New to Teachers Pay Teachers

So, I'm the kind of person who loves creating things... Many of my friends know that I love drawing and doodling to my heart's content.  I also love creating things for my classroom... I like being able to pull out of a cabinet any number of resources to work one for any given day!

I decided to join my love of those two things by creating things for Teachers Pay Teachers this school year.  Yes, I can view it as a money-making endeavor, but I feel like when I've bought things from there, they really have been soooo useful!!

So here is the link to my newest product, which is a set of 5 worksheets for reinforcing and/or assessing Ta, ti-ti, and sh.  I use these with my first graders as centers, for use with a sub, and for extra home help as well!  Check it out, and download my two freebies... I've got lots of ideas, so hopefully I'll be able to get some of them cranked out and online!!

Becoming a Rhythm Star

iDoceo... the best 7.99 I ever spent in my life!!!

My new favorite app in the entire universe.... iDoceo.  I've even got my P.E. teacher hooked!

As a specials teacher it is SOOOOOO hard to keep track of over 700 kids, plans for 5 different grade levels, grades for all those kids, and the logistics of school (1W goes to P.E. from music on Monday, but 2M comes from LRC to music on Thursday).  I HAVE FOUND THE SOLUTION!!

You need to check out the website to see everything, but I can tell you that just two weeks into school and I'm already so glad that I purchased the 7.99 app for my school's iPad.  If you aren't convinced... I can give you ten things right now that I LOVE about it.

1. I can search the name of a kid in the home screen and it takes me to them in the grade book in their class... without actually typing in the whole name.

2. I can put student's pictures into their class seating chart to learn names.

3. I can add things like pretests and icon notes (smiley face/sad face, etc.) into the grade book without it counting for their grade.

4. 700 kids can actually fit in the app!

5. I can lesson plan within the app, and it allows me to bump all lessons forward or back if needed because of a forgotten field trip or assembly.

6.  I can attach power points, songs, pics, etc. to each lesson via DropBox and other cloud services.

7.  You can back up your data to the iPad AND a cloud service.

8.  I can pick a random student, put a class into pairs, put a class into groups of three... all with the touch of a button.

9. I can flag a student or change the color of their name box to alert me about medical issues AND put the notes within that student's profile.

10.  It makes teaching EASIER for me... It's all in one place.

Please check out the link to the website and learn more about it... AND go get it in the app store!

Getting Ready for the 2014-2015 School Year!!

The first thing that I wanted to do this year is look back on my blog from last year... and then I was somewhat mad at myself!!!!  Here is what I wrote last year at this time:

Goals for 2013-2014 School Year

1. Send home access to the final projects of at least two grade levels. (i.e. the songs that they record, etc.)

2. Post on professional blog (this one) at least once a month.

3. Have 5th Grade Students on edmodo from the beginning of the year.

4. Finish the school music page!!!!!!!!  (I've been slowly but surely getting this done, but I keep forgetting to finish)

Number 1: DID IT!!!  I posted the kids' final projects online at my school blog, and it was received very well by my parents, which made me super happy!!

Number 2: ........ nope.

Number 3: This started out well, but I admit that it fizzled out...  However, I think that I've figured out how to do similar things without the avenue of edmodo, which makes me happy!!

Number 4: This comes with a whole bunch of background to it, and I admit that it didn't get done... but the reasons were out of my control.

Now... with that said, new goals for the 2014-2015 school year:

1. Keep up with School Blog, posting at least once a week like last year!

2. Start posting at least once a month on professional blog.

3. Post all assessments self created on Mastery Connect for other teacher access.

4. Plan quarters at a time for grade levels, getting everything ready that is possible, including playlists, copying, etc.

So, there you have it, my first post of the new school year.  Next post will be about the AMAZING iPad app, iDoceo, which I plan on using all school year as my planning and grade book, and I'm super crazy excited about it based on all that I've been doing with it this summer in prep for the upcoming school year!

School Blog!!

So, this year, one of my other goals is to not only post on this blog, but post on a blog to my parents at school.  That means checking the "no list" for kids to be able to have pictures and things online, taking pictures all the time, and writing about our day to day in music.  This is something that I've been wanting to do for years, but didn't really have the drive to do it!!  Well, I started it, and I put it out there to parents, so now I'm posting away.  The blog is a launching site for communication with parents and a way for the kids to show off what they are doing in music class.  We are a very forgotten group of teachers in the grand scheme of things, so I thought that I would make us a little more noticeable.  Check out what I've posted so far to see if you can get some ideas for your own blog!

