Farewell March

Where did this month go?! Is it me, or is time passing quickly? I'm going to take that as a great sign...you know, time flies when you're having fun!

As part of our Kodaly curriculum, second graders "discovered" the tone re this week. We prepared by singing several different songs and games (Hot Cross Buns, All Around the Buttercup, Ridin' on the Railroad, Sally Go 'Round the Sun, Let Us Chase the Squirrel and Bow Wow Wow). After comparing parts of these songs to each other and/or playing the games, I felt like we ready to name the note this past week. I always try to set it up as a big deal...like we are scientists testing out different tones to see which one is the correct sound. When it comes to re, they usually have it narrowed it down to fa or re. We use the song Bow Wow Wow for the actual discovery lesson and I usually make some sort of excuse to test fa first and ask them to listen and tell me whether it fits in the song or not. No, it doesn't! When I sing re, they know immediately that it's the right fit but I don't usually confirm their guess right away. I let my powerpoint presentation reveal the answer by replacing the ? with re....their reaction? Cheering! I think that is too funny. They get so excited to find out a new tone! What's neat is that they did all the work!

First grade rocked out with Queen this past week and learned all about how an ostinato works. We Will Rock You is a great example of a repeating pattern and one that is easy enough that first graders can dictate as well (ti-ti ta ti-ti ta):

(I don't show the video and don't necessarily play the whole song....but the kids love this song and hear it a lot in the gym so they recognize it immediately.)

Kindergarten is also in the middle of a fun lesson: clapping syllables for rhythm practice. We had a great time today clapping Prin-cess An-na, O-laf, Mis-ter Pea-bod-y, Ker-mit the Frog and more. Of course, we then went around and clapped student names too. :)

Third graders and fourth graders enjoyed some play parties this week (Alabama Gal and Turn the Glasses Over, respectively) as they prepare to learn new notes from the tone ladder. Fifth just finished up an instrument unit on theme and variations. This unit did not go as well as it could have. We had a lot of interruptions for certain classes - bad weather days, holidays, absences by me, a week off for Spring Break - it was not ideal. I did hear some creative variations by many students though! I just wish we had more time to create. Either way, I am definitely going to make some changes the next time that lesson is taught.

Goodbye March....hello, April! What kinds of tricks will the kids play on me tomorrow? I wonder....

Freebies!

During the last #musedchat on Twitter, we were discussing the hardships of being able to provide instruments to students from low-income families. Another music teacher mentioned that they had an Orff ensemble but even struggled to provide enough instruments without having to take turns so sometimes she drew xylophone bars on a piece of paper for her kids to practice on. It reminded me of a visual I made several years ago! I shared it with her and I thought I'd try sharing it here too.

Xylophone Icon Folder

Hopefully that works! I'm still a bit new to sharing with Dropbox!

Personally, I have a printed set laminated and cut out with magnets on the back to put on my board for Orff lessons. It helps me demonstrate which bars might need to come off, or where to play. It's just a great visual for the entire class to see when my projector is showing something else. (I actually made these long before I even had a projector or Elmo!)

Xylophone set-up with B's and E's taken off

Speaking of #musedchat, if you're a music teacher on Twitter and you have a bit of time on Monday evenings, come by and chat! It's 8:00 EST and I've learned so much by chatting with the great educators there.

Enjoy!

An ode to Google

I have to get it out of my system and shout it from the rooftop....

Small update: If you visited earlier, that was just some boring text. I changed it because it just didn't express my love enough. And yes, I made that graphic with Google. :) Anyway....

I love Gmail. I love YouTube. I love Google Drive. I love Google Docs. I love Google Spreadsheets. I love Blogger. I love Chrome. I love Google Earth. (One time I spent 35 minutes using Google Earth to locate an old Pizza Hut in my hometown just to see if it was still a Pizza Hut because I wanted to possibly submit it to this blog. Ummm, don't ask.) I love Google Forms. I love Google Drawings. I love the fonts that Google provides because I am so bored with the basic fonts on my school computer. I love Google News. I especially love Google Doodles like this one and this one!!

