Lesson Plan: Back to School

I've seen many posts and questions about back to school, lesson planning and classroom management around the web.  Below is what I typically do for my first rotation of lessons with grades 2-5.  I call it "The Boring Stuff"(not my original idea, came from my supervising teacher).

I explain to the kids that we are going to do a lot of talking during this lesson and while it may seem boring, it's important because everything we talk about will help us work towards our goal of becoming Great Musicians.  The kids are usually okay with it, plus when I mention that I have a game for them at the end, they work hard and pay attention to the beginning of the lesson.

1. Welcome
Introduce myself, outline of what music is all about, quick tour of the room (bathroom, water fountain, etc.).

2. Rules
My rules are posted on the wall by my desk.  We echo clap through them.  After clapping them the first time, we go one rule at a time and discuss what each looks like in the music room.  We echo them again.  During the next rotation we will play a rhythm game with the rules as a review.  These rules were something Sandy Lantz shared during my Orff Level I.

3. Rewards/Consequences
I keep these two posters on my board throughout the year but during the first rotation they are front and center on my board.  We talk about the positive/negative behaviors that could result in rewards/consequences and what the results of our actions are.

4. Seats

I typically fill in my seating charts before the first rotation; usually while watching TV the weekend before school starts.  I'm pretty good at being able to separate my talkers and personalities that clash. Although it has worked, I found some problems with my system. We have had a more mobile community in the last year and my seating charts ended up being a sloppy mess because there were so many changes to class rosters and students who never returned to our school.  (Post on Seating Charts here.)

This year I'm going to assign seats during their first music class.  Upon entering the room I will hand each child a colored card (red, green, blue or black).  When it is time to assign seats, I will ask the kids with green to sit on the floor in front of the green riser.  Same goes for red and blue.  The kids with black cards may select any seat on any riser except the section leader seats (see post here on seat numbers).

After the kids with black paper have chosen their seats, I will place the rest of my students by the color paper they have received.  What I like about this system is I'm still able to seat students in a way that will be productive without making them feel like I'm completely dictating the arrangement.  It will feel more like chance to them.  I'll try and take pictures of the system during the first rotation.

5. Recorders (4 and 5 Only)
I always hand out recorder information during this lesson.  Since I advertise, collect money, place and sort the order, I want to start ASAP so that kids can have recorders in hand as early in the year as possible.  More on this soon.

6. Chorus (3, 4, 5 Only)
This is time for me to drum up interest in after school performing groups.  This year I'm only going to have chorus (more on that another time), so during the first lesson I will hand out Interest Meeting Flyers to any child who thinks they may want to be a part of this group.  Sorry to say this again, but more on this soon! :)

7. Grade Level Specific Activity
I plan some sort of name game for every grade during this first rotation.  It's important to get a musical activity going on after all this talking.  I want kids excited about coming back to my room for the next lesson and it's a refresher for me.  I always feel so badly about being rusty with names for the first month of school and these games definitely help me get back into the swing of things.

8. Lining Up
I'm changing my line up procedures, so I will make sure to save a good 5 minutes to go over this at the end of my lesson.  I'm planning on incorporating this resource I found through Pinterest.  I may not use them every time but it's always good to mix things up a bit.

I've created some homework for myself with this post and I will do my best to get more information about Chorus, Recorders, K/1 Back to School Lessons and much more up ASAP.  Hope this helps with your back to school planning.

Resource: The Singing Classroom

Have you ever picked up one of your resource books, looked at a lesson and thought "What does that mean?"  It happens to me every so often and sometimes it's not convenient to call or email a colleague to find out how to do a certain dance step.  I've often wished that I had some pictorial guide or video to watch in order to better understand how to play a game or do a dance.

https://www.thesingingclassroom.com/

TheSingingClassroom.com is a great new resource available to music educators that solves these problems.  Deborah Pasternack, a Kodaly and Orff certified educator, along with her husband have created an online collection of songs and games to use in the elementary classroom.  Each song has a detailed description of the activity, materials required, the recommended grade and the skills/concepts that can be taught using the song.  In addition to all of this wonderful information, there are videos and animations of the games being played and recommendations from Deborah on how to implement the lesson in your classroom!

Check out a sample lesson here:  https://www.thesingingclassroom.com/sample.html

After browsing the site, I have discovered that even more than video instructions, what I really needed was organization.  Once you have discovered a song or game that you LOVE in the collection, you can bookmark it so that you can easily access it when you need it.  The nice thing about being able to bookmark a song is you don't have to worry about carting a bag of resource books around with you.  If I know the song is bookmarked in my account, I can access it from anywhere I have internet.

