© 2019 • Plano, Texas • 800-445-0649 • fax 972-943-8906 • www.musicmotion.com

Activity Guide

You’ll love the look and feel of our colorful manipu-latives for learning music! The flexible silicone pieces cling to whiteboards, laminated charts, and any smooth surface. They offer endless opportunities for hands-on activities and games for the whole class, small groups, or music centers.

The Purpose of BASIC RHYTHMS

Because of their proportional sizing, rhythmic units can be easily and quickly exchanged to create new patterns on the fly during activities and games. The set offers enough quantity and variety of rhythms to 1) notate familiar song patterns or create your own2) introduce and apply concepts of note values,duration, meter, time signatures, and counting3) use for eartraining and dictation4) create rhythm grooves for ensemble playing anddrum circles .(Rhythm units align in rows so studentscan see how they fit together.)

Finally, this set is a perfect extension set for Rhythm N’Counters and I CAN READ Flashcards below.

Basic Rhythms

2 8 8

4 4 4 4

1

BASIC RHYTHMS Silicone Manipulatives Set is a good flexible beginning set, proportionally sized to show relative duration. Arrange in patterns for rhythm reading, explore 2/4, 3/4, and 4/4 meter, use for ear-training and dictation, notate rhythms of famil-iar tunes, create rhythm grooves, and use in drum cir-cles. Basic Rhythms are also sized and designed to expand the possibilities of Rhythm N’Counters and I CAN READ Rhythm Cards, companion resources shown below. Set of 35 28183

Recommended Companion Resources for BASIC RHYTHMS

Front

RHYTHM CARDS. Say aloud the insect names, and you’re on your way to reading rhythms! Cards have pictures and words on one side, and corre-sponding rhythms on the back. Create patterns to chant, clap, or play with instruments or body sounds. Play ear-training games. Compose your own chants, melodies, ostinatos, and grooves. Perform rhythm sequences concerto-style, alternating soloists and tutti. Explore musical forms (binary, ternary, rondo) as you compose your own chants. Cards are 7½" x 2½" and 3½" x 2½". Set includes 70 glossy 2-sided cards and a 4-page reproducible teaching guide. 1121

BASIC RHYTHMS silicone manipula-tives offer the same rhythms as the I Can Read Rhythm Cards, but with the added benefit of being able to use them on whiteboards, laminated or plastic charts. Create rhythm grooves to perform, chant-ing insect names then rhythm names. Compose your own rhythm “bug” patterns. Play “Name the Insect/Name the Rhythm” ear training games, and more.

I Can Read Rhythm Cards & MGR Basic Rhythms 99471

I CAN READ Rhythm Cards

RHYTHM N’ COUNTERS Learn concepts of note values and re-lationships, counting, meter, and time signatures. Students visualize the duration of the rhythms by the relative size of the pieces. The set includes 19 flexible silicone strips (12" x 2½") to cut on dotted lines to create 64 individual pieces. 64-piece Set, with Activity Guide 28054

BASIC RHYTHMS matches Rhythms N’Counters in size and color, so by combining the two sets you have a wider range of activities available. Basic Rhythms adds an extra quantity of the most basic rhythms. Rhythm N’Counters has fewer of each individual rhythm but more variety of rhythms, plus numbers and time signatures. These two sets combined give you lots of options. See Rhythm N’Counters Activity Guide for additional rhythm-making activities to use with Basic Rhythms.

Rhythm N’Counters & Basic Rhythms 99504

Rhythm N’ Counters

Where & How to Use

INSECT RHYTHMSBased on I CAN READ Rhythm Cards above, introduce rhythms using insect names.

TIP #1: Make sure kids SAY ALOUD the “insect” name when tapping, clapping or performing “insect” rhythms. After they are fluent performing rhythms with insect names, it’s an easy transition to real rhythm names. When they learn the names of the rhythms, make sure they say rhythm names or syllables aloud as they tap, clap, or play the patterns. (see Whatchamacallits below).

TIP #2: TAP THE FOOT to experience the regular down-up feeling of a beat in motion. (Remember, beats are

not static points on a graph, but sounds in perpetual motion!) In fact you can first ask kids to repeatedly say “down-up” as they the foot taps the beat. It is very helpful for kids to always tap the foot on each beat as they say aloud and perform the various rhythms. The foot holds the beat steady while the upper limbs clap or play the varied rhythms. Rhythm vocalization helps unify the process: syncing the foot and hands, coordinating the beat and rhythms. (If students have trouble combin-ing voice, foot, and hands in rhythm reading, then back up and do the 3 steps separately and more slowly until they are secure, then combine them one at a time over a period of time. Rhythm reading is the most challeng-ing part of music literacy. It’s like rubbing your head and patting your stomach plus wagging your tongue all at once, so be patient, and go slowly. Before rhythms can be internalized they have to be physically experienced with the whole body, many many times over.

