Easter Bunny Rap/Carl Orff and Special Guest Jessica Grant

Full Episode description

In today’s episode, you get to move and groove with the Easter Bunny Rap, get to know the legendary composer and elementary music influencer, Carl Orff, and learn some fun ideas for the general music classroom from teacher and podcaster Jessica Grant. Be sure to leave a review wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks so much for listening!

Watch an orchestra and chorus perform Carmina Burana HERE.

Watch and jam along to the Easter Bunny Rap HERE.

Listen to Afternoon Ti with Jessica Grant HERE.

Explore more online music resources:

Movement:

Go Noodle: https://www.gonoodle.com/

Body Percussion:  https://www.youtube.com/c/SantiSerratosaSSM/videos 

Individual Routine with chairs:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDQXhWeXcy8

Broadway: https://www.todaytix.com/insider/nyc/posts/12-broadway-dances-you-can-learn-at-home-right-now

https://hipshakefitness.com/dance/broadway-dance-tutorial-compilation/

You Can’t Stop the Beat from Hairspray

Hip Hop:  H.Y.P.E. the Breaks videos on YouTube created by Hip-Hop Public Health.  H.Y.P.E. = Helping Young People Energize – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFM-YWyieDk&list=RDXFM-YWyieDk&start_radio=1&t=3

Bounce – Jump and Kick – Flow

Conducting:  Read-Along Read Alouds with Robert Franz: https://www.robertfranz.com/read-aloud-childrens-books

He is the conductor of the Windsor Symphony, Boise Baroque Orchestra, and Houston Symphony – Idaho Orchestra Institute

Wrote the book Stella’s Magical Musical Balloon Ride – Five parts

Listen to the story and then conduct a piece at the end with Robert

Make Music Count – Math and music

Singing:

Facebook – The Singing Space which was begun by Meg Tietz… great way for individuals or families to sing or play their favorite songs to share with others or to learn new songs

YouTube – Victoria Boler’s channel – https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCy8bVUHYQ2OuQ1f-nACWqoA

lots of things for teachers and some great examples of folk songs students can learn through listening

A few favorites:  Sol Sol Sol, Oh How lovely is the Evening, Little Bitty Man

YouTube – Rob Amchin – https://www.youtube.com/c/RobertAmchin/playlists

– Love the playlists as they’re broken down by topics such as speech pieces, bubbles, tennis balls, early childhood, and orff games

– Lots of ideas: 2-4-6-8, Alligator pie, 

Waldorf School Songs Website – great resource for teachers – https://www.waldorfschoolsongs.com/

Being comfortable singing your favorite songs with your kids at home – singing songs that were sung to you, favorite songs that you love

Check out our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdGhqK_DWpRIKS45ICqN3eQ

***Classroom and Homeschool Teachers*** 

Find our digital resource to help enhance your classroom HERE!

Like us on Facebook! 

Mr. Fite

Check out original fun and educational music from Mr. Fite at 

https://brucefite.com/music and subscribe to Mr. Fite’s YouTube Channel

Mr. Henry

Are you looking for affordable piano lessons for your 6-10-year-old? Start the music journey with Mr. Henry by taking a sneak peek into the Premier Membership with the free mini-piano course! https://www.mrhenrysmusicworld.com/piano

Hey there Music Podcast for Kids listeners!  This is Mr. Henry, and we just wanted to sincerely thank you so much for tuning into the show,  listening to the show. And if you could do us a huge, huge favor, if you could leave a review, that would just be absolutely fantastic. With reviews we can get more people to listen to the show and spread the love of music. So, if you could just take a little bit of time to leave a review, that would be absolutely fantastic! So thank you so much again and we hope you have a great week!

  Let the music begin in 3, 2, 1… Learning music, having fun. That’s what we’re gonna do. Mr. Henry, Mr. Fite, exploring along with you. Learning music, having fun. That’s what we’re gonna do. Mr. Henry, Mr. Fite love hanging out with you. The Music Podcast for Kids!

Hello and welcome to The Music Podcast for Kids we’re your hosts Mr. Henry and Mr. Fite – Music educators extraordinaire! The Music Podcast for Kids is a fun and educational podcast where we learn and explore the best subject ever –  music!  

And now, the music joke of the day. We love jokes, so if you have a joke, please visit our website themusicpodcastforkids.com to submit your joke. And guess what? It doesn’t even have to be a music joke; it can be any joke. We will read and enjoy your joke on the podcast and also let everyone know who it came from and where you are in this great big wonderful music world. 

Our joke of the day is

This joke comes from a listener of the show. And I hope I pronounce your name correctly – Kavi. Here is the joke. Knock, knock…who’s there? Little old lady. Little old lady who? I didn’t know you could yodel!