It's fun watching the videos and thinking about using the lessons with my own students.  Right now there are just over 50 games/songs in the collection but it grows every week.  I look forward to emails letting me know that there is new content available.

This resource is available for a $12.95/month subscription fee.  Now, I know that may seem like a lot but there is new content added frequently, so it's like getting a bunch of resource books all at once.  I'm pretty cheap when it comes to purchasing resources; I want something that I know I will use and won't just sit on a shelf.  For me, this is something worth the investment.  Remember, PTO is always a great option for resources like this!

I am so excited about this site and using it to supplement my curriculum this year.  I've already bookmarked a number of songs and games to use with my kids!

Clap it, Play it, Think it!

This time of year is full of reflection.  I often catch myself thinking (mid-lesson mind you) "I need to do this again next year, it's really worked" or "I should have done this before moving on to this lesson".  While I don't want to rush past summer in any way, trust me, I find this reflection inspiring.  I get excited about how much I can improve my program the following year.

While I was teaching my 1st graders today I reflected on how well the simple concept of "Clap it, Play it, Think it" is.  This isn't something that takes long or that I use every lesson but man does it help hit all those different learning styles and help the kids understand the rhythmic concepts they are working on.

Clap it, Play it, Think it:
(I'm not sure who first introduced this to me but I know for sure it is not a new or earth shattering idea!)

Display rhythm cards.
T.  says (in rhythm) Saying only here we go.
S. say the rhythm
T. says Clap and Say here we go.
S. clap and say the rhythm
T. says Clapping only here we go.
S. clap the rhythm.
These 3 steps should be done with the same rhythm before moving on to the next.

As I was reflecting, I realized this is something that I do with my 1st graders often but not the older kids!  I'm not sure why but I definitely need to incorporate it into my lessons with the older kids more often.

3rd Grade Compositions

Every year I like to give each grade level composition experiences.  Whether it is group, centers, or individual experiences with composing, I find that it is so impactful.  You can see students putting everything together.  It's the light bulb moment.

In 3rd grade we have talked a lot about time signature, bar lines, measures, note/rest values, etc.  To wrap up the year, I gave my students a chance to compose within guidelines.

I gave each student a small piece of paper (I use colored copy paper cut into quarters).  We review what a measure is and discuss that they will be composing a measure of music in 4/4 time.  Their paper represents the measure, so they don't need to worry about bar lines (for now anyways!).  Before composing I give them a list of notes/rest they can use.  Here are their choices:

• Beamed Eighth Notes
• Quarter Notes
• Half Notes
• Quarter Rests
• Half Rests

Although they already know whole notes/rests I leave these out because they are too easy for a one measure composition.

After composing their measure, I give each student a number (1-4) and ask them to keep it on their fingers.  I use 1-4 because it means ultimately my groups will end with 4-5 kids.  Once every student has their number, I ask them to move to specified locations around my classroom.  After everyone is seated with their group I explain that they will be arranging their measures into a longer composition.

I show them how to place them in 1-4 measure order.  Step 1 is to decide on an arrangement.  They may not pick one until I have seen them playing it together.  Once they have decided, they raise their hands to let me know.  I then tape the composition together and have them move on to Step 2.  In the second step they need to practice in order to play their composition together.  I have them play the entire thing together because I want them to have a longer reading experience.

After completing Step 2, students raise their hands again to let me know they are ready to move on.  Step 3 is picking an instrument to perform on.  Most pick drums but every once in a while some rhythm sticks or boomwhackers sneak their way into a performance.  Step 4 is practicing the composition with instrument.

After everyone has practiced playing their composition with instruments, we perform for each other.

The final step is transferring our composition to traditional notation.  We add the time signature, bar lines and an ending.

This takes a full lesson to complete (45 min.).  In another lesson, we will extend our composition by adding melody and use it as a notation activity with the staff.

12th Street Rag

As I have said before, I LOVE GamePlan.  While I don't use it exclusively to teach my kids, I do enjoy many of the lessons and games.  One I have used this year was from the 3rd Grade Book.  The lesson is playing rhythms along to 12th Street Rag (Rhythmically Moving 5).  My kids have always loved this and it was a great way to reinforce rhythm patterns, especially the whole rest.

This year when I taught the lesson, I added my own twist.

