Melodysoup YUMMY Award July 2013 - Chicky Chicky Chook Chook by Cathy MacLennan *LESSON IDEAS*

It feels like I haven't given a YUMMY AWARD! in AGES!  And the truth it that it has been six months, so I am well over due!  This one was especially fun to write because the minute I put my hands on this book I had lots of lesson ideas.

I'm always looking for books that lend themselves to the development of music literacy.  I especially like books that provide a variety of uses for the same book.  Often these books will work with multiple grade levels depended on the simplicity or complexity of my ideas.  In any case, I found this book at TMEA and I've been looking forward to incorporating into my bag of tricks!

 

The Yummy Award for July 2013 goes to


Chicky Chicky Chook Chook by Cathy MacLennan

 

Ideas for Younger Children:

I think that after the children are familiar with the book it would be fun isolate a page of the book and then either play or post a rhythm and ask the children to identify which set of words goes with the rhythm.  For example.  One short except from the book goes like this,

 "Chicky Chicky Chook Chook

Chick Chick Chick,

Chicky Chicky Chook Chook

 Peck Peck Peck."

I could post several  known rhythms like and then ask the students figure out where in the page those rhythms happen.

Wouldn't it be fun to have students write a rhythm we were working with on a small post it note and then place it in the places when that rhythm happens?   I think they would love it! 


We could extend our work by orchestrating our book for various instruments. Each page is composed around a different hard consonant sound.  Perhaps the "Ch" sound could be played on the sand blocks while the hard "k" sound was played on the woodblock.  The possibilities are endless!


Ideas for Older Children:

Wouldn't this be a fun way to approach rhythm dictation? If students were well versed in rhythmic patterns they might enjoy the challenge of figuring out the rhythmic pattern.  It's a new twist on the "what rhythm am I playing?" game.  Students attempting this would need lots of aural discrimination practice under their belt, but I think that they could puzzle it out. 

An extra challenge might be for older children to compose another page for the book.  I think this would be an excellent opportunity to create a class book filled with original compositions that we could then play and orchestrate.

What about melody?!!!  This book has such a wonderful rhythmic pattern that it might be the perfect opportunity to ask older students to take known pitches and compose an original melody.  Imagine this book played as an original composition!!!! 

MY! MY! MY! - This is starting to sound like an entire semester worth of study and it's just 1 book!  - LOVE IT! 

 

Want to see what other books have received a YUMMY Award?  Click HERE!