Split Three Ways
A Teacher’s Mind At The End Of The Week
Having Fun With The Flip Camera
This is a music video by 4A A film clip produced by grade 4 students. All lyrics written by 4A students. Backing track recorded and composed by the Grade 4 Ensemble. Filmed (Flip camera) and edited by Andrew (Class/Music Teacher).
This project took about 6 weeks, one hour a week. The first step was to lean a poem call Cats by Eleanor Fajeon.
Cats sleep anywhere,
any table, any chair.
Top of piano, window-ledge,
in the middle, on the edge.
Open drawer, empty shoe,
anybody’s lap will do.
Fitted in a cardboard box,
in the cupboard with your frocks.
Anywhere! They don’t care!
Cats sleep anywhere.
This is a great poem because it has a steady beat and fantastic rhyming words. Each line fits in to four beats as well which lends itself to performing with any funky beat created in Garageband. It’s important to keep in time with the beat. After analysing the structure of the poem emphasising the rhyming words on the fourth beat of each line we split up into small groups to rehearse and perform the poem.
Second Step: Brain storm various animals and the things that they can do. We then had to write a short two verse poem about our animal with an action. Each line had to fit into four beats and the last word of each line had to rhyme. Once we finish we rehearsed and then performed with the beat of a drum.
Third Step: Polish our short animal verse and memorise. Standing in a large circle each group had to perform their animal verse one after the other with out missing a beat creating a whole class animal rap. This took a while to get the hang of especially when the funky beat that was created in Garageband was playing in the back ground.
Fourth Step: Record the whole class animal rap into Garageband. Each group was recorded individually with the funky backing track.
Fifth Step: Each group had to choreograph a few simple moves to their verse. They had to rehearse each verse so they could rap and move at the same time. Found a great location just a few blocks away from school and recorded each group on a Flip camera.
Sixth Step: Edit each groups performance in iMovie using the Garageband recording (Step four) as the sound track.
Also posted on 4A’s Bloggerama and Global Student
March 21st, 2009 at 7:52 am
Wow! That is really cool. I like the fact that they are students work ranging from music to lyrics/poems. Well done and keep it up.
From,
Jenny.
March 21st, 2009 at 1:59 pm
Looking forward to using the Flip cameras myself. Nice work!
March 21st, 2009 at 5:25 pm
Very cool 4A! You did a great job with making up the raps and performing them. I’m going to share this with my students on Monday.
March 22nd, 2009 at 10:30 am
Thank guys for your wonderfully supportive comments. This was a really fun project and the children loved it. They also loved seeing themselves on their class blog and were even more blown away when they saw comments and themselves posted on Globalstudent.
March 26th, 2009 at 8:19 am
to cool
March 26th, 2009 at 8:20 am
I just showed this to Grade 3 W and they loved it
March 26th, 2009 at 11:00 pm
Adorable kids!
This video can also inspire my students to practice more. Thanks for sharing!
Your site also seems to have a lot of resources for music teachers.
July 3rd, 2009 at 2:32 pm
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August 6th, 2009 at 4:54 pm
[...] http://willie42.globalteacher.org.au/2009/03/21/having-fun-with-the-flip-camera/ [...]
August 25th, 2009 at 10:24 am
We have been watching your performance at Mount Lilydale Mercy College and the Years 10’s want me to say that it was lot of fun.
September 2nd, 2009 at 10:23 pm
Cool I hope you enjoyed it. The students certainly did.
November 5th, 2009 at 8:06 pm
I’m interested in getting a flip camera, what kind did you use and where do you get them from??
November 5th, 2009 at 9:02 pm
Hi Nicolle, there are a number of places you can purchase a flip camera but I recommend you have a look at http://www.itmadesimple.com/ We used a flip ultra. Happy movie making
December 11th, 2009 at 8:00 am
[...] Having Fun With The Flip Camera: A music video produced by grade 4 students. [...]