Muratore - Multimedia Presentation - TLED 690

Hello classroom family!

Next week we will be learning procedural vocabulary (example pictured above). One of my favorite ways to teach students to follow sequenced directions is by baking! We will be making "Hide and Seek" muffins in the classroom. 

How you can help:

• I would love in 1-2 parents would be able to volunteer to help on our baking day. If you are available Tuesday or Wednesday between 11am-3pm and have level 1 clearance, please let me know! 

• Another way I need your help is for our "Continued learning at home" assignment. Cooking is something we all have in common and I would love for students to get to know each other better by sharing recipes! It could be a recipe that has been in your family for generations or a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, whatever your student thinks is important or is their favorite.

Below you will find my lesson plans if you are interested in learning more about what we will be doing.

Thanks!
- Cassandra Muratore

Westbrook Elementary School

Mrs. Muratore's 3rd Grade Class - Week of November 17

Subject: English

Grade Level: 3rd Grade

Objectives:
Students will be working together to follow sequenced instructions to bake "Hide and Seek Muffins".
Students will create their own recipe that will include a list of ingredients and instructions.
Students will talk with their family members about how to make their favorite recipes at home.

Materials:

• "Pretend Soup" book (link on Amazon)
• Eggs
• Flour
• Sugar
• Baking powder
• Vanilla
• Milk
• Butter
• Strawberries
• Whisk
• Bowl
• Cupcake liners
• Muffin tin
• Oven
• Blank recipe sheets

Procedures:

• Students will be broken up into small groups with one adult assigned to each group (myself, an aid and 1-2 parent volunteers). 
• Within each group, students will take turns following the directions in the book and adding the correct measurements of ingredients. 
• Muffins will be cooked in the cafeteria (after lunch)
• Students will then write their own recipes. These do not have to be real recipes, they just need to be able to make a list of ingredients and instructions. The instructions must use proper procedural vocabulary.
• These recipes will be put together to create our classroom cook book.

Continued Learning at Home:

• Students will be encouraged to talk with their family members about their favorite recipes. 
• Extra credit will be given to students who:

1. Bring in a copy of a family recipe (could be a photo, hand written, print out, etc)
2. Show evidence of cooking a recipe with their family (photo, food, drawn picture, etc)
3. Shares a story about a family recipe with the class

DYNAMICS!!!!

For the month of November, we've been discussing dynamics. We used our textbooks and various listening examples to learn the basics. Upper grade students had a relay race to match the Italian term or symbol to it's English definition to reinforce the meanings of various dynamic markings. I wanted to share some other resources that I found particularly helpful this month.

The Music Zone is an awesome book in general, but it has a great song to help remember Forte and Piano. Find it here for $30.

Music K-8 Volume 16 Number 4 has two simple songs for Crescendo and Decrescendo

The Bulletin Board Lady on TpT made some cute Dynamic Candy Corn Puzzles. Students in grades 2-5 loved putting these together! The download also comes with a little worksheet for students to copy down the symbol, Italian word and English definition. Easy peasy reinforcement after doing the puzzles!

Tweet Resources made a cute Spring time bundle of worksheets. Even though it is not spring, I loved the Color by Dynamics sheet and used it anyway!

My favorite part of the dynamics lesson? Bjork! Students in all grades loved moving to her song "It's Oh So Quiet" to show the change in dynamics. I wish I had a computer in my room so that I could have showed them the video as well, but they had a lot of fun just listening to the song.

Planning Binder 2014-2015

I am forever trying to organize myself. This year I have kept my planning binder pretty much how I had it last year and the year before that. However, this year I have changed how I write my lesson plans. I learned a long time ago that music isn't actually a subject and no one really cares what I'm teaching in my room unless I am due for a formal observation. Then I have my objectives and anticipatory set all ready to go and nice and neat. Otherwise, I just use post-its! I totally stole this idea from The Wise and Witty Teacher. It's just a one subject notebook and sticky notes. I can easily make changes, I only write down enough so that I know what I'm doing and it is helping me tie lessons together instead of instantly forgetting what we covered last week. One page is PK/K, 1st and 2nd divided into 4 weeks to cover a whole month, then on the next pair of pages I do the same thing for 3rd, 4th and 5th. After that I have a "To Do" page where I can make note of what materials I need and what I need to do (copies, order, organize, make, laminate, whatever). I am loving it! :)

Halloween

I wanted to share some of my favorite Halloween songs.

