Fun New Things This Week

I'm on a cart right now- have been for a little over a week due to replacing the duct work in the music room. It has definitely stretched me and truly has been a good experience. At first I kind of freaked out- I wouldn't be able to rely on my Orff Instruments or potentially any instruments although I discovered an unused cart with 3 levels and have used instruments all week. Thank goodness for technology- using itunes on my laptop and running all sound from there has worked great even with tiny little speakers! Most difficult thing- DESKS! Would ya believe it? Yup- such a hindrance to moving expressively although I got around that one day by taking all the second graders together in our performing space and doing some dancing with them.. it was crazy, and it was Friday afternooon (what was I thinking??), but we had a great time nonetheless! Tomorrow I have third and fourth graders. Third graders are getting their neckstraps for their recorders, reviewing Hot Cross Buns (yup- in their classrooms, right next to OTHER classrooms.. yikes!), and composing rhythms and playing them on felt staffs I sewed a few years ago. If time, we'll have a "swat" (with various fly swatters) on the line notes on the staff using these cards- http://www.susanparadis.com/catalog.php?ID=SP814

Aren't they cute? Susan Paradis has an AWESOME site chock full of ideas. Later in the day, with fourth graders, we're continuing a song called "Oh What a Day"- look it up on youtube- AWESOME song! We'll perform it in canon and then they'll work in groups to develop movement to perform with each phrase. Then we'll finish with a relay race- wahoo! Quick review of staff lines and spaces, review the notes, then set up the race- show a buggy staff card shown above, students in teams run to boomwhackers

in the middle of the room, play the correct boomwhacker, run to staff on board and "swat" the note, run back to next student... might add in a glockenspiel station where they have to stop and play a scale as we've been working on C scale. Should be fun and scream-worthy! How do you use boomwhackers?