Happy Halloween

Along with singing, instruments and games, we reviewed various symbols by making musical pumpkins!

I was impressed with the use of notes in this face!

Of course I had to get in on the fun. :)

This is a what?!

When I was in my church youth group, we played a game called "This is a Pencil".

While sitting in a circle...
Person 1 holds out a pencil "This is a pencil"
Person 2 responds "A what?"
Person 1 says "A pencil" and hands it to person 2.
Person 2 would then go through the same process with Person 3 until the pencil makes it all the way around the circle.
As we got the idea, more items were added. This is a ruler, no this is some paper, this is a what?!

I made some flash cards with various music symbols (notes, rests, bar line, repeat sign, treble clef, etc) and  we played the game with those. The students were repeating the vocabulary and putting the names with the symbols all while playing a game. 2nd and 3rd grade loved it!!!

There's a FACE in my space!

What better way to remember something than to do a fun art craft?! Mrs. Q had this great idea to have students decorate plates as faces to remember the spaces in the treble clef staff. What a cute bulletin board idea!

School #1

School #2 - We only meet every other week, so I made the bulletin board myself. I hate that I have to cut activities! #smallschoolproblems

Bonus Activities

This school year is a bit hectic. I am at two different schools (as always), but my schedules are totally different. One of the biggest differences is in my upper grades. At one school I see each class every week. At school number two, I see each class every other week. Because of this, one school is getting to do some extra activities. Namely centers.

First graders practice drawing notes.

2nd graders roll the dice to write their own song.

3rd graders do a textbook scavenger hunt.

4th graders try to figure out a boomwhacker mystery song.

2nd graders play music hangman.

4th graders practice their treble clef with FACE.

5th graders play Sing or Dare

Room Tour

Notation Constellations

Even more updated Line-Up Song Playlist (original). 

Walking in to school #1

Pete the cat!!!

Walking into school #2

Planning Binder (Take 2)

I started using a lesson plan binder last year and it has been amazing! So this year I made a few upgrades. I want to give a shout out to Lindsay Jervis' TeachersPayTeachers site for having super cute chevron binder covers. I do not have any pictures of her exact covers, but after buying them I made some changes of my own to make things more personal.

So here is the cover:

Table of Contents:

*Yearly Plan - *Lesson Plans - *Schedules & Calendars - *SOLs & Pacing Guide - *Song Collection - *Music Programs - *All-County Chorus - *Assessments

Finally got some tabs that will poke out even with the use of sheet protectors. 

I was very proud of myself for printing on the tabs to make the labels look extra fancy.

Yearly Plan:

I changed my format a bit this year. I have my units organized by the week, instruments for PreK and the bulletin board by the month and made note of holidays each month. 

 Then I have the specifics as to what will fall under each unit and left space for notes.

Not Pictured:

• The state standards of learning and the county pacing guide for elementary music
• Song Collection = songs all students will kind of know in case of emergency (Themes include Welcome, Thank You, Good-bye and Patriotic)
• Music Programs = being at two schools that do not always have the same music programs, it will be nice to have one place for all of the information
• All-County Chorus 
• Assessments = Once again, all music teachers have to assess student improvement. 

May Bulletin Boards

"Our Summer Playlist" - 5th Graders picked out songs and I made some ipods.

Composer Spotlight for May is from Today. Danny Elfman, Bruno Mars, John Williams and Alicia Keys.

Random picture of some of my vocal exploration cards. Great way to warm-up even the smallest voices!

Carnival of the Animals

Last week, grades K-3 did a unit on Camille Saint-Saens' Carnival of the Animals.

Kindergarten watched a puppet version with the music.

1st grade listened to excerpts while I read the above linked book and then colored pictures. (I can't find where I got the coloring pages from!)

2nd and 3rd grade focused on The Elephant and used yarn to create a string bass. It is a really cool idea! I don't remember where I heard it from, though. If you take a piece of yarn and tie a knot to put your finger through, then put your finger to your ear and stretch out the yarn then it will sound like a bass when you pluck it! It was a lot of fun and a great way to review the string family.

They also completed a listening/coloring sheet about Fossils that I stole from Elementary Music Methods.