Music at TW

A new year!!

We can't believe that this school year is already here!  I'm kind of still in denial about the whole thing, wishing that next Monday I can hit my snooze button about fifteen times and act like I've got nowhere to be... but no such luck!!  What made the start a bit more rough is that the air conditioning in the school broke.  I don't claim to have it worse than any of you teachers who teach with absolutely no air all year, but it was rough... especially dancing around with the 1st graders and having sweat roll down my back.

We played various games on the first day of school and then went over rules and expectations for the rest of the time.  The biggest hit of the week though, was the classes that got to watch the video I saw someone post of the "Cup Song"... which is a fun song that all the kids know... I know the whiskey part is sketchy, but... I usually talk over them during that part so they don't hear it.  The kids thought this video was great though, so check it out!

Room for 2013-2014!!! We're ready to go!!!

Hello again!!  I thought that I would put up pictures of my room this year to show everyone what it looks like for 2013-2014!!!  So here goes:

Genres and the music word wall is featured on my cabinets this year!  The paw print will move to focus on a new word each week!

This is the back of the room and the seating for this year.  I decided to go with an unusual idea this year and put some chairs and tables in the room so the kids aren't met with just this huge open (wild) space!

Boomwhackers!!!! ... and the best little poster in the world from my friend Julie!

Here's the front of the room with books on the far right and computers on the far left.

This wall has their file folders for each grade level and the cutest decorations in the room!  Each year my Honor Choir does a festival and we get t-shirts, so I'm stapling the shirt to a canvas each year and adding more to the wall as we go!

This is where the kids' supplies are... clipboards, dry erase boards and markers, crayons, etc.... all within reach!

I've got a desk again!!!!  This is my own personal corner of the universe which features the Chicago Cubs, Chicago Blackhawks, a little Wicked, and other random fun things and of course Harm.... he's my beautiful Macbook Pro on the desk!

This is in the front of the classroom and has become my motto:  "Be a Problem Solver, Not a Problem Maker!!!"

And the last is a board in the front of the room that show just a few things right now... I would assume that more would be added in... right now it just shows the blog address for the kids, what their edmodo logins are going to be and a poster about tattling...

So there's my room for the year!!!  Now I'm off to work on the school music blog to show off for the parents!!  If you want to see what we are doing during the school year, check it out: Music At TW

More to add with Binder Organization

All right... here is another one.  As I'm putting my stuff together for my room, I'm realizing how much stuff I actually have.  I also realized that when I'm teaching during the year, I sometimes forget what I've got in my toolbox for teaching.  For that reason, I'm organizing my curricular tools into a certain format in my binders now.  A lot of you saw my binder system from a previous post, but I've decided to tweak that just a bit this year for ease.  Instead of creating the lesson plans for each year, I want to remind myself of the resources I have available to me.  So for each unit of the different grade levels I'm composing a list that follows this format (for example)

1st Grade Rhythms (tells the unit)

Rhythm Performance (1 on 1 Assessment) (gives the assessments of the unit and their format)
Rhythm Creation (P/P Test)
Rhythm Dictation (P/P Test)
Cabinet: (location of resource with list of items I can use - in this case filing cabinet)
     - Rhythm Baseball Cards
     - Rhythm Books on Binder Rings
     - Pool Noodles with Rhythm Symbols
     - Rhythm Train Cards
     - etc.
Music Library: (Kid Picture books I use to teach with)
Curriculum Pages: (Pages in the textbooks I can use to teach concepts with)
Worksheets/Other Print Sources: (This would be kept in the binder)
Teacher Computer: (Things like powerpoints or SMARTboard lessons I have saved)
Videos: (Web-based or saved to my school computer)
Web-Based Resources: (Websites with games or things I can use)

Now when you look at it, you might think that it is some serious micromanaging... which it is... in the beginning.  If you don't have any videos or books to go with a unit, don't include that topic.  My thoughts are this though... I'm only going to put resources on here that I have used or I want to try.  I can easily add new things to the list each year or take things away.  The best part is that when I go to plan out my unit, I know what I have.  I know that I have to assess them three different ways at the end of the unit.  I know that I have rhythm books available for them to use on their own.  I know the different games that I want to play with them, and I'll know what other resources will make up my unit.  Anyways, I thought this would be a helpful idea for those that look at their classroom and realize they have all these resources and don't remember what they have and don't have when they start their unit.