Rhythm Pizza with Melody Brogdon

I had the pleasure of visiting Melody Brogdon @ West Point Elementary. The day I visited she was teaching about different note values. She was so creative and came up with a system called Rhythm Pizza. Each layer of the pizza represented a different note value and each note value was appropriately divided against the previous layer. Here are a couple pictures of the kids putting them together.

The kids had a lot of fun putting the pizzas together and learned about note values and division at the same time. 

After the Pizza challenge Melody and I taught the kids Pizza, Pizza Daddy-O!  Only we changed the words a little bit.  It went something like this...

"Annie ate some pizza,

Pizza, Pizza Daddy-O

How do you know it?

Pizza, Pizza Daddy-O

Cuz She told me 

Pizza, Pizza Daddy-O

Then, we taught the kids some movement that represented the value of each different note type.  Ex:

Whole note = big circle with the arms

Half note = two big stomps

Quarter note = 4 pats on the legs

Eighth note = clapping 8 times

Sixteenth note = rubbing hands together quickly

We put it all together with a new chorus that goes like this ...

(Leader) Give me a whole note!

(Class with movement) This is a whole note, whole...note...Pizza, pizza Daddy- o

(Leader) give me a half note.

(Class with movement). This is a half note, half note, half note...Pizza, Pizza a Daddy-o

The leader gets to call out any note he or she wants to, in any order and the class responds  each time with the movements and words followed by Pizza Pizza Daddy -o!

So much fun!  I wish I had a video of it, but we were having way too much fun with the kids to stop.   Thanks Melody for sharing your class with me!

PS. You can find this song, with a lesson plan, in the USOE songbook, also known as 100 Favorite Songs!  Click here for the song.