Little Miss Muffet

Students in grades 1/2/3 have been working on a fun activity using the old nursery rhyme "Little Miss Muffet". First we learned the song, and then analyzed the music. Here are some of the things we learned:

• The music staff has four spaces, counted from the bottom to the top.
• The music staff has five lines, counted from the bottom to the top.
• If a note is written higher on the music staff it has a higher sound, and if it is lower on the music staff it has a lower sound.

Then we circled the notes on the first space, second space, and third line in three different colours. The next time we sang the song, we patted our knees for the lowest notes, our shoulders for the middle notes, and our heads for the higher notes. Later we will label these notes with Mi, So and La.

Next we played a game to go with our song. One student walked around the circle with our spider friend as we sang the song. Whoever the spider landed on at the end of the song had to jump up, run around the circle, and be back to his/her spot before we finished the phrase "Go faster, go faster, I know you can run! Go faster, go faster, your time has begun! 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1." Easy right? Not so much! With every round we started at one less number for the countdown! The spider carrier also got the chance to accompany the song with a solid bordun on the xylophone. A solid bordun is when you play two notes (Do and So) at the same time to the beat. We had a great time!