Can I share a secret? Fall is my favorite season! And it has nothing to do with Pumpkin Spice everything! (I’m more of a Peppermint girl). I love the variety of repertoire with fall songs though! In this blog post, I’m sharing a few of my favorite fall songs and activities!
Round and Round the Haystack
This is one of my favorite chants for my Kindergarten students. I scatter the hula hoops around the room and assign 2-3 “mice” to each “haystack.” The students creep around the haystack as I recite the chant. At the end of the chat, I count “1-2-3” and the students jump into the haystack. This jumping movement provides an opportunity for students to coordinate their chanting, breath, and movement which is necessary for students to exit Preparatory Audiation. I give the students a few seconds to scatter to a new haystack and begin the chant again. Another way to transition students is to have them chant Triple Meter patterns as they move from one haystack to the next.
The Leaves Fall
This is truly one of my favorite tunes to teach each fall. The song was written by one of my students in one of the first levels I ever taught, but no one has claimed it (trust me, I’ve asked each of them who wrote it). This is a great tune to explore continuous fluid movement (cfm) and resting tone. I use Die-Cut leaves cut from foam in reds, yellows, oranges, and browns. Each student gets a leaf. We put the leaf on our hand and move with cfm throughout the song. At the end of the song, we let the leaf fall to the floor and sing the resting (or home) tone of the song. We repeat this process again and again exploring how to move different body parts in cfm (e.g. head, elbow, neck, knee, foot, back, etc.).
Looking for Turkeys
This is one of my tunes that can be found in my Fall Songs for Little Ones resource. It’s great to get your students moving in both Duple and Triple meters! I begin the activity by singing the song while students are still seated in their “circle seats.” For the A section, we sway from side to side as we pretend to look around the room for a turkey. When I sing, “There’s one right there,” I usually point to one of my students. For the B section, my students pretend to flap their turkey wings to the macrobeat. As students understand the movements, we do it as locomotor movement activity with students moving around the room – again, swaying during the A section and moving to the macrobeat during the B section.
Pumpkin Pie
This last song is my newest addition to my classroom. It’s written by my friend, James DesJardins. It is AH-MAZING! Who knew singing about pumpkin pie could be so soulful? Channel your inner Joss Stone and make some pie with your students! Each verse is an opportunity to explore flow, weight, and space as the students pretend to make a pumpkin pie. You can download the music here for free, but you all should buy the track of James singing too! (You’re welcome!)
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