Games Galore!!!!

Look at me posting again!!  Again, I'm making it a goal this year to post more on this blog for other music teachers to see different things happening in my classroom.  This past few days has been all about making different games and finding different cool things to do in the classroom.  I wanted to share this one game for note reading.

Note Name Popcorn:

This idea is all over different music teacher blogs, and I thought that I should talk about different ways to use it in the classroom.  At my school 4th grade is the group that works most with note names because they also learn the recorder at this grade level.  Here are some ideas I have for these cards:

1. Use as a center where student is working by themselves to match the cards.

2. Have students grab either a ticket or a popcorn bowl and see how fast they can find their match.

3. Make a contest between groups of students to see which group can match all of their groups the fastest.

4. Have groups challenge themselves by giving them a stopwatch and seeing how fast they can match everything, then have them mix them all up and try to beat their time.

5. Have a pair working with the stack, mixing it up on the floor.  Students try to see how many pairs they can get.  Whoever has the most pairs, wins.

On another "note"... I had struggled with finding ways to print out notes on the staff digitally and found a free notating software that I really like...  MuseScore is a free program and I liked that I could type the letters in to create them on the staff.  If you go to their site: MuseScore you can check it out and get your own edition to help with different things!!

I hope that shows some random fun things you can do with a set of cards like this.  Next time I'll show some ideas with rhythm dice that you can check out too!!!  Happy almost school!!

Got My 2nd Computer in the Classroom!!!!

Today was a FANTASTIC day in the life of Miss Rains!  I went in with another techie from my building to install more of the AppleTVs in our building (which is excitement in itself), and found that they had finally installed the second computer in my classroom.  We recently (2 years ago) switched to a completely virtualized network in our school district, and got all new thin clients for our classrooms.  Each classroom teacher received two for their classroom.  Well... I didn't.  Being a specials teacher sometimes excludes us from these things, so I assumed that I wouldn't get a second computer in the room even thought I would totally use it all the time!  In a conversation I had with our head of technology in the district, it came up that I would love to have a second computer in my room to which he replied "You don't have two computers in here?" with a look of shock on his face.  Come to find out that art and music were supposed to have two computers this whole time!  A year after this conversation and I finally get my second computer.  Here are the ideas that I have for said computers....

1. Depending on the subject, use as a center for a few kids at a time to practice skills (note reading, rhythms, etc.)

2. Research station for projects (Multicultural, Railroad songs, Sea Shanties, etc.)

3. Listening Centers!!

4. Video watching Centers!!

5. Project Creation (.ppt, Web 2.0, etc.)

Basically, this is awesome because I can have kids working with the technology more often.  I've decided that I'm going to primarily use my Mac (yes, I am a convert) with the AppleTV to teach from, which leaves the two computers in my room wide open for exploring other things.  This is exciting... and as I think of more things to do, I'll post some ideas!