Kindergarten students learned a fingerplay called "Two Little Apples." Fingerplays helps students learn to speak and sing using expression by matching their movements to their voices.
Can your child teach you this rhyme? Here are the words and motions:
Two little apples, (Make two fists)
Hanging in a tree. (Point up)
Two little apples, (Make two fists again)
Smiled at me. (Touch mouth and smile)
I shook the tree as hard as I could.
(With both hands shake imaginary tree)
Down came the apples, (Make fists fall down)
Mmmmm, they were good. (Rub tummy)
Students quickly memorized this rhyme and were able to perform it independently. Next, we brainstormed sounds that we might hear while eating an apple. Students came up with words such as "crunch, crunch," "drip, drip, drip," "yummy," and "mmmm." We used these words to create a rhythmic pattern which we used as the B section of this song, alternating the rhyme with our own pattern.
Creating our own short musical ideas is one of the goals of the Massachusetts Music standards, so this activity was good practice for students.
