Easter Egg Activities

The second and third graders got to enjoy some different Easter egg activities earlier this month!

The second graders each got a plastic egg filled with some sort of material (felt, paper, paperclips, macaroni, etc.) and had to keep their mouths silent as they shook their eggs around the room. Their goal was to find the classmate whose egg contents matched theirs...using only their ears. This was a good challenge for the students' listening ears (and silent mouths)!

The third graders practiced identifying different time signatures with their eyes and ears this month. One of our visual/reading practice activities involved working with a partner to divide a bag of eggs into 2/4, 3/4, and 4/4 time signature piles.

Jazz Appreciation Month: Scat Singing

As part of Jazz Appreciation Month, the younger grades got to read the book Freddie the Frog and the Flying Jazz Kitten.

In this story, Freddie the Frog and his best friend Eli the Elephant see a plane land on the other side of the Crocodile River. While exploring the plane that his friend was too big to board, Freddie the Frog accidentally flies away to a gig with five cool cats. The Flying Jazz Kitten helps him hold his own as she teaches him how to scat, though. Eventually he realizes that she disappeared during his performance, and he did just fine without her!

The students got to practice their own scat singing (musically making up their own nonsense syllables and sounding like instruments), and they got to hear other examples of scatting.

Here's a famous example of nonsense words, brought to you by The Muppets:

What about this famous scene between Baloo and King Louie?

Here's another example, from Ella Fitzgerald:

With some call and response added by Cab Calloway:

April Fools!

I found this video tonight and thought some people might enjoy it... Here's the "Duetto buffo di due gatti."

Next, enjoy some sportscast commentary by Peter Schickele, also known as PDQ Bach. (I'm pretty sure my Music Theory IV professor introduced us to this my sophomore year of college, and we listened to the whole thing during class.)

For more comedic music, check out WQXR's April Fools article!