You Ain't Nothin' but a Hound Dog

Hey, everybody!

Yesterday, I got to help the students in Mrs. Naylor’s class understand the concept of comparing and contrasting. As we know, comparing is when you take two characters, books, songs, etc.  and figure out which things are the same in both things. Contrasting, on the other hand, is taking those subjects and finding the differences in between them.

In order to get this idea across, I had them compare and contrast Elvis Presley, and Big Mama Thornton in their renditions of “You Ain’t Nothin’ but a Hound Dog.”

First, I read to them a biography about Elvis called “Elvis: the Story of the Rock ‘N’ Roll King.” Some of the students didn't know who Elvis was, and a lot of them didn't know any of his background. We learned tons of cool facts about him!




We then got to watch the King of Rock 'N' Roll's classic version of "You Ain't Nothin' but a Hound Dog."

Watching Elvis on the Ed Sullivan Show singing "Hound Dog"
Watch his video by clicking here.

 While we watched, we came up with adjectives to describe the way he sang, the way he moved, and the set around him.


Some of the ways they described this video were: "His dance moves are twitchy." "People are clapping in the background." "He sings the same phrase over and over again."










Next, I enlightened them about Willie May Thornton, who was known as "Big Mama Thornton." Big Mama was actually the woman who wrote Hound Dog several years earlier. We watched her video of it, and wrote down our observations on that, too.

Watching Big Mama Thornton's video of "Hound Dog"
Watch her video by clicking here.

She was described as having a, "big, loud voice," a "changing voice" (which I told them was her improvising, or making it up as she went), and "groovy." Indeed, this version was much, much different than Elvis Presley's version.














After watching both of these videos, we made a chart to combine what we knew about both of these versions of "Hound Dog" to compare and to contrast them.

We came up with so many differences and commonalities between the two. At one point, the class was torn about which singer was more "groovy." We fixed this problem by coming up with synonyms where each would describe each singer more perfectly than "groovy."

THEN, we had some REAL fun!

A lot of kids noticed a bunch of instruments in the room as they came back in from recess. Some asked, "what are a bunch of violins doing here??" And, I said, "my friends, these are ukulele's."

Each student picked up a ukulele, and I began teaching them the chords for Elvis's "Hound Dog."


I showed them three chords: C, F, and G7. And then we jammed.










Here is that video:

So much fun was had this week! Thanks for reading.

--Bianca Newkirk

jambo!

Jambo!

Last Thursday with these kids was so fun again! We began our time together with a get-to-know-you activity. It was a little challenging in these ways: It had a different language no one was familiar with, and there were hand movements. The song was called, "Jambo!" which means, "Hello!" It goes like this:

Jambo, jambo, jambo karibu (Hello, hello, hello, welcome)
Jambo, jambo, join in the game.

Jambo, jambo, jambo atoto (Hello, hello, hello, children)
Jambo, jambo, tell us your name.

Then, four students on each of the four beats of rest would say their names, and then we continue with the song again, and we continue in that pattern. It was a little tricky, and it took quite a few tries to get the hang of it, but we got it!

For the next activity we did, if I had to choose one challenging aspect of this lesson, it would have been: What are a few pop songs that ALL fifth graders know?!

In this class, they are practicing how to read fluently. My idea was that, by showing them songs they were familiar with hearing, they could catch on quickly to what they were reading, which were those lyrics. The four songs distributed were: "Let It Go" (From Frozen), "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" (From The Wizard of Oz),  "Can't Stop the Feelin'" (By Justin Timberlake, however most of the kids identified it as "The song from Trolls!"), and "Don't Stop Believin'". Each student found the rest of the kids with the same song they were given, and together in groups, they read through the lyrics very fluently. (If one child did not know the song they were given, I put them in a group with a song they did know.)

After they read through their lyrics, I gave them their next assignment--In brackets, a section of the lyrics (a verse) were singled out. I asked them to letter each line, which we called a musical phrase. The next part of that was for the groups to re-order that verse. I showed them an example with "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star."

The group that was the most into this activity had to be the "Don't Stop Believin'" group--they had their air guitars going, and their mimicking voices of the lead singer of Journey. They performed their "arrangement" of the song--I wish I got a video of it! It was brilliant. The new arrangement ended up being:

Hold on to that feeling!
Don't stop believin',
Don't stop!
Street lights, pe-o-ppplllEEE!!!!

The point of this activity was for the kids to read the new arrangement on the board, and their cue being the fact that these words were familiar to them, they still had to read to make sure they knew what they had to sing. It was an exciting activity!


This is continuing to be such a great experience! Thanks for reading :)

Bianca Newkirk