Music education is one area that I feel like we have really slacked in over the years. It was always hard for me to stay consistent, even though I knew in my head how important it was. It was just …
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Music is organized sound. I like to give students opportunities to organize sound and icons for sounds before we work with organizing notation. One of the ways I do that is to create sound songs. We take a basic grid and brainstorms sounds we can make with our bodies (APPROPRIATE sounds *giggle*) and then draw shapes and simple picture to represent them. We draw them into the grid so that they are organized and then perform them for each other. FUN! Another thing I like to do is work with ready icons for body percussion. I introduce this in Kindergarten, but we review it in 1st and 2nd grades and add a composing element to it. Until recently I used a pretty old set of body percussion clip art to create a slide show. Here's what the new version looks like: I used this with some classes this week and they loved it! We talked about one sound to the beat means a quarter note and one picture in each square. After we add barred eighth notes or two sounds on one beat we'll take some time to compose our own. I'll print out little copies of all the body percussion actions and they will place them on the squares in the grid and perform. When we finish or as we begin to use this activity just to review or as a warm-up I'll add some body percussion worksheets to the end of class or to workstations. I'll be using these: Quick enough to do in the last ten minutes of class or at a workstation, I really like making connections to reading and writing AND music. Check out the Body Percussion set HERE.
Excuse our noise... musicians at work! :) After reviewing rhythm patterns at the beginning of the year, 3rd grade classes began working on layering rhythm patterns together. This is one of the more di
I stumbled across this idea on Pinterest and thought it would be perfect for my third and fourth graders! I often hear complaints from students that although others "allow" them to play games at recess, they often do not "include" them in the game. For example, in football they are on the team but the ball is never passed to them. I used this as a springboard for discussion on what teamwork really looks like. The Cup Stack is a great activity to facilitate teamwork. Some groups are able to complete the task very quickly while other groups must keep trying and trying to complete the task successfully. It's hard not to give up when things get frustrating, and this is a valuable lesson for children to learn in a safe environment. All you need is cups, rubberbands, and string. I decided to put my students into groups of 6, so I tied 6 equally spaced strings (about 1-2 feet long) around a single rubberband. Each group was given this device and 6 cups. The challenge is for the group to build a pyramid out of the paper cups (3 on the bottom, 2 in the middle, 1 on the top - can be adjusted for more cups). Group members cannot touch the cups with their hands or any other part of their bodies, even if a cup falls over or on the floor. Each person holds onto one of the strings that are attached to the rubber band and they use this device to pick up the cups and place them on top of each other (by pulling the rubber band apart and then bringing it back together over the cups). Some groups took 2 minutes to accomplish their goal, some 10 minutes, and some never successfully built their tower. I had groups that finished early watch the remaining groups to add a little "pressure." Afterwards we debriefed with the following discussion questions: Was anyone frustrated at all during the activity? If so how was it handled? What did you learn about yourself or others? Why was teamwork so important for this activity? What is so hard about teamwork? What did you do today to contribute to the teamwork on your team? What are some skills needed to be good at teamwork? Are you every in a situation where you must use teamwork? Is this always easy for you? Why or why not? How can we use what we learned through this experience in situations outside the game? Check out Teamwork: Cup Stack Take 2!
Sarasponda
Fourth grade class wrote some terrific "sound songs". I got this idea from another music teacher. Thank you! It was a hit.
Fast Math Frisbee is a Frisbee throwing game that incorporates math into PE. The objective is to score points by throwing the Frisbee at targets set up in the gym. The person who scores the most points in your group … Read More
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Free English ESL Printable Worksheets and Exercises, Grammar Exercises, Flashcards, Vocabulary Exercises Cards and Games For Kids
Quesenbery, Whitney; Brooks, Kevin. 2010. Storytelling for User Experience. New York: Rosenfeld Media. www.rosenfeldmedia.com/books/storytelling/
Several people have asked on music teacher Facebook groups how others handle playing tests for recorders. Here is an overview of how I assess recorders . . . Procedures I teach recorder in 4th grade. For each unit, I provide at least 3 songs with varying difficulty. (Buzzword: DIFFERENTIATION!) I don't follow any particular recorder method book. I have gathered songs from several books, from my Orff levels courses, and from various workshops and conferences over the years. Lessons in the unit may also involve games, dancing, or playing accompaniments to the songs on barred instruments. At the end of the unit, I hear each student perform one of the songs for a playing test. On test day, the students rotate in centers. My classes are 50 minutes long. I try to allow 10 minutes at each station. That leaves 10 minutes for instructions at the beginning of class and maybe a couple minutes of clean-up before they line up to leave. One center is the playing test where I am stationed. I hear each student in the group perform a song and then I tie their strings before they rotate to the next center. I used to hear students one at a time and it took a long time for students to come back to me and then go back to their seat. Many times, students would be very nervous playing for me it would take forever to get them to even begin their song. In small groups, it seems less formal and the students are also very supportive of each other. While I'm formally assessing them on the rubric, they are watching their peers and offering suggestions like--"Your thumb hole wasn't covered all the way." and "You didn't have your right thumb kickstand." Before they play for me, there is a center with an exit slip or short quiz assessing any new vocabulary or concepts we learned in the unit. These students have finished their written assessment and are working in small groups preparing for their playing test. Two other stations are games or activities which reinforce music skills taught in the unit. This was the first recorder playing test and we are still learning the lines and spaces of the staff. The students chose either relay races or Twister with the giant floor staff. The next station was Treble Toss where students draw a popsicle stick and then aim their beanbag at a specific line or space on the staff. If you would like to learn more about my music centers, follow this link to previous blog posts. Rubric My rubric addresses posture, breathing, fingering, hand position, steady beat, rhythmic accuracy, and pitch accuracy. If you would like to download my Recorder Rubric, click here. If I need to save time before the rotation ends, I wait for class to finish to add up the scores. Incentives For each note the students learn, they receive a different colored string tied on to their recorder. I use embroidery floss cut to 12 centimeters. I sometimes have students or parent volunteers cut the strings for me. After the strings are tied, the students love to fray the ends. Some units introduce two notes, so the students would get two colors. Some units introduce only one note, so the students would get one string. We start on red and follow the order of the color wheel. The last string is a black string. There is a bonus string in the last unit. The last note we learn is F#. If the students can play "Frere Jacques" (in the key of D) in a round with a partner, they get a gold metallic string tied on their recorders. I store the strings in my organizer station. Each color has its own drawer. I also have drawers for office supplies like paperclips, sticky tack, rubber bands, pushpins, etc. This organizer sits on a bookshelf behind my desk and makes things so easily accessible. Follow this link for more information on how I organize my classroom, including printable labels for your own organizer. If you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to comment below!
