Pickup Notes
On page 30 of Essential Elements, upbeats or pickup notes are introduced. I have always had a difficult time teaching this to students but here are few things I’ve done over the years to help.
Write in the counting – 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 and have the student work backwards to figure out what comes before 1.
Relate the pickup note to a prefix of words. Students in the fourth and fifth grades know what a prefix is and this make perfect sense – the song has a prefix and this ties in with their language arts class. The students immediately understand it
