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Do you want to know something? I love Hispanic heritage month. I love all things multi-cultural, and Hispanic Heritage month gives me the perfect excuse to do a lot of Spanish songs, Spanish dances, etc. My students are not Hispanic, and I am enjoying being able to expose them to different things through music. For my Kindergarteners, that has been through the song Que Llueva.
Now, my kindergarten and 1st graders have actually had the least amount of Hispanic Heritage month fun out of all of my grades. That is because they do a program called Musical Explorers, where they learn about six different styles of music a year. After I teach those, and we work on our normal beat and singing voice, we are out of time. So this is actually the only Spanish song that they were getting this year.
But it will probably be ok.
This lesson features singing (mostly sol-la-mi with one low do. You could change that if you want, but since melody was not my focus, I did not worry about it.), soundscapes, beat v. rhythm, and—of course—the rain stick. If you have one.
I have a Teachers Pay Teachers resource (right here!) for this lesson. It has the melody, rhythm, words in Spanish and English, and rhythm cards. Everything in the resource is in both stick notation and regular notation. You can definitely do the lesson without it, but it does enhance the lesson.
You can also check out the YouTube video (right here!) that explains everything here and give pronounciations! Don’t forget to subscribe while you are over there.
You can tell, I really liked this lesson.
Anyway.
Here it is.
Also read: Ideas for Hispanic Heritage Month
It’s Raining and Que Llueva
- Teach the students the song It’s Raining by rote. Have them keep the steady beat while they are learning to sing it. It’s the same song as Que Llueva, just with English words.
- After they have learned it, have them play the rhythm of the words while they sing it. My students are not looking or reading the rhythm yet (and won’t for this song, because single eighth notes? I don’t think so), just playing as they sing the song.
- Talk about how the beat is the same, but the rhythm changes.
- Sing the song again, but with sound effects. You can have a student play a rain stick (get one here!) or an ocean drum.
Video Lesson for Kids
Since the whole distance-learning thing, I have added a free video lesson that you can show the kids. You can check it out here:
Lesson Extension: Make a sound scape
You could also have students make a soundscape. To make rain, you could start by using “sh” sounds. Then tap two fingers together. Then tap your legs. You could even have them stomp. Then bring it back down to get quieter and quieter. Bonus points if you use a thunder clap like this one.
Also read: Free K-2 Music Lesson: Sempre Libera Scarf Routine
- Teach students the Spanish words. (I like to tell them we are singing it without telling them abut the language change, and then start singing in Spanish because they get so confused. It’s quite funny. That’s really mean, isn’t it? Oh well.)
- Once they have learned it in Spanish and English, then you can work on the creative extension.
- If they don’t know about ta and titi, take a moment to introduce that aspect of rhythm. For my students, this was the first time they had heard of it. We didn’t even say ta and titi. I just said that rhythm has long sounds and short sounds. We did some echos of “long short short long short short” and other versions of that. My first graders already know about rhythm, so they did the example rhythms in the Que Llueva TPT product.
- Then we said that rain was our long sound (or ta) and llueva was our short sound (titi). Like I said, this was a Kindergarten and 1st grade lesson, so my first graders already knew about rhythm.
- I arranged the “rain” and “llueva” cards on the board (it helps if you have heartbeats or something to show the beat. I used chairs to represent the beat, and put the words over the chairs.)
- After I arranged them, I would read the words and students would echo back to me. After a few tries, I had students come up and do a rhythm on the board that we would all say.
- Then you can break into groups and have them create their own rain-llueva compositions.
Also read: Free K-2 Music Lesson: Rhythm
Lesson extensions:
- If student are already notating, you can have them write their compositions down.
- Have students come up with their own rain soundscape in groups.
- Sing Que Llueva and read a student composition as a B section.
- Sing Que Llueva and have students improvise with rain and llueva as a B section.
- Sing other rain songs like “It’s Raining, It’s Pouring”.
- Have students draw pictures of rain storms.
So there’s my lesson! Full disclosure, this took about three lessons in my room. Not necessarily because it was too much for one, but because it sinks into them better when you pull something out a few days in a row than if you do it all in one day.
You can do it however you’d like, of course.
Check out the YouTube version of this lesson (so you can hear the pronounciation!) and the Teachers Pay Teachers resource for it!
What is your favorite Hispanic heritage month song for Kindergarten and first grade? Let us know in the comments!
Happy Teaching!
Becca
