Submitted by Kristin Lukow, Nebraska

Idea posted March 14, 2003

The other day, as the 6th graders came in, I had "Na-Na-Na-Na Hey, Hey Good-Bye" from "Percussion Play-Alongs" by Laurie Zentz playing. They grabbed two rhythm sticks and followed me. We started with quarter notes, went to half notes, then whole notes, back to half notes, back to quarter notes, and then tried eighth notes. They were hooked, glued, enthusiastic, ya-da-ya-da-ya-da...

During the drum section, I kept them going, splitting them by rows. The back row did eighth notes, 3rd row played quarter notes, 2nd row played half notes, and the 1st row played whole notes. We switched it around so every row got to play each kind of note.

Afterward... They are all saying things like, "Cool!... Let's do it again!..." We talked about beat and divisions of the beat. Sounds like a great math tie-in to me!

This was just the warm-up. Laurie has rhythm reading overheads included in this packet that show form beautifully. You just can't go wrong with this material!