As we learn how to compose, we do several class compositions to model the process and learn how to read and play the music that we write. Some students asked me to put them on the web, so here they are. They are sorted by grade level.
The 1st gallery contains examples of rhythms that we've used for Bennett's Musical Chairs. That is a good game to help kids understand what the rhythms mean.
If you'd like to do some composing at home, you can download the worksheets.
These are the rhythms that students have represented using 4 chairs as the beats and students as the sounds. Maybe you'd like to try it at home?
Kinders start with ta and titi writing 4 measures in 4/4 time.
In 1st Grade we add rest.
In 2nd Grade we add Half Note (toe), Half Rest and Barred Sixteenth Notes (tikatika) and extend the composition to 8 measures in 4/4 time. They also learn about Whole Note and Whole Rest, but we don't use them in such a short composition.
In 3rd Grade we add Syn-co-pa which is Eighth-Quarter-Eighth. This is a pretty complicated deal.
In 4th and 5th grade we are learning ti-tika and tika-ti. When we are comfortable with the process, we will extend our compositions to 16 measures.