Submitted by Martha Stanley, Tallahassee, Florida

Idea posted September 3, 2004

Use an overhead or something similar and highlight the groups of words for "Mary Had A Little Lamb" like this:

All the "Mary had a" in red (for example), all the "little lamb" in green, and "its fleece was white as snow" in blue. Do the parallel coloring for all the verses.

Divide the class into thirds, so that one group reads the red lyrics, one the green, and one the blue. Read the lyrics until they get the hang of it, and then have them sing the lyrics within their group.

Next, use body percussion. Let the kids assign the parts. For example, do you want snaps for red? pats for green? Perform as a class.

Now, divide the class into four groups. Assign each group a whole verse. Instruct them that each group's job is to be able to perform their verse with song and body percussion just like the class did, only within their own group. They may copy the body percussion we did with the whole class or change it to one they like better.


Perform.

Now for the fun part. Assign them the assignment to transfer the song to non-pitched percussion (npp).

Criteria: They have to have an instrument for a steady beat throughout. They must use the words as a guide for changing timbres. The groups can make up the rest. Everyone in the group HAS to have a playing part.

This assignment gives them the option of doing the obvious (substitute a finger cymbal for the snap, for example) or doing something completely unexpected with, say, drums and rattles. If they chose to use an ostinatic pattern rather than the beat, that would be acceptable as well, but I wouldn't tell them that unless they asked while they were in their groups creating.

Give them 15 minutes. Circulate, assist, describe what you see, remind them about helpful group behaviors, etc. Remind them that they need to practice it twice from beginning to end before they'll be ready to perform. Tell them when ten, five, and two minutes are left.

Have all of the groups perform. Write down your evaluation during the performance. You may want to use a rubric that includes teamwork, musical results, doing the assignment as directed, etc.

Reflect afterward: How well did they follow the requirements of the assignment? What was the easiest? What was the hardest? How well did the group work together? How interesting and musical were the results?


On another day, you could let them try it with just vocal sounds. That would be fun in a unit where scat singing was involved.