Coming up with engaging games for a middle school classroom can be daunting. They are at an age where they want to be independent, yet need some hand holding. They start the “I’m too cool for school” attitude and it can be intimidating at times when you introduce a new game or project - immediately the eye rolling takes over and you are stuck with questioning yourself. I’m here to tell you, I’VE BEEN THERE! It is incredibly frustrating when you are put in a situation like that, but I’m here to s
Top 3 Units for Middle School General Music. Organized Chaos. Ideas and resources for project based learning with middle school general music students. World music, composition, and careers in music.
middle school chorus
What are your top 5 best hits? Here's a fun way for any music lover to analyze their favorite songs.
My third grade classes have been focusing on folk songs. We have added Orff accompaniment, learned the cross-over technique, and performed line dances. They really enjoyed our activity with the song John Kanaka! First we talked about the history of the sea shanty: Then, we learned the song and discussed how the steady beat of the song might have helped sailors get their work done more efficiently. As we listened, the students identified the macro and micro beats and we practiced by using a pat-clap-pat-clap pattern. Next, the students transferred the macro/micro beats to a hand clapping game. First we practiced with paper plates: Holding the plate flat with their left hands, students pat the plate with their right. Then, they clap their right hands beneath and plate, pat the plate again, and clap their hands above the plate. They continue this pattern throughout the song feeling the macro beat (patting the plate) and the micro beat (clapping hands below and above): plate, below, plate, above, plate, below, plate, above. After they had a the movements down, we added tambourines and turned it into a circle dance! We got really fancy and rotated our outer circle on the fermata! Great job, third graders!
We are well underway into the school year! Lots of great things have been going on in my classroom. My 7th grade band is to die for! 65 students and perfectly balanced with a low brass section that is huge! I have four tubas in my 6th grade bands (2 tubas per band) and the 8th graders are adapting well to our funky split class schedule-22 minutes, lunch, 22 minutes. Not ideal, but we will manage. I have started working on my first goal per my last post which is to implement e-folios. I am using our district Google account and Google Drive to accomplish this. I created a mailing list with my students' emails and sent them a "practice email" requesting them to respond to me to make sure they got the email. Later this week, we will head up to the learning center (aka media center) and our learning center specialist will work with the students to make sure they understand how use Drive-downloading assignments, uploading assignments and making sure the students share with only me. Google Drive is pretty slick. I have created folders for each band, and within those folders subfolders for each students which will contain their online assignments that I will share with them, so it will be more organized than just a bunch of emails coming at me from my students. The 7th and 8th graders have an assignment that they will complete and send me in the next week. Typically I do this during class, but we will test this out to see how it works. I am hoping that there won't be too many complications. SMARTER goals are an extension of SMART goals. Specific, Measurable, Actions, Realistic, Time frame, Enjoyable, Resources. By no means am I taking credit for any of this! I believe many schools are implementing SMART goals, but we wanted to add on to this. Many students, and adults, find goal making to be tedious and often associated to something that is not enjoyable. So, we decided to put a spin onto it so that students realize that goal setting is important and the process as well as the product can be enjoyable. This is what my students will be completing, sharing with me and storing in their Google Drive folder. So, we will see how this goes. I am hoping that this will be beneficial to the students, as well as myself. A side benefit will be less paperwork and passing back. Just a few clicks of the button and away we go!
Non-performance Based Music Activities https://www.mjtrotta.com/latest-news/videos-for-choir-distance-learning/ https://www.mjtrotta.com/latest-news/choir-distance-learning-high-school/ https://www.mjtrotta.com/latest-news/choir-distance-learning-middle-school/ https://www.mjtrotta.com/latest-news/sample-lesson-plan-starters-and-questions/
Credit- Raymondsanti Students in grades K-4 began the Lion King unit this Monday during Arts Enrichment time. Arts Enrichment is an extra music/art time a week taught by the Art teacher Mrs. Divis and the music teacher Ms. Moon. Photo Credit The Lion King on Broadway Trailer For the next two Mondays students will be learning a fun dance to "The Circle of Life" and making African necklaces. Students will wear the necklaces while showcasing "The Circle of Life" dance at an upcoming school assembly. Photo by: Swiss.frog After those two weeks students will explore The Lion King theme more through various art projects and music activities. Some of the music activity videos are shown below: Hakuna Matata: The Lion Sleeps Tonight Music Video Lion Sleeps Tonight- Just Dance 2 Video I made two different arrangements of Lion Sleeps Tonight (and found the ukulele online) for grades 2-4, to align with what instruments they are learning in general music class. Grade 2 will learn the song on boomwhackers, grade 3 on the barred instruments, and grade 4 on the ukulele. I will also give a brief description of some common African instruments and add appropriate percussion parts (likely only one or two per grade of the percussion parts listed below). Below is a video from a 2nd grade class of students playing the boomwhacker part and some African instruments. Here is a 3rd grade class practicing the mallet accompaniment to "Lions Sleeps Tonight". Although the Lion King takes place in Kenya, the theme of the unit opens up the wonderful opportunity to explore musical activities from all parts of Africa. Obwisana is a folk song from Ghana. Students will play a rock passing game while singing the song. The words of the song mean "The rock has crushed my hand, grandma." I found this description in a book I have: "A child singing this song is repeatedly receiving a message of security and comfort, even in the context of a phrase and game which tells of injury. The injured child can take comfort in the fact that he or she can turn to "Nana" for sympathy and assistance- the ever-present circle of relatives supports Ghanaian children and adults during times of misfortune and celebration both." Che Che Koolay is also a folk song from Ghana. The words have been said by some to be nonsense words. But the movements to the song lean toward this translation: Hands on your head Hands on your shoulders Hands on your waist Hands on your knees Hands on your ankles Hands on your ankles Hands on your ankles, hey! Notation found here Students will learn a dance similar to the popular American song, "Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes" to Che Che Koolay.
