Primary Rap Builder

A Creative Construction Kit With Teaching Ideas

Thousands of teachers have used our Rap Builder kits to add creativity to their music programs. They are great tools for reaching the imaginations of today's often hard-to-reach students. Now we have developed Primary Rap Builder to address the special needs of your youngest singers.

The core of Primary Rap Builder is a carefully prepared recording that features "shells" for nine new, completely different raps in a variety of styles. Some are recorded with variations in tempo and length, for a total of 14 different backgrounds to work with. These tracks are recorded featuring a powerful combination of superb live musicians and contemporary synthesized sounds. The tempos let you use these in a variety of ways, and while most have implied key centers, some are built on just percussion so that you can work in any key as you combine them with instruments in the classroom.

To help you see the potential of each rap track, we've included lots of "Sample Raps," such as "The Alphabet Rap," "The Months of the Year," "Little Bear," and "Dinosaurs." What you will discover, though, is that these raps are more than just "samples." They are timely and creative, and will quickly become favorites of your students. In this collection, these raps deal with more primary subjects including such things as the alphabet, weather, "the beat," dinosaurs, time, months, teeth, safety, and colors. But there are many more creative options featured in this kit, including a variety of whole language ideas.

The Teacher's Handbook is full of information. It begins with easy-to-follow "road maps" and descriptions of each recorded track to help planning. There are reproducible arrangements for classroom instruments that work with the recordings or by themselves, and parts for adding Orff instruments and body percussion to your rap ensemble.

Primary Rap Builder will provide fun, excitement, and a variety of teachable moments for your K-3 crowd.

About the Downloadable OptionThe downloadable version contains all the components the print version would, but in electronic format. (Visit the Download Help page for more info.)