Lesson:

• Review known notes and rests using people rhythms. 
• Look at the form (Randy and Jeff have a nice visual for this in their curriculum.)
• Review Intro, Interlude, Coda
• Have a student perform the A section rhythm pattern.
• Class echoes
• Repeat with B, C, and D.
• Perform along with recording of 12th Street Rag (clap patterns)                                              (After performing the first time through, I add my twist.)
• Divide students up into 4 groups.
• Assign each group a section of the piece.
• Groups have 5-7 minutes to create a movement that can be performed using the rhythm from their section.
• Have each group demonstrate movement.
• Play music, each group performs during their section.

I have found that this twist on the lesson really helps the kids with playing the rhythms accurately.  They can create and discuss among themselves what works and why.  I find these more independent moments are when the light bulbs go off.  I wish I had video of the lesson in action!  It's interesting to see how the kids discuss and play with the idea of how to interpret a whole note with movement.  I hear them saying things like "What if we bounced our hand four times like this!"  "No, that's more like quarter notes."

Another addition I have made to this lesson is playing instruments.  I didn't include them this time but rhythm sticks are nice.  I like this instrument choice because it isn't a heavy sound, so you can still actually hear the recording and playing whole and half notes are accessible.  When students have one smooth and one bumpy stick, they can scrape the sound of the half/whole notes.  This gives them a feeling of how long the notes last.

Talent Day

Over Thanksgiving break I happened across a post by Jennifer at In My Music Class about Talent Days.  I loved the idea and wanted to incorporate this idea into my classroom.  So for the past week or so, my kiddos have been sharing their talents during our lessons.  This has been a great addition to our MIOSM celebration this year!

I've been surprised!  I wasn't sure what to expect since this is the first time I've had kids share their talent in this format but my kids have done an outstanding job.  My 1st graders have been super sweet helping each other perform.  I have had many an improvised performance, as well as some rehearsed.  You know "Chopsticks" taught by Grandma.  :)  My 2nd graders have been very proud to sing songs from their Patriotic Performance (the 2nd grade team does this performance each year and it is so sweet!).  3rd grade seems obsessed with dancing while 4th grade is obsessed with recorder.  My 5th graders have been the toughest group, you know they are very cool at this point in the year.

I think the best thing about this has been seeing my kids support each other.  We have 3 self contained ESE units at my school and even though I stressed the importance of our yellow rule, be respectful, I was a bit nervous about how my kids would react to a couple of our performers.

One 3rd grader, who is bigger than me (she looks like she could be in 7th grade), chose to dance for us.  While for me, it was a beautiful childlike performance I knew it would be hard for my 3rd grade group to understand.  She had no music to dance to but that didn't matter.  Her eyes were closed as she spun and shook her hips to the music in her mind.  To my surprise, no one laughed or made a face.  They sat so politely and at the end roared with applause!  Kids are amazingly kind and understanding.  It was one of those special moments!

After those who wanted had performed, we wrote performance reviews.  We only had enough time for the kids to write one each, so I made sure to write one for every child who performed.  The kids loved reading the reviews written by their friends.  See the form below!

You can request this document in the Freebies section of my blog.

Solos

In Kindergarten we sing solos during every music class and the fuzzy ball is one of my favorite tools for encouraging kids to sing.  After we sing our hello song, I sing the Question of the Day.  This rotation I am singing "Who is someone that you love?" using SM.  After singing the question I say think of one person and give me a thumbs up when you've got it.  (This step saves me from hearing a million answers shouted at me.)

I have these in several colors.  Oh My Gosh do they get 

excited when we use their favorite color fuzzy ball.

Once I see the majority of thumbs up, I randomly (well it's not completely random, I never start with a shy kid) toss the ball to a kid who sings their answer in a sentence.  I'm not specific about how the sentence is constructed because this gives the kids a chance to improvise.  When they are finished, they toss it back and I go on to the next kid.  The whole activity takes about 3-5 minutes.  I really love having them all sing a solo each time because I end up with more confident 1st, 2nd, ..... grade students.

I find that holding onto the ball is comforting to some kids.  They can squeeze it or stare at it to help give them a bit of extra courage.  I do have 2 little friends in Kindergarten that are Selective Mute and 3 in our school this year.  Here is a bit of the process I've gone through in working towards singing by themselves.

• Our first solo is singing our name.  For kids who are shy or are unable to sing their name, the class will sing their name.
• Usually our second solo is our favorite color.  I would have the child point to the color somewhere in the room.  Class sings the solo.
• Once we get into favorite animal, candy, etc.  They can whisper in a friends ear.  The class sings the solo.

