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!!

4th Grade Steady Beat Project

I just wanted to share a project that I do with my 4th Graders called the Steady Beat "Dance".  It is just for them to reinforce their knowledge of the steady beat in a fun way.  It also offers them an opportunity to work in groups, fostering that independence that we all need to be supporting for the Common Core.

Here is the project sheet for each group:

The kids basically make up 6 "moves" that show a four beat pattern each.  I don't limit them on what they can do, so often times they have a few moves where it is one pose or motion that goes down the line (1st person does one beat, 2nd person does next, etc.).  They often come up with a final move that ends with something funny as well.  One group I have this year made it that on the first beat one kid jumps out and on each beat after that they "punch" the other group members and they fall to the ground for the end.  No actual contact is made, but the kids have fun making it look like they are flying through the air to land.

I also have a list of fun songs for the kids to choose from to do their dance ("Call me Maybe", "Good Time", "We Will Rock You", "Firework", etc.).  That makes it an even more enjoyable project for them, so we have fun with it.  I encourage anyone to try doing this and trying it out with their group.  I've found that groups of 3 or 4 work best for the project as well.

Happy musicing!!!

QR Codes

One thing that I learned from my first class working on this ed tech Masters was how awesome it is to create QR codes.  As I was working on my information for our curriculum night on Tuesday, I decided that I would create a QR code with my e-mail, phone number, and school website and put it on the handout.  Anyone with a QR reader on their phone then has all my information at their fingertips.  Here is an example of how I put it on my handout:

 

Here are a few different sites to try out.  The first is just for individual information and you can get a WHOLE bunch of fun stuff with your QR Code on it and the second allows you to create a contact QR code for something like what I did.

QRStuff

ZXing Project

Other ideas for all this QR code stuff is to create QR codes with clues around the building and send kids on a scavenger hunt that uses QR codes to tell them where to go next.  This if you have iPod touches or iPads in your classroom you can use something like this around your classroom where kids have to identify symbols and see if they are right or not.  There are a bunch of fun ways to use it, but I thought that the most practical and not scary was for basic contact information.  Enjoy!

Lesson Plan Notebook Template

I've included a .pdf of the new lesson plan pages that I'm going to try using this year.  After 6 years of teaching, I feel like I don't need as much space to write every little thing that the kids are doing.  I did however add a week calendar to each week to write down things like assemblies and whatnot so I can keep up with things.  Comment if you would like an editable excel file of the the document!


Lesson Plan Book