You all know how much I love double duty songs, but chants can do the same thing! 2, 4, 6, 8 is a fun chant for spring and a….quintuple…duty chant!
If you don’t know the chant…
2, 4, 6, 8
Meet me at the garden gate.
If I’m late, don’t wait.
2, 4, 6, 8
1. Steady Beat and Rhythm
This is a straight forward song for steady beat and rhythm. You can separate and have them tap one or the other, point to a beat chart, or read notation or icons. Practice with beat charts, icon cards or manipulatives like erasers.
2. Ta TiTi (Or whatever rhythm notation you use)
Similar to teaching steady beat and rhythm since the prep looks almost the same but without that extra step of naming. The prep for Ta and TiTi has a lot of the same things. Prep with visual, aural and kinesthetic elements, and only name when the students are ready by being able to tell the difference.
3. Part work
Use instruments or voices. Separate kids into two groups and have one play steady beat and the other play the rhythm. If your kids are really champs, try it with four parts using each line as a new entrance point and try it in canon.
4. Composition
This chant has some great phrasing which makes it a great lead up for improvisation. I got this great idea from Susan Brumfield during my level 2. Use the opening phrase as a question, and the kids create their own answer phrase. Instead of using language for the answer phrase, students simply clap or play
5. Decode
Take the 4 phrases of the chant and write them on four cards. Students use the known rhythms from the chant to…
- Decode the chant
- Create a new pattern from the rhythms
- Identify form for this chant
- Write patterns following a new form
- Identify the chant clapped by someone else.
- Write the rhythms
These are just some of the things you can do with 2,4,6,8 to get your kids thinking, reading and writing the rhythms.
I’ve got a great file for 2,4,6,8 on TeachersPayTeachers. You can find it here.
This file includes
Rhythm Slides
– beat icons
– rhythm icons
– slides to present Rhythm
– slides to present Ta & TiTi
– read the rhythm
Printables and Teaching Tools:
– 8 worksheets to practice rhythm writing, and identifying the number of sounds
– rhythm cards with both stick and regular notation
– icon cards with rhythm pattern
– beat charts
Hope this is helpful!