Next time, my friends are going to whisper in my ear (fingers crossed).  I have noticed it helps if I tell them ahead of time what I would like.  It seems to give them some time to process and prepare for the experience.  What I have noticed is now they are volunteering to lead in ways that don't use their voice, which is a big step.  The key is to be patient and take baby steps.

Popsicle Stick Rhythms

There is a lot I like about Game Plan but Popsicle Stick Rhythms is one of my favorite activities.  It's so easy to do and my 1st graders love manipulating the sticks into a given rhythm.

An adaptation I have made to my sticks are magnets.  I used a bit of magnetic tape on the back so that I would be able to demonstrate how to use them before handing a set off to my students.

I start this activity with reading notation.  I draw 4 beats on the board (I really like to do this because it helps emphasize the space that quarters/eighths take up.) and then explain that I'm going to use my popsicle sticks to write a rhythm pattern.  

I notate a pattern and then ask my students to clap and say the rhythm.  After doing a few, I switch gears into notation.  I remove all of the sticks from the beats and play a rhythm while tracking the beat on the board.  I find that tracking the beat more accurately helps them identify which beat had two sounds.  Eventually I take this away but during the first attempt it seems helpful.

After working together to decode a few patterns on the board, I pass out sets of sticks to every child.  

I have snack size bags with 8 popsicle sticks and they are sorted by color.  Each team gets the color that matches their riser.  Once they have their sticks, I allow them to spread out around the front of the room so that they will have space to notate.

I found my popsicle sticks at Michaels and I want to say they were between $8 and $10 dollars for a ridiculously large package.  !!!WARNING!!!  The first time I used mine, my kids hands turned the color of their sticks, particularly those with extra sweaty palms.  Even after having them wash their hands it did not come right off.  I felt horrible but this effect does wear off.  After the first few classes, hands stopped changing colors.  If this is something you don't want to worry about, you could just buy the natural popsicle sticks.

Everybody Make An.....

You may have happened across this absolutely adorable video on Pinterest.

After watching it and thinking how stinking cute those little voices were, I decided I had to try it out with my own Kindergartners.  I always include a solo singing opportunity during my K lessons, so this week instead of doing our Question of the Day, we started playing this game.

Before we learned the song, we took a look at the letters on the board and practiced making them with our rhythm sticks.  I had already listed the letters that are possible on the board so that we would just have to practice making them.  Here are our letters and what they look like with rhythm sticks.

A, F, H

I, K, L

N, T, V

X, Z

If you try this song, you will probably want to preface this activity with a disclaimer about not having all of the parts of the letters but the basic shape.  Otherwise, you are going to here "but what about the middle line in the A", "we could use the line on the rug", "but I don't have a line in front of me!"  It could be earth shattering to a Kindergartner and, yeah, I didn't think about that one the first time through this lesson.  :)  If they really can't get past it, they can use their arm to make the other part of the letter.

After we practiced our letters, we moved, with our rhythm sticks in park, and made a circle around the rug.  Then I asked them to be my echo.  This lesson we only focused on the singing portion, next time we will add the spoken part and discuss the contrasting voices.  After echoing a few letters and making them in front of us, we went around the circle and each child got to be the leader.

They loved this!!!

We finished our lesson by creating a soundscape to go along with Chicka Chicka Boom Boom.  This is a great story to practice playing up/down, high/low sounds.

Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear

Happy New Year!  Two weeks off, holiday celebrations, and time with family really helps rejuvenate the soul.  I had an amazing start to my winter break.  At around 11:40pm, Friday Dec. 21st, the last day of school in my district, my beautiful niece was born!  We are so in love with her and are excited about being "Tia y Tio" (Aunt and Uncle) for the first time.  I hope you all had a restful winter break and are refreshed and ready to make more wonderful music with your little ones.

No matter how I prepare before a long break I always come back in a fog.  It takes me half the day before I feel like I'm back in the swing of things.  In my fog, I almost forgot to pull out my Teddy Bear masks!  The song alone is fun but teddy bear masks or masks of any kind always make things better.  :) The mask idea came from a lesson that Sandy and Gretchen shared during my Level I.