For "Skin and Bones" we would learn to sing the song and then add A-G-F-D with either Boomwhackers or Handbells during the "ohhhs"

"Witches' Brew by Hap Palmer" is a big time hit with my Pre-K and Kindergarteners! My 1st graders love it too just because it brings back memories. (We discuss using a high pitch voice for the "Ooo" and lower pitch for "Boo!")

I was in Little Shop of Horrors when I was in high school, so I got so excited when I saw this song was in my 4th grade textbook! I get my older students singing and moving for a fun halloween-ish song and it also opens the door to discuss styles of music (doo-wop and Broadway).

For some reason it won't let me add this video, but you can hear the song here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-x-DdFg2SKE

"Hey Jack!" from Music K-8 Vol. 22 No. 1 is my all time most requested Halloween songs. 

Sweet Melodies

In October, our focus topic was Melody. 

Kindergarten and 1st grade worked on high and low sounds

2nd and 3rd grade worked on how pitches move (step, skip, repeat)

4th and 5th grade worked on reading the notes on the staff.

Bulletin Board:

 Floor Staff made out of tape! This is great for visual and kinetic learners. Lower grades practice moving up and down. They also practice their step, skips and repeats. The Upper grades practice their note names. Sometimes we use stuffed animals or bean bags, and sometimes we use ours bodies!

I stole this idea from The Sweetest Melody! I would call out a letter and they had to place their erasers on the correct spot. The kids loved playing this in an Around The World style taking on each other two by two.

Not really melody, but I made a new sign for my door to reinforce staff lines and bar lines.

Focus on Rhythm - Part 2

There are so many fun ideas on Pinterest! We did not have time to do them all. It would be very easy to spend months and months just on the topic of Rhythm. I am hoping that we spent this one month really learning the basics of rhythm. From there, it should be able to build on that understanding.

Two games that I did not get pictures of:
1) Rhythm Hangman (hangman with only rhythm related words. Super easy and lots of fun!)
2) This is a What?! (previously mentioned on my blog here. This time we just used rhythm related flashcards)

Here are some of the games and worksheets we did!

A color by note that I made myself. I stole the idea from Tracy King's TpT 

Rhythm SPLAT! is an idea I found on Pinterest, but could never find the original post. I didn't remember to go buy fly swatters, so we just used mallets. [please know that this is a posed picture and that my students are not so horrible at hearing rhythms that they each pick a different one!]

I have seen ton of ideas of correlating fractions with rhythm. This is my example of a rhythm pizza. We also did a group activity of separating pizza words into their rhythms stolen from Elementary Music Methods.

 Eighth Note pizza

Whole Note pizza

This is a color by rest worksheet that I've had for so long that I can't remember where I got it from. I like it because it doesn't have pictures in the color key. It just says "Whole Rest = Yellow". So it is a quick and easy assessment with my upper grades to see if they know their rests!

Focus on Rhythm Part 1

Last year, I attempted to create a blog specifically for my students and their parents. Because of this, I totally slacked on this one! I am going to try to do better and keeping up with both this year.

I am trying something new with my 2nd-5th graders this year. I am focusing on one topic for each month. September has been Rhythm. Below you will find some original and some Pinspired ideas. :)

My Topic board showing our focus on Rhythm

Coming up with words to fit into different rhythms

Pipe cleaner notes!

Really cute idea to use shoes to show the different sounds on each beat. (One shoe - quarter note, 2 = paired eighth, None = rest) I know I stole this idea from Music a la Abbott

Rap It, Clap It, Music Match It from Tracy King on TpT

Inventing our own words to fit ta and ti-ti

I found this idea on Pinterest. I changed it to use scarves instead of tennis balls. Even my K and 1st graders loved moving to "oink" and "ruf-ruf" (that's how I introduce quarter and paired eighth)

Next week we will be taking on Rhythm Centers as well as playing rhythms. 

I have my Pinterest Classroom boards separated by topics, so if you are looking specifically for Rhythm activities be sure to take a look at my Classroom - Rhythm board!