- Level: Early Elementary
- Pages: 4 pages, 2 pages of music, cover included!
- Style: Funny
- Series: Rote and ReadingĀ®
- Bonuses: 3 free mp3s
- Format: PDF instant download
Dancing Cows is an early elementary Rote and ReadingĀ® solo with a teacher duet. This piece has funny lyrics and provides the student opportunities to experience:
- Keyboard topography.
- Chromaticism. They don’t have to know what it is, but they get to play both black and white keys in a chromatic scale.
- Transposing. This is done in an easy and natural way by making it a part of the music. Most of the time when we tell our students to transpose a piece,Ā it is done after the fact and is often overlooked as an “extra” by the student. But by putting the transposition in the piece, the student experiences as part of a fun piece, instead of as “extra work.”
The story of Dancing Cows
It seems every child goes through a stage where they really care about what people think about how they look. Some people never outgrow this. But the Dancing Cows teach a valuable lesson to kids that it’s okay to not care how you look or what you wear!
Dancing Cows comes with a bonus!
In addition to receiving the music and the cover (always included for ComposeCreate pieces), you’ll also receive 3 mp3s of Dancing cows in a slower, medium, and fast (the performance) tempo. You can send these mp3s to your students to help them remember the piece during the week. But remember that they can play the piece at whatever tempo suits them.
The 1st piece in the new Barnyard Fun Rote and ReadingĀ® Series
Dancing Cows is the first piece in the new Barnyard Fun Rote and ReadingĀ® series. Each of these pieces is about a farm animal and can be taught by rote, reading, or both. In addition, each piece comes with a fun teacher duet. The pieces are designed to help young and beginning students get to know the piano keyboard.
If you have purchased all the pieces separately, just send me an email and I can get you the special bonus cover for the Barnyard Fun series.
Want to know more about Rote and ReadingĀ® teaching?
When you combine both reading and rote, you teach children in a way that is natural to their learning process. In addition, the rote pieces (which sound bigger and more mature) will motivate and excite your student while they are having to play more elementary sounding pieces because of their low reading ability.
Think about it this way. Kids learn to speak before they learn to read, so it is more natural for a student to learn to play notes before they learn to read notes on a page. For more thoughts on the value of rote teaching and how long it really takes a child to learn to read music, read:Ā How Long Does It Take to Learn to Read Music?
Tatiana Dvorianskaya –
My young students love this song! It is easy to memorize it and it’s a good challenge to explore keyboard topography. Thanks a lot!
Tatiana Dvorianskaya –
My young students love this song! It is easy to memorize it and it’s a good challenge to explore keyboard topography. Thanks a lot!
Kristin Garson –
My 5 year old student absolutely loves Dancing Cows! You are brilliant, Wendy, for writing this piece! I love all of the features of it! My student told me she tries to dance like a cow herself, and she always practices this piece first! I think it is even harder to write music for children when you can only use 10-15 notes at the most than a traditional composition. It is very infectious too–when I hear it, I start laughing myself & can’t get it out of my head! What a fantastic imagination you have Wendy. Keep going!
Wendy Stevens –
Thank you so much, Kristin! My goal is to get inside the heads of kiddos and I love that you start laughing when you hear it!
Frida –
Iām so glad to discover Dancing cows for my beginner student who was bored playing method book songs. The tune is catchy and the song is easy to memorize so she is playing it with enthusiasm and confidence. Kids love playing jazz. Canāt wait to teach the rest of the songs and games Iāve purchased. Thank you so much, Wende!
Bailey B –
Very cute. Engages the student as it uses the whole keyboard.
Brooke –
Just today, I said: “Wait… wasn’t ___ your first song??”
Student: “Mrs. Brooke!!! It was Dancing Cows!!!! How could you forget?? It was the BEST!!!”
(My bad, haha!! š
It’s such a good piece that I think I need to bring it back for an encore for some of my littles!! They just loved it so much! I tend to think that we should move on to something harder as we progress… but I think some of them just need Dancing Cows to reiterate how good they are at piano! š
Thank you, Wendy!