Process:
1. SM warm-up
2.  Isolate Teddy Bear
3.  Add body percussion - we ususally settle on clap-clap pat, clap-clap pat
4.  S. sing Teddy Bear w/ Body Percussion, T. sings teddy movements and demonstrates
5.  Discuss what Teddy does
6.  S. sing Teddy w/ Body Percussion and perform Teddy movements, T. sings teddy movements
7.  Discuss order of Teddy movements and lead students to discover rhyming words.
8.  S. sing and perform whole song with body percussion and movement
9.  Divide group in two and perform:  half get masks, half get unpitched percussion
10.  Switch

This lesson leads to others where we decode the melody and rhythm of the teddy bear phrase, I'll try and remember to post about them later.

In case you aren't familiar with this song, I found the notation on Beth's Music Notes.  If you haven't checked our her blog, you should.  Click here to visit her site!

These masks were a bit time consuming because I made 10 but they are very durable and so cute!  We are lucky enough to have a cut out machine at our school that I was able to use for the shape of the head.  If you don't have one of these machines, I would suggest making a template out of cardboard first.  You could find an image and trace it onto the poster/cardboard using a projector or draw it free hand.

Once I had the heads, I filled in the gaps using some colored construction paper and cut out little eye wholes.  I found sunglasses in the dollar section at Target but I imagine the dollar store would be another good place to look for them. I used hot glue to attach them to the back.  I had mine laminated at Office Max because they have really nice heavy duty lamination.  I like to use them for all my lamination and color printing needs.  They can be a bit pricey but they have teacher discounts, the staff is usually knowledgeable and the quality of the printing and lamination seems to be a bit better than the other office supply stores.

Jingle Bell Dance

The other morning I had to suddenly change my plans for Kindergarten because I had forgotten that the class I was going to see that day were my Spotlight Performers (a monthly featured class).  I could have taught my planned lesson but it would not have been great for film, so I decided to swap it with the lesson for the next rotation, Jingle Bells.

After settling on doing Jingle Bells with them, I decided why don't we do a dance!  Great for steady beat, and same/different.  So, I quickly came up with a dance to go with the version of Jingle Bells I had (Frank Sinatra).  Using this video as inspiration, I created a little dance for us to do.

Since I was planning on doing this with Kindergarten, I made some changes.  We really have not done any dances before, I thought a circle would be a bit much.  Can you imagine it?  I could see kindergarteners crashing into each other while others called out "No go that way" "Nu-uh that way".  :)  So, instead we used scattered formation.  

The Frank Sinatra recording is a bit different than the one in Dr. Amchin's video, so here is what I did with my little ones.

Formation:  Scattered

Introduction - Still for 8 beats

32 beats - sway hips from side to side (This one gives me the giggles.  If you try it you'll see what I mean!)

Jingle Bells - same as in the video, play the rhythm of the words, then walk hand in hand with your partner to the beat in any direction, repeat 

32 beats - sway hips again

Wave Goodbye

I am sure this is probably not the most fantastic dance out there but the kids enjoyed it, great practice of steady beat and it didn't take long to teach.  We were able to learn the dance and do half of the lesson I had originally planned.  

If I had more time to work on it, I probably would go ahead and do the circle.  I think my K kids could handle it with more time but this was one of those last minute things.

First Grade: Thanksgiving Rhythms

I wasn't planning on doing much with my 1st grade class today because they had gotten ahead of the other classes and it was their Thanksgiving Feast, so I figured they would be wound up.  But, then I realized it was my gifted class and I thought showing a video would be more work than just doing a lesson with them, so spur of the moment this is what I decided to do.

I had seen this worksheet pinned (it's a free download from Teacher's Pay Teacher's):

I like this worksheet a lot but I hadn't planned this out, so I didn't have copies and didn't have time to download it.  Plus, this may have been a bit over my 1st graders heads.  So, instead of 2 beat rhythms, we simplified to words that matched Ta and a column of words that matched ti-ti.  

I was impressed with the words they came up with, especially Mayflower.  It took a bit of prompting but they discovered that it combined the two note values.  Now, this was my Gifted 1st grade group, so I'm not sure this would have worked quite as well with my other classes.  

Once we had our lists, we used white boards and in pairs created 8 beat rhythm patterns.  They could use any of the words they wanted but they had to make sure and practice clapping their rhythm.  After about 6 minutes of writing and clapping, we performed our rhythm patterns for each other.  

Afterwards, I recorded a few of the groups performing their patterns.  What was great is some of them were already trying to use ta and ti-ti instead of the words to read the patterns.  

Take a look at the first pattern in the video.  These girls used Mayflower and figured out on their own that it would take up two beats.  I thought that was pretty spectacular for 1st graders!

