Traditional Spanish Nursery Rhyme "Sana, Sana" on the Recorder!

We hear lots of educational buzz phrases like culturally appropriate, engaging, and prior knowledge. But what does it mean for teaching music to students who primarily speak Spanish at home? For me, I incorporate Spanish songs and chants into my curriculum.

This year I started my third graders learning the recorder by adapting a well known Spanish nursery rhyme. I found the chant "Sana, sana" in the book El Patio de Mi Casa by Gabriela Montoya-Stier. I set the chant to an easy rhythm and assigned notes of B, A, and G. I only used one A, as the focus of the song is really learning B and G.

Sana, sana, colita de rana,
Heal, heal, little frog tail,

Si no sanas hoy, sanarás mañana.
If you don't feel better today, you'll feel better tomorrow.

The chant is said to children by an adult when the child is hurt. I found that many of the children at my school who speak Spanish at home were familiar with the chant.

I found this to be an excellent beginning song for my students.  The song reflects and values their culture, they were engaged because they were able to use their knowledge of Spanish, and they used their prior knowledge of the chant to further develop their musical skills.

Leave a comment if you use this, I'd love to hear feedback! 

As with everything on my blog, you are free to use this in your own teaching. You may not use this in any way where you make a profit. If you would like to repost this, please link back to this post.

My first hallway board: "Music Takes Us All Around the World"

My classroom is a bungalow without a display board out front. However, there is a display board that I get to use on the building right next to my room. Yay!

In music class it can take a while to get things to put on a display board. I decided to create something to put up on the board to welcome the students on the first day of school. This helps me not feel so pressured for the kids to produce something.

As an International Baccalaureate school, we do a lot of focus on increasing our students' international mindedness. Music is a wonderful vehicle for this.

The quote "Music Takes Us All Around the World" has a double meaning of the word "all." It can mean all of us people or all the different locations in the world. I used black tempera paint with a regular brush to create the lettering. I cut a corner guide out of card stock and used that as a guide for cutting the rest of the corners.

I used a drum to make a circle and cut it out of blue butcher paper for the planet. I used green tempura paint to add some land. I did the map from memory as it is a good brain exercise.

I'm delighted with the board! Another teacher on campus told me it looked really good. The validation for my efforts feels great.

That musty smell is coming from the music room...

Greetings Internet! I'm Ms. Nelson, the new elementary music teacher for an urban California school.

When I first saw my room it looked so lifeless, sad, and crusty. In years past the music teaching duties were split between different teachers. That meant that nothing has been thrown away for a while and no one spent any time trying to spruce up the place. Clarinet swabs, saxophones necks, and valve oil are in giant tin cans. Oh, and it's a bungalow.

I hate bungalows. In my mind they are not sustainable buildings. Everything has a timeline and temporary buildings have temporary in the title! I think they are wasted money in the long run.

However! My thoughts on money well spent aside, my room is a really good size for a music room. I might think differently as children fill the space. Their elbows always seem to take up more room than I think they will.

I'm in the process of cleaning out the room, taking inventory of the instruments, and giving the walls a much needed spruce up. Oh, and writing a curriculum. I'm teaching K-6, lower grades general music, upper grades instrumental. I see each class only once a week. I just finished my Orff Level 1 training and am excited to use some of what I've learned.

I will use this space to share things I post in the classroom, lessons, stuff that worked, stuff that didn't work, and gratitude.

In a difficult long term sub position last year I started writing down a few good things in my planner at the end of the day that I was grateful for or that made me smile. That way I had written proof of the things that had gone well that week instead of always dwelling on the negative. I hope to continue the practice this year.