Make sure to send in your jokes by visiting our website themusicpodcastforkids.com a link to the website can be found in the show notes. 

Thank you so much for listening. We hope you are enjoying the show so far. Please subscribe to the podcast to receive the latest episodes and leave a review through iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts. Also get updates on what we are up to Facebook and Instagram by finding us at Music Podcast for Kids. Links will be found in the show notes. On to the show!

And now, the Music Spotlight!

Carl Orff was born in 1895 and passed away in 1982. He was a composer from Germany and a very important figure in elementary music education. Carl Orff showed a great deal of talent in music at an early age and his mother decided to have him start playing the piano at the age of 5. He was even writing his own music in his early years! He then started to take lessons on the cello, which is an instrument that is part of the string family.  Young Carl then added the organ as another instrument to learn. The organ is typically found in a church and has a bunch of pipes, large and small that are all connected to a large keyboard, and when you press a key down on the organ, it sends air through the pipes to make a large sound. Well, as the years went Carl continued to learn and began publishing music that he wrote at the age of 16 while continuing his studies into his 20’s and then began teaching. In 1924, he founded a school called the Günther School for gymnastics, music, and dance in Munich and was the head of the school until 1944 when it shut down. There he developed new methods of teaching kids music and called it “Schulwerk” which combines music, movement, drama, and speech. Many teachers use Carl Orff’s methods found in his published work even today! It allows kids to be in a natural state of play; making the best environment for learning music. So if you really enjoy music class, Mr. Carl Orff definitely played a role in making a music class fun. And not just for kids…for us teachers too. His most famous piece of music is Carmina Burana. Its epic sound is used in many events, commercials, and performances. Make sure to visit the show notes to find an incredible video and performance of Carl Orff’s opening to the awesome piece “Carmina Burana”.  

Speaking of fun, well,  Easter is coming, and what better way to celebrate than with the Easter Bunny Rap. You know how Mr. Carl Orff combined movement and music. Well, in this song, you will get to move along with some body percussion. In the song, you will echo a pattern that is performed, which means the body percussion part will be heard and you have to perform it back. So get your ears ready. And if you want to check out the video that goes along with the Easter Bunny Rap, make sure to check the show notes to watch the video! And now we present; The Easter Bunny Rap!     

Just Chattin’: Jessica Graham is from Michigan and currently lives in Texas where she teaches middle school music. Prior to her teaching Middle School, she taught elementary General music for 14 years. Jessica is also the host and creator of the podcast Afternoon Ti; a podcast giving music educators ideas and experiences in teaching music. Today we discuss movement activities that can be done at home or in school and can be reached virtually for free. There are many more resources she offered that we did not discuss that can be found in the show notes. We hope you enjoy this interview. Hi Jessica and welcome to the show. Hi Bill thank you for having me. Absolutely and it’s great to have you on the show here. And what I always like to start with is for you to tell us a little bit about your journey with music as a kid. You know you could tell us what you did in school and maybe if you took private lessons or take private lessons,  so what kind of things did you experience as a kid? So, my mom was a music teacher so I grew up with music in the house and she accompanied local choirs especially the high school choir. And one of my first musical experiences I would say was learning the songs to Fame the musical because that was the music she was playing on the piano. So at the age of like three or four I would walk around the house singing you know all of the fame songs and yeah I just love that. And so I would go to all of her rehearsals and I would sit and listen to the choirs and watch her play. And I took piano lessons for years and for the most part enjoyed that. It was always hard to practice. I like performing the songs but the practicing got easier as I got older. And then I really loved dance so I took dance for years. Loved Hip Hop and Jazz and ballet and all the things. And in high school and middle school and all through college I enjoyed singing in choir. So I really enjoyed doing a lot with movement and choral singing and playing piano. Yeah that’s awesome, yeah, so, my mom was actually a music teacher as well. Both my parents were music majors and my mom was my teacher for many years. Yeah yeah yeah so I hear you on all the music just always be in there in the house yeah that’s super cool. 

