ABC and 123: A Learning Collaborative: Teaching with Ticia: Yankee Doodle

Monday, June 18, 2012

Teaching with Ticia: Yankee Doodle


I love Yankee Doodle.  It's a fun song, it's easy to teach to kids, and there's history behind it.

I'm bringing this up because we're about to hit 4th of July and this is a great time to teach this song to our kids.  Ages ago, I wrote my first post about it with just the poem, here's a short mini-unit to do on this fun song.

LANGUAGE ARTS

1.  Look for the rhyming words.  Check out Mary Ann Hoberman's Yankee Doodle book.  It's a great example of making a parody of a rhyme and still keeping the original flavor.  What part of the rhyme is over the top and what parts could really happen?

2.  Look up what a macaroni is.  Write both a denotative (dictionary definition) and a connotative (your own words) definition.  It is a great way to truly internalize a word's meaning.


MATH

1.  Graphing- graph the vowels or choose a few consonants to graph.  It's a great exercise in prediction skills to think of which one will happen most frequently.

SOCIAL STUDIES

1.  Search for pictures of a "Macaroni."  Then draw what someone might look like today when we say "Macaroni."

2.  Read and find out the history behind the song Yankee Doodle.  Would you have been proud to be called a Yankee Doodle if you knew it was an insult?

COOKING

1.  Make hasty pudding like in the second verse of the song.

MUSIC AND MOVEMENT

1.  Yankee Doodle was nearly chosen for our national anthem.  Listen to "My Country Tis of Thee," "Star Spangled Banner," and "This Land is My Land."  All of these songs have been put forth at one time for a national anthem.  If you were choosing a song, what would you choose?

2.  Try marching in beat to the music.  Or play the game found here.

ART

1.  Make a newspaper hat and decorate it with feathers to make it a "Macaroni hat."
2.  Since this is a patriotic song, try making art using only red, white, and blue.  How does the picture turn out?  What color stands out most?  Try combining different mediums.  Does it change the artwork if you paint and then color with crayons?

What would you do with Yankee Doodle?

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