Orff Workshops

I have been going to Orff Workshops for a number of years now, and I always enjoy getting new ideas for teaching.  I can never keep doing the exact same thing year after year without getting bored, so I either tweak a lesson plan I like or replace it with something that I learn in one of these workshops.  (Of course, there are a few lessons I love so much that I never tire of them.)

When I went to Paul Cribari's workshop on Saturday, it dawned on me that I don't necessarily pay as much attention to the songs/movement being taught as I do to the tidbits and tricks and small ideas that the presenter brings.  For example, we were doing body percussion with a poem (what poem?  it doesn't matter) and Cribari talked about the quality of the clapping and stamping.  So, some of the clapping we did high, some lower (cupped hands), and the stamping (seen here) was given a special movement to make it musical, rather than just mindlessly setting your foot down on the ground.

This week I am doing a canon with my upper graders, and you can be sure we will be paying close attention to the quality of our sounds.