Music is organized sound. I like to give students opportunities to organize sound and icons for sounds before we work with organizing notation. One of the ways I do that is to create sound songs. We take a basic grid and brainstorms sounds we can make with our bodies (APPROPRIATE sounds *giggle*) and then draw shapes and simple picture to represent them. We draw them into the grid so that they are organized and then perform them for each other. FUN! Another thing I like to do is work with ready icons for body percussion. I introduce this in Kindergarten, but we review it in 1st and 2nd grades and add a composing element to it. Until recently I used a pretty old set of body percussion clip art to create a slide show. Here's what the new version looks like: I used this with some classes this week and they loved it! We talked about one sound to the beat means a quarter note and one picture in each square. After we add barred eighth notes or two sounds on one beat we'll take some time to compose our own. I'll print out little copies of all the body percussion actions and they will place them on the squares in the grid and perform. When we finish or as we begin to use this activity just to review or as a warm-up I'll add some body percussion worksheets to the end of class or to workstations. I'll be using these: Quick enough to do in the last ten minutes of class or at a workstation, I really like making connections to reading and writing AND music. Check out the Body Percussion set HERE.
Update: July 13, due to overwhelming interest (and overwhelming my email box) the full collection will only be available until Monday, July ...
This resource includes four recorder improvisation/note reading stations where students can work in small groups or learning centers specifically on the notes BAG. The bundle is meant to keep all students playing recorder and on-task whether they’re at a station/center for 2 minutes or 20. I’ve tried to include enough variety with the flash-cards that students can continue working on their own without redirection from you. My hope is that this also gives you the opportunity to mix and match flashcards to make this resource really work for you. Maybe you’ll print Station 1 twice and separate it in a variety of ways. Maybe you’ll squish stations together. Whatever you do, play around with the cards and see what you come up with. I’d love if you’d tell me about your variations so that I can us them and so that I can make the resource better for other people! My students love playing the recorder, but I haven’t always loved the logistics of testing students who are learning the recorder. The testing itself is fine, but it’s always been a struggle to set up stations that keep non-testing kids on task and keep them engaged enough to allow me to test the others. I needed a set of stations that can be used by students at ALL levels! This product includes: *Four different stations/centers for students playing the soprano recorder. Stations get increasingly more difficult as students are asked to improvise notes, create patterns with the cards, and create 4-8 beat melodies. All stations use the notes B, A, and G (if you’re interested in recorder sets for low E/D or high C’/D’ see the bottom of this listing). *Station 1: A set of 18 flash cards. Each flash card has a four beat melody in standard notation utilizing the notes B, A, and G. Students are asked to play the cards and then put them into patterns to create a short phrase. This station helps to reinforce reading notes on the staff and arranging into a phrase. *Station 2: A set of 24 flash cards. Each card has ONLY a rhythm pattern and a letter at the beginning of the card. Students must play the rhythm on the note that is indicated on the front of the card. This station helps students to associate notes with basic rhythms. This station also prepares students for the improvisation process on Station 3. Cards come with stick or standard notation. *Station 3: A set of 24 flash cards. Each card has only a rhythm pattern and TWO LETTERS at the beginning of the card. Students must play the rhythms choosing from the notes that are indicated on the front of the card. Students can choose to play the whole card on one note or switch in the middle of the note. This station helps students to improvise a little as they play a given rhythm but get to choose what note they play. Cards come with stick or standard notation. *Station 4: A set of 18 flash cards. Each card has two standard notes on the staff and two notes that are ONLY rhythms. This means that students get to play some given notes but have to make up part of the measure and can use any of the notes they know (B, A, or G) to complete the measure. This station helps students to improvise as they play. The given notes and rhythms help to scaffold as they work through the cards. *Stations can be done in any order. I suggest that you go through each station once or twice with students or walk them through the procedure before you ask them to do it on their own. However, there is one big “explanation” card in the set so that you can hand a mini-explanation out with the flashcards in case students forget what they’re supposed to do. *All cards can be printed in black and white but are set in a variety of fun colors. Here's a Facebook live video that I recorded about how I use this resource and other resources in the Fishin for a Melody Bundle --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Email requests/problems/ suggestions to [email protected] Check out my blog for more ideas, freebies, and resources! MakeMomentsMatter.org Terms of Use: These slides are intended for personal classroom use only. Buyer does not have rights to share or distribute. You may copy a slide to include in a PowerPoint (etc.) for your own classroom, but these slides may not be used in commercial products. Thank you!
