Submitted by Deena Smith, Colorado Springs, Colorado
Idea posted November 14, 2005
Since I have started doing the following, the confusion about which way is up for the xylophone has gone down considerably. Previously I had gone over the big=low, little=high, etc. with the Three Bears and other examples. For some reason, some students don't make that connection, even with repeated explanations. Now I have each individual student come to the front, where I hold a glockenspiel with the small end up, but parallel to the student (like they are going to play later). We all sing "The Itsy Bitsy Spider," and whenever the word "up" or "down" occurs, the student plays a glissando while we sing. We have three students a day do this. Although it takes several weeks to do as a warm-up activity, by the time we get to the xylophone lessons, the students still remember up to the right and down to the left.