (background... we used blue for the sky), some extra stems or leaves, brown paper for soil on the ground, crayons/markers/paint and glue.

Gather kiddos and have them color flowers (if needed). I helped them choose a correct or at least appropriate color for each one as we rehearsed their names...

Next, get your "garden bed" ready:

Little J really wanted a leaf in the middle of his page.... :-)

Next, choose two or three flowers to arrange on the page (don't glue yet).
As child chooses each flower, clap and chant that flower's name and have them imitate it back.

Once all three have been chosen, clap them rhythmically in a sing-songy way.
Chant it loud and proud along with them.

 Sometimes it helps to point along once in a while....

And, not every activity appeals to all children...

He did jump in once in a while, if no one was paying attention. Otherwise, he got shy. Poor little J... :-)


After you've created a few different "gardens," finish off by having them glue on their favorite ones, then either chant that one as the grand finale, or if you've exhausted their focus, say what a wonderful job they did and release them to go play. :-)

Have fun!

Clapping Game = Sneaky Rhythm Practice

Well, today I felt like I hadn't done anything very musically stimulating with the boys all week... so of course I decide to do something when they're crankiest right before nap time. Brilliant, I know.
They were getting testy with each other and needed to go to bed a diversion by their dear mother.

So, I thought we could do a clapping game (what I told them) which would include some organized rhythm training (what I told myself).

Very simple. Here's what we used:
popsicle sticks, tooth picks, some treats (if needed.. and oh yes, they were needed today), and some paper for a confined "work" surface.

The goals of this activity were to: 

• Teach concept of fast and slow beats.
• Teach concept of creating and describing a pattern (In our case, the description was rhythmic).
• Get rhythm in their body!!

The popsicle sticks represent
a quarter note (one beat)  Vocalized as "Ta"
Two toothpicks represented a set of eighth notes (1/2 beat each). Vocalized as "ti-ti"

Each person gets 4 Ta's and 8 ti-ti's (or less depending on age).


The parent/teacher will demonstrate first - with LOTS of demonstrating as you go.... or else all the kids' clapping will sound the same instead of having the difference between the slow and fast notes.

Tell kiddos to arrange the ta's and ti-ti's on their page to make a clapping pattern.

I made one first to demonstrate:

Counted:

Ta, Ta, ti-ti

(slow, slow, quick-quick)

They did great echoing this back to me clapping and chanting it.

When they did it correctly, they got a chocolate chip.

Pointing as you go is a good idea to help them follow along and not get lost... who's really used to reading a bunch of sticks on a page, anyway?








Now it was their turn.

I helped K demonstrate for all of us, then we each tried to copy him, all of us receiving a chocolate chip for our wonderful effort.

Keep going around as long as you'd like and as long as their interest holds.

This is K telling us he could do this "hard" one he made up because he's really, really strong. :-)

I felt a bit like I was feeding the dolphins at Sea World when they performed a nice trick by giving the boys a chocolate chip for each wonderful demonstration, but it was helpful at this time of day, and made it more fun anyway. So, whatever works, sometimes! :-)

Enjoy!

Syllable Clapping with Cars

So, a while ago, my dear friend Nancy told me that clapping syllables of various words is something she observed in speech therapy practice... and since J has been receiving speech therapy, I've noticed his speech therapist doing it too.  So, I'm more inspired than ever to do this more and more.
Motivation 1: To think rhythmically and teach my kids the natural rhythm in words.
Motivation 2: To get J to speak better! Although, I do love the little rascal the way he is...

So, today we did a similar activity to this one but used vehicles instead.

Here's what to do:

Print off pics of automobiles from an image search for various coloring pages. Copy and paste them into a word document and format to whatever size you'd like. I printed them onto cardstock because I wanted them to be sturdier than just computer paper.

We used these vehicles: 

1 Syllable: Truck, Jeep 

2 Syllables: School Bus, Race Car

3 Syllables: Ice Cream Truck 

4 Syllables: Motorcycle

You'll need the pics, some black construction paper, yellow strips and glue.

Gather kiddos and have them paint their group of cars (if kids aren't into painting, just use plain ones or print some colored pics out, or cut pics from magazines and mount to construction paper, or use toy cars... whatever!).

 Yes, I know my children need haircuts.

When they've completed the painting, move on to creating the road while the pictures dry because your 2 year old used more water than color in his watercolor-ing.

Next, start with two or three vehicles getting on their road and clap syllables with a steady beat. Again, you'll do most of the demonstration and they'll try to mimic as best they can.

Make sure YOU get a turn to choose some too.... so you can show them how awesome your rhythmic-syllable skills are? Well, yes.... remember that they will imitate you so take opportunities to demonstrate well - don't expect them to do it perfectly by themselves from the get-go.

For the grand finale, we glued all the autos on the road and then clapped the other person's road (K clapped J's and vice versa). Great fun and improvement noticed by mom. Yay!

Have fun!!

Fruit Salad

I am seriously missing summer fruit.... strawberries, blueberries, peaches... aahhh....
So, I remembered doing this activity with my Kindergarten class, so I thought J and K might like it too.

This one is oh-so easy and colorful too!
The goal is to get them thinking rhythmically by clapping out the syllables of the various fruit names.

Think about each fruit's syllables:
For example, STRAW-berr-y  or BLUE-berr-y or ba-NA-na are all three syllable words and thus get one clap on each syllable.
APP-le, KI-wi, OR-ange all get two claps.
Grapes, Pear, Peach all get one clap.

So, here's what we did:

Go online and get some free clip art of each fruit you want to use. I definitely included ones that I knew were favorites of my kiddos, since I was wondering if this would be a stretch to get them to enjoy this... ya never know. :-)

Put the pics in a Word Document and type the name underneath.
Print off the fruit pics with name underneath.
Cut and paste or tape onto colorful construction paper.

Get a plate (we used plastic).

Call kiddos to come make a fruit salad!
K and J were both pretty stoked - Yay!

Have kiddo/s look at the fruit:

Then they pick out two, three or four (depending on age/ability) to put on the plate.

You can chant something like "Sarah's got a fruit salad, isn't that great! Let's see what she puts on the plate!" while they're selecting fruit.

When they've put the fruit on the plate, take each and put them in a line on the floor.
Chant each fruit name rhythmically while clapping each syllable.

This one was "APP   - le,   CHER- ries,   KI      -wi"
                    CLAP-clap, CLAP- clap,  CLAP-clap

Not very diverse with the combination of 1's, 2's and 3's, but we got better as we went along. :-)


You as parent will be demonstrating as you go - encourage them to join in as they can. K (who is 4) could do it on his own after a little while. J (who is 2) just clapped the number of claps on each word - but they both had fun combining different fruits and clapping the names out rhythmically!
Be as enthusiastic as you can and make it as rhythmically interesting as you know how!

Have fun! And then go make a smoothie to celebrate all your hard work. :-)

And.... the BEST ever book to pair with this activity? 

"Jamberry" by Bruce Degen. Love it.