Tempo!

Over the past week, each grade has been discussing tempo.

• My 4th and 5th graders played a relay style game to match the English definitions to the Italian musical terms (for example: Walking to Andante). 
• My 3rd graders played Heads Up, Tempo Up where they basically played Heads Up, 7 Up, but each student was assigned a tempo so when you had to figure out who put your thumb down, you also had to define their tempo.
• My 2nd graders are just starting to learn that when you are discussing if music is fast or slow, then you are talking about the song's tempo. In order to reinforce what tempo refers to we played a Hot and Cold style game where one student hides their eyes and another hides a stuffed animal in the room. Then the rest of the students  got to yell "TEMPO!" to signify that the game had begun and then had to stomp their feet to help the student #1 find the stuffed animal. The faster they stomp, the closer student #1 is to finding the stuffed animal.

• Sadly I don't have a specific activity that stands out with my 1st graders. I have been finding it difficult this year to stay focused on the lesson plan and keep the students interested and learning. 
• Kindergarten is having fun finding the steady beat in songs and speech pieces (like the Bubble Gum Beats mentioned previously). Now they are taking it a step further and playing with the speed of the steady beat. We had a lot of fun showing fast beats with bongos!

Pop Quiz!!

This is my third year teaching and the first year it occurred to me to follow the music textbooks that came with the job. So far, they have provided an excellent guide and resource. One thing I do not like about them, however, is that they are textbooks. That just doesn't feel right in a music room sometimes. Especially the tests for each concept. For the lower grades I've come up with a way to use the audio from the tests in the book without it really feeling like a test.

I love being surrounded by people who think I am a good artist. 

There are a lot of opposites in music, so I gave the students two movements - hands on your head for choice #1 or hands in your lap for choice #2. Then I played the listening examples that came with the book and the students showed me their answers. 

First grade has been talking about tempo, so this is my example of their aural test.

After playing the example and seeing how everyone answered, we discussed what we just heard. Then I would play the example again. Every student would show me the right answer after hearing it the second time. This was a quick way for me to see that not everybody understood the concept, so then I let the students explain it in their own words and that was enough so that everyone got the right answer the second time. I'm debating on coming up with more movement options as a way to give my upper grades a multiple choice test. Mwahahaha...

Oh Neat! A Steady Beat!

It is very difficult to tell someone how to feel a steady beat. By first grade, students seem to understand the idea of your heartbeat, or pulse. They also understand what it means to say that a steady beat stays the same while a rhythm can change between long and short sounds and silences. However, kindergarten is a whole different ballgame. We have been practicing playing rhythms sticks while saying simple chants. For example:

 "1, 2, 3, 4. Mary at the kitchen door. 

5, 6, 7, 8. Mary at the garden gate"

With the rhythm sticks we can practice saying the poem fast and slow and change the steady beat. I needed a way to test their individual understanding while still keeping the whole class involved, so we made Bubble Gum Beats!

"Bubble gum, bubble gum, chew and blow.

 Bubble gum, bubble gum, scrape your toe.

 Bubble gum, bubble gum, tastes so sweet. 

Get that bubble gum off your feet!"

One at a time, students came up to the board and pointed to each bubble to show the steady beat. The rest of the class had to follow along, so if the student at the board went faster, the class had to go faster. It was a lot of fun!