4th and 5th grade learned some percussion rhythm games. First was the cup game. I sang the scene from the movie "Pitch Perfect" to gain some cool points and then taught them the game. We also learned to play Sevens. When looking for a good way to teach each of these games, I discovered a site called LDS Splash. Their youtube station is a great resource for games for kids.

The Cup Game:

Sevens:

This one isn't percussion, but it is so much fun! I called it "Ptooey"

We Are In Style!

A couple of weeks ago, I did a 'Styles' unit with all of my students.

Upper grades listened to examples from their textbook of various styles of music. I challenged the students to come up with what it is about a song that makes it fit into a specific style.

Here are some of the elements they came up with:

- Instruments

- Tempo

- Rhythm

- Lyrics

- Composer

- Performer

- Where the song came from

 - When the song was written

Kindergarten focused on what was the same and what was different about the same song done in different styles. Did you know Little Richard did a kid's CD? It is awesome! 

Here is a clip of his version of "Itsy Bitsy Spider" from an episode of Full House.

1st Graders took the idea of same and different styles of music a step further by adding different instruments to the songs to change the style of the song.

Testing Like a Real Subject

This year, my county required me to have a formal assessment for each grade level. Kindergarten and 1st did aural assessments as a group, but I made grades 2-5 take an actual written test. Each grade took the test within the first 6-weeks of school, at the 18-week mark and again last week as their final assessment.

Instruments laid out for Kinders identification of instruments by sight and sound.

So many papers!

I don't know which was worse: making these tests, grading these tests, or sitting quietly for a whole period while the students took the tests! I am definitely not a sit still and quiet kind of person. That is for sure.

BONUS: April is the Modern Period! Time to learn a bit about Prokofiev, Sousa and Joplin!

MIOSM - Part 2: Revenge of the Notes!

Last week we celebrated Music In Our Schools Month by doing Rhythm Centers! Grades 1-5 got to do different activities in small groups and then rotate so that they could do a little of everything. Here are some of our centers.

I made a giant beat strip for the song "Apple Tree" as a review for my 1st graders. They have learned their quarter note and paired eighth note, but I really want them to have a full understanding that a paired eighth note makes two sounds, but is only one beat. I stole this idea from Music a la Abbott.

My upper grades had a boomwhacker station where they had to figure out the mystery song. This was really great for 3rd graders to help them understand the importance of playing together as a group to create the song. I might have to do something similar with 2nd grade to get them ready for ensemble performances.

 

3rd and 4th grades reviewed their note values with the game Over the Edge (stolen from Pianimation)

2nd and 3rd grade reviewed note values by matching clothespin notes and rests to index cards with 1, 2, 3 and 4 beats written on them. I saw this as a sight word activity on Pinterest and just knew I had to translate it to music! As far as assessment, I just had to give a quick glance and could tell how the students were doing.

The floor staff got a lot of use this week (even though it's not really rhythm). 

- 2nd and 3rd graders reviewed how notes can move by step, skip or repeat. The "leader" would call out a pattern (step, step, repeat) and whoever was "it" had to move that way on the staff.

- 4th and 5th graders reviewed their treble clef notes. Some did relays where the "leader" would call out a letter and see who could stand on its place on the staff the fastest. Others tried treble clef twister!

Water painting. 1st and 2nd grade practiced drawing the different types of notes and rests that they are supposed to know by taking paintbrushes dipped in water and drawing on the chalkboard!

Here is a picture of a 1st grade class. They were a small group that day, so they only had three centers. 

1) Water Painting 

2) Rhythm Stick Echos

3) Apple Tree Beat Strip

*A center that I didn't get a picture of was Music Math Flash Cards. I made flash cards with picture problems like quarter note + half note = and the students had to answer. This was good for 3rd grade as a review of note and rest values. It was also great for 4th and 5th graders who are working on building measures in different time signatures. A super fun review!

During March I am also reviewing the different families of instruments. I couldn't think of an activity for Brass so we watched a fun movie. Woodwinds were last week and we made paper whistles. 

This week we will be doing Percussion and Strings. We will make maracas out of plastic Easter eggs and put different sized rubber bands around a shoe box to make a string instrument. We will also be having "Student's Choice" which is where the students can pick any song, instrument or game we have done in class. It's always fun to see what stuck out to the students as a good lesson.