Do you need a way to practice sight reading in a fun way? Choir Bingo offers a fun review and can be used to take a break from the daily sight reading process in a competitive way. There are ways to use this game to practice sight reading, dictation, and aural skills. This can also be used as a game...
It's summer time!! I haven't blogged in a while because I've been working on some really great resources. (And enjoying the fact that I am no longer a first year teacher!) I am almost done,but until then, here is a great first day of school/music class game. This is an icebreaker and I am planning to use it with my upper primary/middle school classes. Here is a link to the pdf of this worksheet. This is on Google Docs. Just open it and under file, click download! Enjoy!
Rounds are an amazing way to get students of all ages to start singing in tune, build part independence, and improve aural skills. Below you will find 10 rounds that can be used for warm-ups in choirs from elementary age to high school. In the elementary setting rounds can be used in the general music classrooms to help prepare students for two part music. Additionally rounds in middle school and high school can be used to focus on intonation or other key concepts. Plus students highly enjoy t
Credit- Raymondsanti Students in grades K-4 began the Lion King unit this Monday during Arts Enrichment time. Arts Enrichment is an ...
Clever echo is an instant dictation exercise in music learning. Check out this blog post for a bunch of ready-made examples you can use now!
Down Down Baby
Like all preteens, my 5th graders are obsessed with the cup song. We just finished learning middle C on the soprano recorder, so I came up with this simplified arrangement of the the melody. Befor…
middle school chorus
I am linking up today with Amy Abbott and several other music teachers to share some ideas for surviving the end of the school year. TIPS #1: Keep them moving with singing games and folk dancing Jump Jim Joe This is the closest version I could find to the one I do with my kids.I use the recording from the Amidons and I have the inside circle move because it is a shorter distance to travel. When teaching a double circle dance, make sure you are always on the outside so that you can see everyone! This will eliminate a lot of problems. Our Old Sow I learned this game from Jo Kirk last summer and my kids LOVE IT! TIP #2: Keep them "on track" and engaged in music learning until the end. I usually spend the last 2-3 weeks as review time to practice the concepts we got through that year as well as looking ahead to next year to prepare the upcoming concepts for the fall. I've been using my "Race to the Finish Line" planning guide to keep myself and my kiddos "on track" from January through May. (click the picture above to see it in my TPT store) It includes song lists for each grade as well as an excel file for each grade that lays out the different concepts through the second half of the school year. Since it is in excel, it is totally editable. You can add song titles under each concepts, or move the concepts to a different month depending on where you are in your sequence. TIP #3 Remember the good times! Music should be a JOYFUL experience for your students. It is so much fun to take a moment and reflect on the experiences shared together in music. I created some "Music Memories" pages for each grade level so that I can see what they remember most about our year together, their favorite singing game, favorite piece we listened to and more. The packet is totally editable, so you can add your own questions if you think it is something you would be interested in using with your kids. (click on the picture above to see it in my TPT store) One more fun thing I wanted to share with you was the a bunch of music teachers will be teaming up for another $2Tuesday on TPT. Enter "$2TuesdayMusicFlashSale" in the search bar on TPT to see all of the hugely discounted items from some amazing TPT music teacher/authors. The file from my store will be my melodic flashcards for preparing and practicing sol-mi. (click on the picture above to see it in my store) These flashcards are amazing resources for melodic transitions between songs. I could have a mystery song on the board like this: Starlight Starbright See Saw I don't have cards for "2,4,6,8" but I had my kids construct it using the cards from the other songs. Then we added the rhythms above. Next time we will transfer to the staff. The kit includes 164 flashcards designed to go with the following songs: Bee Bee Bumblebee Blue Bird (1st measure) Come Back Home My Little Chicks Doggie, Dogggie (1st measure) Hey Hey Look at Me Lemonade Rain Rain Go Away See Saw Up and Down See the Old Witch Snail, Snail (1st measure) Starlight Starbright Pitch is shown using: Icons only (can be used in the preparation stage) Icons w/ solfege Icons on staff Rhythm stick notation w/ solfa (where rhythms are appropriate) Icons on staff with solfa Standard notation with solfa inside note head What are your tips for surviving the end of the school year?
Enlarge and print this poster for your band or orchestra classroom. Encourage active rehearsal participation and listening during all rehearsal moments! Post near your pencil sharpener or other areas where students might be tempted to "wander".