Basically, I love ALL THINGS GOOGLE!!**

I use Google in and out of the classroom. For Open House a couple weeks ago, I created a Google folder on my professional Google Drive and adjusted the shared settings so anyone could view it. I made three documents in the folder: one was a greeting to parents thanking them for visiting me in the music room on the evening of Open House. The second was a list of educational (and fun!) websites that parents could visit along with their kids over Spring Break to learn about and create music. The third document was a list of music-themed iPad/iPhone apps that parents could download and enjoy with their kids. I turned the link to this folder into a QR code, printed it out and put it on my board for parents to scan as they visited. (I also had printouts in case they didn't have a QR scanner already on their phone.) 

On that same Open House, I had a second QR code to scan: a YouTube Playlist of videos to enjoy over Spring Break. 

(You could also shorten the URL if you wanted to just send out plain text....you could include this or the QR code in your grade level's newsletter, etc.!)

Out of the classroom, I often use Google Docs to save time....or try to save time. If I need to gather information from coworkers for whatever reason, I will send out a Google Doc. Here's the issue: I often get several emails saying that they can't access it. Yes, I could open my share settings so that anyone could access it, but oftentimes, there might be sensitive information such as student names, ID numbers, etc. Is it likely that someone will find that doc without the link? No, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't know how to access a Google Doc. My advice to anyone opening a Google Doc: always check to make sure you are logged in correctly! In my district, you must use your district log-in name. Many people have a personal plus a professional account. I find that is the #1 reason people fail to access Google Docs successfully. Double-check your log-in before emailing the sender! Google Docs are supposed to make life easier and cut down on emails. And if you're the one sending the Google Doc, always check your share settings to make sure others can edit or access before sending it. That cuts down on a lot of headaches as well.

Here are a few links that might help you get started:

32 Ways to Use Google Apps in the Classroom

79 Interesting Ways to Use Google Forms in the Classroom

Google in Education
40 Ways to Start Using Google Apps in the Class
Tips Every Teacher Should Know About Google Docs in Education
5 Ways to Use Google Docs in the Classroom
The 10 Best Google Doc Tips for Teachers as They Go Back to School
50 Little-Known Ways Google Docs Can Help in Education
20 Google Doc Secrets for Busy Teachers and Students

If you haven't tried Google in or out of your classroom, what are you waiting for? Share some ways that you have used Google in the music room by leaving me a comment! 

**Okay, except for maybe Google Slides. That one qualifies as just a "like." But that's just because I'm the last person on Earth that appreciates and adores PowerPoint for all it's hidden potential.

Welcome, Spring!

Today is the first official day of Spring! Is it a little too cliche to teach Antonio Vivaldi's "Spring" during this time? Who cares because I love that piece!

I made a visual listening map during my student-teaching years and even though I cringe at my horrible drawing skills, the kids think I'm the next Monet. The piece itself is great for K-5 and the kids are always captivated by it as if they've never heard it before. (No, seriously, they sometimes act like they've forgotten that we listen to it EVERY SINGLE YEAR. Ha!)

For Kinder, it's great for keeping the beat and recognizing same and different. Even my squirmiest (is that a word?) class calms down and sits for Vivaldi. Not still, necessarily....many of them play air violin or conduct. Some of them bounce up and down. But they listen.

For 1st grade and 2nd grade, we take same and different a little further and talk more about form. We use shapes in 1st grade and use capital letters in 2nd grade. I mention Rondo form (though we don't specifically talk about Rondo much else during the year).

For the upper grade levels, there is a lot to teach from it - rhythm, Rondo form (with variant) again, major/minor - but one of my favorite lessons from the past has been a comparison between music of the past and the present. I was searching iTunes for a copy to play several years ago (after misplacing my own CD) and I came across a really cool cardio workout remix version. The best I can do is link to the iTunes preview list. You'll have to click on the button to listen to a bit of it. Trust me, it's way out there, but the kids really relate to it!

