Two Fun Patriotic Activities

Submitted by Carol Richardi, New Jersey

Idea posted January 8, 2003

Just thought I'd share two fun patriotic activities that I did this week. Nothing earth shattering, but my classes seemed to really enjoy themselves.

I cut up all the words to "The Star-Spangled Banner" (available in Music K-8, Vol. 10, No. 5; also available as a Singles Reproducible Kit) into small groupings... Oh say, can you see, by the, dawn's early, light, etc. and put them in envelopes. I then divided my class into five groups and had them lay out all the pieces in the correct order. Harder than it looks. Every few minutes we would sing through a bit - and when they were all done, we sang it together. I think they finally understand what o'er means! (I've also done this activity in the past with other patriotic songs.)

I made a chart of "America The Beautiful" (available in Music K-8, Vol. 4, No. 1) and color coded it for 1 -4 -5 chords and had the children sing along as they rang their chime.

I just wrote out the words to the song and underlined them according to the chords. (You have to fudge the 4 chord a little bit!) They rang during their color the rhythm of the song. Then we switched chimes. They love doing this.