So currently you are a music teacher. So where do you teach and what grades do you teach now? I teach grades 5 through 8 at a school called Good Shepherd Episcopal School in Dallas Texas. And this will be my sixth year teaching there and before that I taught for 14 years in the public school system K through 5. So are you originally from Texas? No, I grew up in Michigan and then went to school in Tennessee and came back to Michigan and I met my husband long distance and it was easier for me to move then for his career to move. So made the way down here and now I’m texan at heart for sure. Yeah that’s awesome so you also have a podcast and it’s called Afternoon Ti and it’s a podcast for music teachers like myself. And so could you tell us a little bit about the show? Sure. So as a music teacher I feel like every music teacher has something to share and something different or a different slant to help other music teachers. And I felt like I was at a point where I had some ideas that I thought might be helpful for other teachers and so I decided to start using the things I had around my house, a microphone and my computer and oftentimes we would go in our master bedroom closet and just recording a very simplistic way. But to give other teachers ideas of what to do with movement or singing or even teacher self-care, how to take care of your teacher-health your voice and different things that you can do not only for your students in the community but as a teacher personally. So I enjoy interviewing people like you do and just learning. I feel like I’ve learned so much by talking to other music teachers and just sharing what I can in whatever way I can just to hope that it helped somebody else. I love that and yeah I listen to your show and it really does you really do get a lot of ideas you know just from listening and you also get an idea of like oh yeah yeah what I’m doing is working well. Yeah so I thought it’s really a great resource and any music teachers listening or even if you are a parent is doing homeschooling checking out the podcast is going to help with some things. So and we’re going to talk even more about some cool activities here. but before I get to that I do want to let everyone know that it’s afternoon ti TI right? Which is do re me fa so la ti right that note. I love that play on words,  it’s great. So let’s get to some of these cool movement activities. You know one of the things that were experiencing right now are kids at home and one of the things that I love to do in my music classes to get kids moving right we want kids to move doing it eurhythmics which is basically kids getting up in and moving around to the music, feeling the beat, bouncing balls and doing all of these fun things that kids love to do but are also helping them develop musically. So we thought it’d be neat to discuss some movement activities that we could offer our audience so that kids could do these activities at home. They’re all online-based so let’s hear some, you’ve got some great online resources. What I tried to think of was finding resources that were not only available online but if teachers were using them in the classroom since we’re having to keep that 6 foot distance. But we want our kids to still participate in movement and moving their bodies to music so the first one I thought of was GoNoodle. I know a lot of people may know about that one but it’s a great one to mention because it can cover such a wide age span. And I feel like it’s simple for any teacher really to put it on and the kids know instinctively what to do and copy. So that’s one I want to mention. And then the second one has been a favorite of mine for several years and it’s body percussion and it’s by a  man named Santi Seratosa. And his are more intricate though I have found ways to simplify. You can simply find a pattern you like that he shares and imitate it and do it longer over a period of time rather than going super fast through it. But he does things with chairs or in boxes or layering different ostinato patterns so that then you can allow students to maybe choose one and copy it or you can even use the tutorials that he gives. And I love there’s some pop songs he does like Try by Colbie Caillat or something just like this by The Chainsmokers and Coldplay and he’ll walk you through all the body percussion. A lot of it sitting in chairs which is also ideal for where we’re at right now it’s movement but the kids are isolated. But he also has some that have to do with Shostakovich’s Waltz  and Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. And you can go right through the tutorials and as a teacher I’ve gone through it and then I made kind of notes about what he’s doing and then I find where I need to simplify. But as far as parents being at home they may be cool ones to watch and then create your own if it’s too difficult. Or take parts of it so those are two things I would mention that way you have an idea for younger students but you can also push some of your older students or even adults might enjoy it. I like how that website really focuses on not just the classical music right but they want to include pop music as well. So yeah that’s a lot of fun, great. Well thank you so much and there’s actually a bunch of other parts that you gave me here which is which is awesome. And we’re going to include those in the show notes and we’ll also put Afternoon Ti in the show notes. So yeah I thank you so much Jessica for being on the show and sharing your knowledge. I know you have a lot there so it’s really just it’s great. I love talking to other music teachers and getting ideas and then sharing that so that we can kid’s experiencing music even better so well thank you so much I’ll see you. We would like to thank Jessica Grant again for being a part of the show. Jessica gave a bunch of great resources on top of what was discussed in the show which are found in the show notes. So if you’re a teacher or parent looking for great resources for movement and singing activities that can be done virtually make sure to check out the show notes. Also make sure to check out Jessica’s podcast Afternoon Ti. 

Time to wrap it up folks! Thank you so much for tuning in to the Music Podcast for Kids. We hope you enjoyed the show, and most importantly, learned something cool today about music. Remember to send in your jokes or even a topic in music you would like us to discuss by visiting our website themusicpodcastforkids.com. If you are interested in awesome educational and fun songs for your kids to listen and sing along with, please visit brucefite.com. Music is available to download with iTunes, CD Baby, and Facebook streaming platforms like Spotify and Amazon Radio. Links will be found in the show notes. If you are interested in learning how to play the piano with a fun and engaging curriculum geared toward kids, please subscribe to Mr. Henry’s YouTube channel called Mr. Henry’s Music World. Links would be found in the show notes. Please visit iTunes to leave a review of the podcast and also share the podcast with friends, relatives, aliens, whoever! Again we thank you so much for tuning in!