Anyway, we talk about how long ago Vivaldi lived and the type of musical instruments he had access to. Which instruments did he use? How did he write down his compositions? Did he even have lights (electricity) to see at night if he wanted to write in the evening? Could he advertise his works easily? How did people hear his music? Fast forward to present day. How does this compare to musicians now? What kinds of instruments do we have now? How do we write music? How do we listen to music?

It's fascinating how much kids (and sometimes us teachers!) take music for granted. With music so easily accessed at the touch of a button, with us at all times in our pockets, purses and backpacks....we no longer have to make it ourselves! We don't have to write it down with a quill and ink or by candlelight; we don't have to walk miles to a concert hall just to hear the latest music as they did in Vivaldi's time.

Wow, that veered off into a random place.
Happy Spring!

The Luck O' the Irish

Sometimes ideas strike at midnight. Literally. :)

I had planned out my lessons and had everything ready to go and then had a really rough time sleeping last night. I always revert to my night owl/late sleeper routine on long breaks so ending Spring Break did not go over well with my body's schedule. As I tossed and turned, I had a last-minute idea that ended up changing my plans a little bit and it worked out well this morning! I wish I had pictures, but it was a quick-paced lesson and I was in the middle of leading the action.

Anyway, I had already planned on having a gold coin/rainbow themed lesson to have a little fun with St. Patrick's Day today. I made pots of gold out of black cardstock and painted some leftover wooden circles that were in my craft bin. I had planned on using them for Kinder as high/low icons and for 3rd grade to earn as team points for reading syncopated rhythms.

But what came together nicely was the set-up and an add-on lesson plan for 2nd grade. They just finished a reading assessment for half note before leaving for Spring Break, but I decided to take it a step further this morning. I asked them to do some rhythm improvisation. I formed two rainbows using spots, with a large pot of gold in the middle and two smaller team pots at the end of each rainbow:

I sat in the middle with the large pot and had two team lines form down the middle. We practiced a few patterns (from the board) to the music (some Celtic/Irish folk music) and we had two rounds.

Round one: they could pick any pattern from the board to say, but they had to be ready when it was their turn. If they were ready and they could say it in rhythm with the music, they got a gold coin. They could travel down the rainbow and put it in their team's pot. (This put them at the end of the line nicely.)

Round two: the sneaky leprechaun stole their rhythms and now they had to improvise a pattern! If they could improvise a pattern using a half note, they earned another coin. If not, I usually gave them another chance at this one. They were really very good at it! Even "under pressure"! (And yes, most of them did make up different ones than the ones they said before.) I even challenged them to make up ones that were not on the board and I got some very creative answers.

Was it the luck o' the Irish? Or more likely, the amazing Feierabend workshop that I attended about a year ago with a very similar pirate-themed lesson that popped into my head and the translation just seemed to work?

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

DIY Magnetic Staff

After playing with the colors about a million times, I think I like the shade of aqua that I see on my screen! (Who knows what everyone else is seeing, of course!) I also followed an incredibly clear tutorial on Bite Sized Thoughts on how to create drop-down menus. (Thank you, Kari!) It took a lot of experimenting with the code even after reading, but that blog entry was the only one that made any sense to me after many Google searches!

Anyway, you've probably seen this before, but just in case you haven't.....I thought I'd show an easy and fairly cheap way to make magnetic staves for your classroom.

You might get some weird looks, but get to your local Dollar Tree and head to the checkout with an armful of $1 cookie sheets:

If you buy more than 10 or 15, they may or may not call a manager over to approve the purchase. A little embarrassing, but well worth it. :)

For the next step, it depends on what you use as notes. I use little math counters that are 3/4" round and they came in 4 different colors. Basically, they look like tiny poker chips. (I added magnetic tape on the back of mine.) I did an internet search just now and can't seem to find the exact kind, but there are so many types out there. I do like the kinds that I can split by color though because it helps me manage groups in various ways - "Yellow notes, put your materials away first," or "Green notes, sing your pattern to me."

