Cowboy Joe Name Game

Since I traveled to Texas last week to visit a friend, I thought I should share a "cowboy" activity! 

I teach Cowboy Joe to my 4th graders at the start of the school year.  I originally learned in it my Level 3 Orff training, and have adapted it a bit to work for my students.

First, I teach the body percussion, encouraging students to listen to me model the pattern and find where the "trick" occurs.

Once the kids can do the body percussion, I introduce the poem in conjunction with the body percussion.

Then, we turn the body percussion into a clapping came with a partner, changing the snaps to partner claps.

After that, the students are allowed to create their own clapping game and body percussion with their partner to go along with the song.  We share those ideas out.

Then, we make it a name game, going around the circle.  Each student individually replaces Cowboy Joe's name with their name, i.e. Cowboy Tyler or Cowgirl Alicia.  They also replace Mexico with the street that they live on, i.e comes from New Street.  Then, the entire class completes the last two phrases of the poem, inserting their classmate's name on the last phrase. 

If you want to take it to another level, the students can transfer the levels of body percussion to three different unpitched percussion instruments.

Enjoy my favorite "Cowboy" activity.  Yee-Haw!