WHATCHAMACALLITS! Vocalizing Rhythms Whatever you call the rhythms, it is very important for kids to vocalize them by name or rhythm syllables. This serves two pur-poses. If a child says aloud the rhythms, their ears and voice and brain are engaged to help them really learn and remember the rhythms. Rhythm reading is then an easy 3-part skill for teach-ers to assess: foot (beat), hands (rhythms), and voice (identifi-cation and cognition). The voice helps synchronize the foot and hands: kids tap the steady beat with the foot and perform the rhythms with their hands.

Here are a few options for vocalizing the rhythms, besides insect names:

NOTE: For quarter you can say “tah” or “quar-ter”. I prefer the latter as kids feel the 2 halves of the beat when the foot evenly taps down on the first syllable and up on the second. When kids feel this down-upness of a steady single beat or “quar-ter”, It makes it easier to introduce beat subdivisions (eighths, 16ths,etc.) later on.

© 2019 • Plano, Texas • 800-445-0649 • fax 972-943-8906 • www.musicmotion.com

Suggested Activities for BASIC RHYTHMS

quar - ter two eighths

“ti-ti” or “two-eighths”

“tah” or “quar-ter”

“tika-tika” or “ta-fa-tay-fi”

“ti-tika” or “eighth-tay-fi”

“tika-ti” or “ta-fa-eighth”

“tah-ah” or “half note”

“tah-2-3-4” or “hold that whole note”

RHYTHM ECHO RELAY Students sit in a circle, with a rhythm in front of each of them. The first one claps and vocalizes the rhythm 4 times in a row, then the whole class echoes the pattern, also clapping and vocalizing. Then without a break, the next person performs the rhythm in front of them 4 times, followed by the echoing group. Continue until everyone has had 2 or 3 turns as leader. If students pause between beats, miss a beat, perform the wrong rhythm, or forget to say aloud the rhythm, they are out of the game until someone else drops out—then they can take that person’s place back in the circle.

NOTE: When performing the rest, have students exaggerate the motion of silent clapping, and tap the beat with the foot as they say “Rest, Rest, Rest, Rest.” In playing music, rests must have the same dynamic energy as articulated rhythms. Rests are not a pause in the action, but a continuation of the rhythmic flow. Just ask a percussionist. If silent rests are not as carefully regarded as the audible rhythms, many a symphony would be spoiled by the too early. . .or too late. . .crash of the cymbals!

FEELING GROOVY Create 2-, 3-, or 4-part rhythm grooves by aligning rhythm patterns in 2, 3, or 4 rows.

1. Clap, tap the foot, and say aloud the rhythms on each row repeatedly until kids are comfortable with each pattern.

2. Do the same as you perform all 4 lines consecutively, or play them in random order.

3. Perform as ensemble grooves. Assign groups to perform the patterns in ensemble with “beat-box” vocalizations, body per-cussion, or instruments.

ORCHESTRATE YOUR GROOVES Ensemble means “together” and describes a group that per-forms music together. Ensembles can be different sizes and are numerically described in Italian terms, denoting how many musicians are playing together in the group.

ENSEMBLE MATCH-UP

Pass out Ensemble and Number dots randomly to students. Tell kids to find their “match,” place their matched pair on the white-board, then pick up an instrument (quietly!) and sit down (quick-ly!). Challenge kids to finish before the teacher calls “Finale” or “al Fine!” Whoever gets the Tutti dot won’t have a match, but gets to conduct the next activity. The teacher then passes out instruments to students who don’t already have one, so every-one can play Groovy Ensembles below.

© 2019 • Plano, Texas • 800-445-0649 • fax 972-943-8906 • www.musicmotion.com

ENSEMBLE Silicone, 3¾" Set of 10 28121

NUMBERS Silicone, 3¾" Set of 8 28055

Orchestrate your own cool grooves by combining MGR Basic Rhythms, Ensemble, and Rhythm Instruments sets.

GROOVY ENSEMBLESNotate a rhythm groove on the whiteboard with Basic Rhythms. Using Rhythm Instruments and Ensembles dots, have kids orchestrate and play the groove with different ensembles. Ask one student to “conduct” by setting the tempo, helping the group keep a steady beat, and starting and stopping the performance.

GROOVY DRUM CIRCLESDivide your drum circle into groups based on materials: wood, metal, shakers, skins, or on sound production: Idiophones, Membranophones, Chordophones, Aerophones. Write the names on MGRs Blank Dots to indicate which group plays which rhythm in the groove. Then quickly switch the dots in front of the rhythms and you’re ready for groups to try a new groove pattern.

RHYTHM DETECTIVEThe teacher claps or plays rhythm patterns, which kids notate with Basic Rhythms on the whiteboard. This works as a whole-class activity, or with the class divided into 2 teams, keeping score when they get the pattern correct. After each pattern is notated on the board, have the class (or team) perform it (clapping, tapping the foot, and saying aloud the rhythms) to decide if it is correctly notated.

© 2019 • Plano, Texas • 800-445-0649 • fax 972-943-8906 • www.musicmotion.com

COLORFUL WRITE-ON DOTS 6 of each color.

Silicone, 3¾” Set of 36 28032

metals

skins

shakers

woods

RHYTHM INSTRUMENTS Silicone, 3¾" Set of 16 28113

includes blank whitewrite-on dot