I used my craft machine to cut strips of vinyl, but you can easily use drafting tape as well. Just space out your lines according to the size of your chosen note size.

Spacing the lines to fit your notes...

Just 20-something more to go... :)

My next step, which I will have to update on a bit later, is to cut out some do clefs and some ledger lines. I'm waiting on this step because I'm going to cut them on printable magnetic paper and they only take up a small amount. I'm trying to think of something else to take up the rest of the paper....I don't want to waste it.

And if you're lucky, you might find these little storage containers at the Dollar Tree as well. They are great for storage for your little magnetic notes! I've seen round containers and these square ones and then sometimes they have nothing at all. I tend to grab a package when I see them in stock. They are popular!

Overall, I think these magnetic staves would be great for centers (if you only want to make a few and not a class set) and you can always use the other blank side for other magnetic manipulative activities!

Growing Pains

You'll probably notice (for the two or three people reading this!) that I'm changing how things look and adding things here and there. I'm brand new to blogging and I guess you could say that a part of me started this blog as a technological challenge to myself. I love graphic design (I'm a Photoshop addict!) though I'm not an expert by any means so this is a bit of a learning process. As I do with almost anything technology-related though, I'm just experimenting and Googling....rinse and repeat!

In the meantime, it's Spring Break here and I'm looking forward to crafting some manipulatives for class (along with some personal projects). My goal is to reorganize how I present my Learning Targets everyday to my class and to finish some magnetic staves for my students. I'm sure some other ideas with pop into my head as the days go on!

What are you doing this week?

Music in Our Schools Month

March is Music in Our Schools Month and I, for one, am very thankful to teach in a district with a strong elementary music program! I grew up in the opposite, so this is something that means a lot to me as an educator, as a musician and as a parent.

To recognize this event, I put together a huge display spanning across my cabinets in the back of my classroom. I used my craft machine to cut hundreds (and hundreds) of quarter notes for my students to sign....but it didn't stop there. I thought maybe the teachers should sign a note and of course, as the parents arrive to our Open House tonight, they should sign one too! :) As I told the kids, the success of our music program is not just because of their hard work and love of music, but also due to the support of our staff and parents. Each of us makes beautiful music, but together, we create a masterpiece. :)

I can't help but smile at this and the kids are crazy about it. It may just be a bunch of colorful paper notes with first names of each of my students, but to me, it represents so much more. :)

What are you doing for MIOSM?

An ice day? Really?!

And helloooo to you too, March!

Wait, what?

Yes, here we are, March 3rd, and we have the day off due to icy conditions. What?! I'm going to acknowledge the only way I know how, especially considering last night's deserved Oscar win by now-EGOT songwriter Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez:

Oh, Idina Menzel (or as John Travolta calls her, Adele Dazeem), you're my hero! Can you please go back to Wicked and be Elphaba long enough for me to hop a plane to New York?

Anyway, snow day equals more lost days in the music room. This makes me crazy and anxious. You see, in the music world, when we lose days, we pretty much don't get them back. We may make them up at the end of the year, but time is of the essence. I need them NOW, not later. :) But, I'll make the best of it this week and try to get the kids caught up the best I can.

This week, 5th graders are working on some theme and variations a la Mozart to "Ah Vous dirai-je Maman" and 4th graders are comparing tika-ti and ti-tika. 1st grade has done things a bit out of order (and has just come off of a program) so they just discovered quarter rest and Kinder is playing some high and low sounds on xylophones. 2nd grade is getting ready to learn re and 3rd is still trying to wrap up those centers.

Just one request...can the weather please, please clear up in time for Spring Break? Thanks. :)