Hot Cross Buns
Catchiest song of all time?
This week, I spent a surprising amount of times Googling the Greek playwright Aristophanes. Why, you might be asking? Well, we were doing Hot Cross Madlibs, and one group of extremely creative “we will do the project but we will do it our way” students Googled the longest word for food: Lopadotemachoselachogaleokranioleipsanodrimhypotrimmatosilphiokarabomelitokatakechymenokichlepikossyphophattoperisteralektryonoptekephalliokigklopeleiolagoiosiraiobaphetraganopterygon.
This 183-character literal mouthful is featured in a play from 391 B.C. I can’t wait until the next time I see them to let them know that the ingredients consist of “rotting dogfish” and the “roasted head of a dabchick.”
I foresee a dabbing chicken dance in my future.
Anyway, how did we get here? You guessed it - there’s a Canva involved.
TMI about “Hot Cross Buns”
This Canva was one of the first Canvas where I started organizing and keeping track of my own research materials. Somehow, in Facebook land, I found out that the amazing Robin Giebelhausen was working on the same topic. (I cannot recommend her website, Soundeducators.org enough!) Robin’s documentation efforts far outshine my own, and she truly gets to the root of where pieces come from.
I just Google as far as I can Google, and then stare longingly at the resources academic institutions hold. (Mark my words, 75% of the reason I’ll one day get a doctorate is because I want access to a university library. Perhaps this summer I will have time when my local library is open and see what wonders the interlibrary loans can do for me.) Thank goodness for Archive.org and its resources, or I would have a lot of unanswered questions!
Let me be clear - I do not present all of the information I found to my students. However, I have it at my fingertips if I (or they) need it. When my third graders want to go down tangents and find out how the buns are made, we go exploring.
That exploration did lead to this conversation:
Me: “Basically, yeast eats sugar, produces air, and that creates fluffy bread!”
Student: “Fluffy bread is made with FARTS?!?”
Me: internalized laughing disrupts all ability to respond “So, anyway…”
P.S. If this happens to you, the word you need to think of is exhalation! Or burps! Anything but flatulence!
In here you will find information about how they are baked, other versions, and ideas on how to play. Let’s take a look at how I started with “Hot Cross Buns” and ended up with Lopadotemachoselachogaleokranioleipsanodrimhypotrimmatosilphiokarabomelitokatakechymenokichlepikossyphophattoperisteralektryonoptekephalliokigklopeleiolagoiosiraiobaphetraganopterygon.
The Lesson
Objective: Students will be able to create and perform their own version of Hot Cross Buns.
Students start by decoding a mi-re-do melody. In our district, we use Essential Elements for beginning band and orchestra, so inevitably someone recognizes Hot Cross Buns from an older sibling, cousin, or friend.
If needed, you can use the Canva to decode the melody or rhythm. For me, these students will be starting recorder in the fall so I just need them to be extremely familiar with the melody so they can figure it out themselves next year!
We discuss why this song exists. Depending on the time available, either we will read the Canva together or I will explain how this song was, in essence, an advertising jingle.
Ask your students what jingles they know. Mine know:
McDonalds
Burger King
Kit Kat
Nationwide
Liberty Insurance
Demonstrate the SeeSaw assignment and how Mad Libs work.
This assignment has ELA embedding (adjectives and nouns) and math embedding (multiplying by two) for those who have administrators that think all subjects need to help third graders cram for state testing. (Mine value music for music’s sake, but not everybody is lucky!)
Have students work, alone or with others, on completing the SeeSaw assignment.
I let my students choose who and how many they work with. It’s a choice I don’t need to make.
The assignment has built-in extensions - students can explore how to play mi-re-do on a variety of virtual instruments, or they can create a variation on Songmaker.
Once the lyrics are finished, the next step is performance: will they just sing it, or will instruments/movement be involved? I like to use the must do/may do task chart for students.
Must do: perform your new version of Hot Cross Buns using your new lyrics.
This could be vocally or on pitched instruments…but I don’t suggest the instruments until the students do.
In the past, students have spoken their new product name and then performed on melody instruments to get around the singing provision - as long as they’ve demonstrated in some modality that they can perform a melody, I am a happy music teacher.
May do: Add unpitched or pitched percussion that makes sense for your project.
Adding the “makes sense” stops the kitchen-sink idea for some students. Why does your group need a gong? If their reason makes sense, let them have at it! If it’s a volume issue, allow them to use it in the performance and only pretend to use it as practice.
Set a time for sharing and let the students watch each other. I have the students give each other complements - what was creative about their project?
Have students reflect on their performance. What did they like about their own performance? What do they wish they could change?
This reflection piece is key - it lets you know which students are overly critical of themselves, which students are overly a fan of themselves, and which students are right in that Goldilocks zone of reflective growth.
A Challenge for You!
On March 13, 2020 the world changed all who were able to climbed into our little bubbles and experienced most of the world through either real windows or Windows (or Safari for you Apple friends).
Our first challenge then and our challenge now - how can YOU improvise with Hot Cross Buns? Can you change the meter? The mode? Can you use the melody to remember what you need at the grocery store? Can you sing it backwards?
As a teacher, we sometimes forget that we need to live the musical life we’re teaching, so if you haven’t composed something recently, take ten seconds to improvise.
Who knows? You might get to go on another adventure!
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