Here's My Rhythm, Now Check My Beat

I used this today with 2nd graders and it was a great way to assess their understanding of beat. I had to speak the 1st part for every student; asked them to speak the 2nd part together. They loved it and wanted to do it again!

Best Thing I've Made in a WHILE...

Candyland Music Game! I made 1 and am now on the hunt for about 4 more boards so I can have the whole class play it together. Yesterday with fourth graders I split each class into groups of 4 then played several games I had made from fellow bloggers- so many good things out there. Rhythm Dice games, a game called Rhythm Roll, another game called Counting Up the Mountain. They ALL were dying to play Candyland, though- how funny- I never would have thought fourth graders would be the ones wanting to play THAT game! Here's a picture of the game:

This lady has some great stuff- the cards are all available to print out on her website: https://laytonmusic.wordpress.com/2007/12/03/candyland-music-sytle/ Happy Playing!!!

Back in the Music Room! Wahooooo!!!

Yippee- after a marathon clean up over yesterday and for 4 hours today, (ugh!) I'm baaaaaaack! In the music room, that is! And it's soooo clean, I'm lovin' it! We had to scrub mildew off some of my African drums and lots of the instruments. I'm so glad- it's actually been great to re-organize everything. I have also been busy while I've been in exile, ahem, on a cart, and have been making a lot of new games I've found on pinterest and other teachers' blogs. I blogged about the relay race I was going to do with my fourth graders and it was SUCH a hit. They were divided into two teams, shown an alphabet card (next time it will be a note on the staff; for this review it was great as we just used alphabet cards to review C scale), the team member ran up, grabbed the correct boomwhacker from the pile, played it once, ran to the front of the room where the staff was on the whiteboard, grabbed a fly swatter, pointed to the correct note on the staff, checked with me (quickly!), swatted the note, ran to the glockenspiel, played a C scale, ran back. Team member that was fastest earned a point for their team. I quickly showed the next card, game continued. If the teams tied, I showed TWO cards... big ooooo here! They loved it and so did I; it tied so many concepts together and was a great way to give them all time to play, review staff notes, and C scale- all in ONE game! Woohoo multitasking!

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?

First Day of School/Rules of the Music Room Drumming Activity

See the initial post below (Aug. 23) for the lesson. Enjoy! Oh- and yes, "listener" has 3 syllables but I used 2 quarter notes as I thought that fit best how we speak the word. To separate it correctly seemed strange musically speaking! This is a powerpoint you can download. Rules

Rules as a Rhythm/Drumming Activity

So this year I decided to "do" my rules a little differently than in the past. I HATED those simple discussions/creations/posting of the "rules of the music room". AFter all, by the time the kids come to music, they've had rules in their classroom, the library, PE, computer, Spanish, art, Science Lab, and now music. Ick and Ugh! So... with the older students (grades 3 and 4), the first thing we did was a name activity and song, then reviewed rhythms (quarter, eighth, quarter rests) using Artie Almeida's Chair Rhythms- which is so fun! AND then I presented a powerpoint which I'm going to try to post tomorrow from school using some rules. The first page of the powerpoint had one rule with the corresponding rhythm written below it. So you'd see "Be respectful" and below it you'd see four quarter notes. The next page would have this again at the top and directly below "Be Respectful" and the rhythm notation would be the next rule (mine was "Follow the directions = titi titi ta ta) with the four beat rhythm and the third powerpoint page would add the next rule/rhythm and the fourth powerpoint would add the final rule/powerpoint. We practiced saying each one in rhythm and then assigned a body percussion to each; first page/rule/rhythm: Stomp Second: Pat Third: Clap Fourth: Snap Practice each then divide the class into 4 groups; one for each rule. Practice with body percussion, layer in parts, groups join after 4 beats of the previous rhythm/rule, add conducted dynamics, breaks, whatever.. my classes had a blast!! Transfer body percussion to UPP: stomp= African drums, Pat= woods, Clap= Metals, Snap= shakers. Layer in parts, add dynamics, cresc./dimin., breaks... etc. It was a BLAST and got the kids to remember the rules, play the rules, and make some interesting music together the VERY FIRST day! Not to mention that it took a BIG chunk of the class period which is always satisfying to end up with a "piece" to play at the end of class!

Games, Games, and MORE Games...

Yup... kids come back Monday- am a *little* in denial at the moment.. you'd think after 4 days of meetings (!!!) that I would be ready, but we've literally had 2 hours in our classrooms over the last 4 days and so definitely need a few more hours.. I'm sensing everyone in my hall will be in over the weekend at some point!!! This post is a *wee* bit lengthy but I'm so excited about these games!! I'm going to do some centers this year (some with ipads and I can't wait to try those).. here are a few games I'm going to put in a music center: Bottle Cap Memory Game:

When you make this add music symbols; maybe one game with quarter notes, eighths, quarter rests, and another game add half notes, dotted halfs, whole notes, for another game I want to do one with staff notes we use for recorder- would be so great!! Could even make another with pics of instruments or dynamic symbols- lots of possibilities here! Music Twister: We made these a few years ago when we hosted the National AOSA conference here in Charlotte and had these in the boutique- a hit! On a large rectangular tablecloth you are going to spray adhesive 16 pieces of felt; 4 yellow, 4 red, 4 green, 4 blue (colors you choose but all must be equal; 4 of each). On each piece of felt you use sharpie and draw a quarter note, half note, eighth notes, and whole note. Adhesive them on in a way so that each row across has one of each color (a la Twister) game; make up a board with moveable arrow (this was the trickiest part- think plastic washers and make the arrow out of craft foam!!). On each color put a quarter note, eighth, etc. My kids love this!

I'm really looking forward to this one- the kids will love doing this outdoors! Rhythm Toss:

Diced Rhythms:

Use 4 dice, cut out printed rhythms (to fit on each side of die), spray adhesive on (I used big foam ones purchased from toy section of Dollar Tree). Students rolled the 4 dice, arranged the dice and then played the rhythm on rhythm sticks (pictured). I will let them play with drum stick (big OOOOO here!!!) and drum pads (rubber pads borrowed from sweet PE teacher!). Ping Pong Rhythms from http://musicclassideas.blogspot.ca/2012/03/ping-pong-rhythms.html#!/2012/03/ping-pong-rhythms.html

Also from the same blogger: http://musicclassideas.blogspot.ca/2012/03/ping-pong-rhythms.html#!/2012/07/treble-clef-putt-putt.html TREBLE CLEF Putt-Putt - for those of you from New England like me, this is AKA mini golf! So cute!!!

Did you watch the "Minute to Win It" show? I thoroughly loved it and browsing through pinterest I happened upon a fellow music teacher friend who had pinned this- what fun!!! Here are a bunch of "Minute to Win It' music games from a fellow Pinner on Pinterest- link back to her blog at http://sherylwelles.blogspot.com/2012/04/minute-to-win-it.html