A wonderful lesson

I learned this lesson from Alice Pratt and recently trotted it out again because I had to hold off on my curriculum until after the 10 day count.  Itinerants are assigned schools based on  projected enrollment and reassigned if enrollments change.  The 10 day count unwisely falls before Labor Day when lots of parents decide that it's time to send their kids to school.  It's a mess.  Since I never know what the new physical set up will be, I try to do a few lessons that don't require that much space or materials. This lesson can be done with grades 2-5.  

Poem
Oh the kids around the block are like an ice cream store.
There's chocolate and vanilla and there's maple and there's more.
There's butterscotch and almond and flavors by the score.
Oh the kids around the block are like an ice cream store.
Process
1.  Read the poem out loud and ask the students why the children are compared to an ice cream store.  Grades 4-5 will have studied similes so they should be able to identify it.  To avoid your concrete thinkers from telling you that children are sweet or drippy or like to eat cream,  you might want to guide them away from those answer and have them think about the colors of those flavors otherwise you'll spend half the class talking about what flavors of ice cream they want and why vanilla is better than strawberry and they're hungry now and when is lunch?
2.  Add the body percussion parts one at a time while saying the poem. Kids=snap  block=clap ice cream store=pounding fist into palm of other hand   flavors=patting rhythms with alternating pats
3. After all the body percussion parts have been added, whisper the poem with bp and then think the     poem and do only bp
4.  Transfer the body percussion to unpitched rhythm instruments.  I use a vibraslap for the snap part, but anything on hand is fine.
5. Perform the piece in whatever form strikes your fancy-reciting just the poem, poem and bp, just instruments, poem, bp and instruments, etc
Extension: transfer to barred instruments.