One of my student's favourite activities, which are perfect in preparing their singing voice, is to paint in the air as they vocalise a respective sound. This is a fun way to get the students to create and improvise a whole range of different vocalisations. I use this mostly in ELC (3 and 4 year olds) and first years of school to help prepare students for singing. It can also double up as a junior choir warm up activity.
Activity:

• Student's sit in a circle and teacher stirs an imaginary paint bucket (I am very descriptive about what size the bucket is today, how much paint it has, what colours are inside etc...) My ELC (kindergarten) students love painting with 'sparkly' colours!! 
• As an introduction I would always create a few different variations of sound that the students will imitate as a whole class and gradually I will encourage individual students to create their own vocalisation and perform in front of their peers.

Over time I am looking at how creative students can be with their colours and respective sounds they make. Some students make connections with the colour red and a siren, other students like to create a whole range of different sounds. I will always encourage them to make a vocalisation when they paint the sound in the air. 
Another fun way to encourage students to create a wider range of pitch sounds is to use a slide whistle. I would ask individual students to create imitate the sounds the whistle can make. The whistle can also be used to reinforce high and low sounds.

I have used the app with individual students and they really enjoy painting with sound!   You can download it for free on the app store (the HD version costs a small amount).
Have a look at my 'Painting Sounds' Vocalisation pack on my Teachers Pay Teachers store. 

Hope your students enjoy painting sounds as much as mine do!

~Lisa

So for the very fist Tuesday Bookclub I posted about a book I found on Mrs Miracle's blog: 'How to Speak Moo!' by Deborah Fajerman. 

For this week's 'Friday Freebie' I decided to create some 'mooo-sical' vocalisation flashcards to help your students create some interesting vocalisation sounds in lessons! Click here to download for free!

Another thing which is great about this book is that located on the inside front cover over the book there are some fantastic square drawings of all the different types of 'moo's' used in the book. Such as: Wobbly, High, Low, Smooth, Jiggly, Boinging. So I decided to colour photocopy and create a series of flaschards that I can use in lessons, but also great for some fun choir warm-ups with my Year 1 & 2 Choir.

Hope you have a 'moo-sical' time in your classroom!

~Lisa

Welcome to the first Tuesday Book Club! So I found this book reviewed on Mrs Miracle's wonderful blog and had such a great success with using it that I just had to share it with you all! You can view her blog post here 
This book has instantly become one of my favourites! It's absolutely fantastic for vocal exploration with the younger years. It is also great to review all your comparatives, particularly: loud/soft and high/low. It can be a great way to introduce your vocalisation sounds or as a summative task where students can revise what they have learn't at the end of the year.
About the book... It is a totally silly book about cows that encourages students to explore weird & wacky vocalisations!! It tells boys and girls all about the way cows 'do the high moo' and 'the low moo' . . . 'the bumpy moo' and the 'jumpy moo.' The story instantly encourages students to try these moos out for themselves. They can discover how their moo sounds in a tunnel. Or even through a funnel!! At the end of the book all the cows make the very best 'mooosic of all!' 
It is an absolute must for the Early Years! I ordered mine from Book Depository: http://www.bookdepository.com/How-Speak-Moo-Deborah-Fajerman/9780764167522   
Stay tuned for my Friday Freebie post and download your free cow vocalisations flashcards ~ to help students make the best 'mooo' sounds in your classroom! 
~ Lisa

I absolutely love to use vocalisations in my classroom and this year I have pulled out a favourite of mine: ‘Connie, Connie in the tub’. It definitely sits in my ‘oldies but goodies' category of chants! 

For those of you who don’t know the chant, here it is:

Connie, Connie in the tub,
She forgot to use the plug!
Oh my goodness! Oh my soul! 
There goes Connie, down the hole!

To revisit the chant in Year 1 I decided to change it up a little bit and set the chant using a simple solfa melody, alternating between so & mi (ss, mm, ss, m etc…) and on the last word ‘hole’ finished on a ‘do.’ 

So to change things up a bit I went & bought a sink plug from a $2 shop! I decided to play the beat passing game very similar to Apple Tree (depending on how you play!).


The Game: Students stand in a circle and pass the plug on the beat.  When the plug landed on the student with the word ‘hole’ they can improvise their very own Connie vocalisation ‘oooo’ down the hole. 


The students absolutely loved playing this game and it is a great way to practice passing the beat & encourage solo improvisation. As my preps are new to beat passing we played the game sitting down. They did a great job to pass the plug around the circle, eventually as they get better I will more than likely play the game standing up.

The year 1’s loved it so much I will more than likely refer to it later on in the year & set the chant using so-mi-la (ss, ll, ss, m etc…) and see if the students can recognise how the song was altered (with the addition of la).

To add a new dimension to the chant I have created some posters, individual flashcards & worksheets that I use primarily with ELC & Prep students. You can download from here

Hope you enjoy and if you get the chance please rate my resource!

~ Lisa