Pease Porridge: 1st Grade

There are a few of those poems and songs that I use across grade levels and Pease Porridge is one of them.  I have posted a 3rd grade Pease Porridge lesson and this lesson is one I did recently with 1st grade.

We reviewed the poem from Kindergarten while keeping the steady beat.  I told them we were going to be detectives and decode the rhythm of the poem.  (EXCITING!)  They helped me keep the beat while I notated ta on the board.  Once I had notated the beat for all 3 phrases it was time to decode.

I have got to remember to write things lower!  I'm a little dense and keep doing it, so I bought a little green stool so that my poor little ones can reach.  You would think that after 6 years I would have figured it out.  BTW...is that not the cutest little bow!

We started by finding the silent beats and replacing ta with a rest.  Once that was complete we moved onto beats with two sounds.  Finally we played the rhythm of the whole thing using the words of the poem and ta's and ti-ti's.  They loved this and it didn't take long to do.  I'm sure you could extend this activity with instruments and in other ways but for this lesson it was enough.

People Rhythms

People Rhythms are one of my favorite ways to help kids with visualizing rhythm.  What I have found is kids have a really hard time understanding that eighth notes are 2 sounds on one beat and this, plus repeating the definition, really helps.

I have a stack of carpet squares that I picked up from a design center that was closing.  They were completely free and I use them all the time; sometimes for a friend who needs a defined space to stay within, other times for bass xylophone players to sit back on between songs.  There are many options but I always have a set of four at the front of the room for rhythm activities.

Recently, we used them to discover two sounds on a beat.  I play the rhythm of the words in a song that we are working on (this time Big Black Cats from First Grade Game Plan) and lead the kids in discovering the rhythm.  I allow students to come up and gently rearrange the rhythm until we have matched it to the song.  The kids love being a part of the people rhythm and reading people rhythms.

I have also used these carpet squares for carpet rhythms.

The Woodwind Family

I have mentioned before that I have been doing a unit on Woodwind Instruments with my 2nd graders but I thought I would create a post that compiles all of the resources I have been using for this unit.

I like to use the Dallas Symphony Orchestra's website for recordings.  They have done a great job of recording each instrument playing Twinkle, Twinkle and an orchestral excerpt.

www.dsokids.com

Some of the images of the instruments on DSO's site are great examples but others run on the small side; even when projected onto the screen in my classroom.  In these instances, I use my Peter and the Wolf signs.  I made these a few years ago for a fun Peter and the Wolf lesson and I can easily project the name and image of the instrument from my doc cam.

I give my students an experience with a famous piece for each instrument we learn about.  For the oboe, we listened to the Afternoon of a Faun, the bassoon Peer Gynt, etc.  I display a picture of the composer on the screen with their name and the name of the famous piece.  Depending on the instrument and piece, we may also do a listening/movement activity.

Students take notes on each instrument and the famous piece it is featured in.  Here are some images of their notes.

They aren't anything fancy but they help the kids keep the information organized.  I think the part that has been the most impactful is drawing the instruments.  I make sure to emphasize some of the physical features of the instruments like the bocal on the bassoon, the difference in bell size of the clarinet and the oboe to help them distinguish between the instruments.  My kids have been easily able to discuss the differences when we played our review game.

Our notes only take about 5-8 minutes at the beginning of the lesson.  These sheets have a backside with more boxes to take notes on other instruments.  I leave drawing the instruments for when we have extra time.  Some lessons there may not be anytime to draw instruments but other days they may have time to draw 2.  It just depends on the class and the day and sometimes my mood!  :)

Another thing I like to do when I have extra time is play videos of the instruments we are learning about.  I posted these videos in October.  If you have an oboe or clarinet video you like, please share it in the comment section of this post.

There are a lot of things I don't mind getting behind on because I know I can catch up.  But, when I have a sub one thing that I do let them teach is the instrument.  I have them read from "The Story of the Orchestra" by Robert Levine.  There is great information and pictures in this book.  It's not just great for a sub, I like to read from it as well!

The Story of the Orchestra on Amazon

It's the end of the first quarter, so we have been playing Jeopardy as a review.  My kids LOVE this!  It only takes about 20 minutes to play, so it doesn't take up my whole lesson.  It has definitely been worthwhile to take the time and play the game before moving onto the next instrument family.  I found my Jeopardy template on Powerpoint Games website.  There are a few things I'm not crazy about, like the text colors and size, but for a free template it works!  The template on their site is blank, so you could use it to create a review game for any concept you are working on.

Each team gets a sound effect instrument (use 3 different timbres).  The team to buzz in first gets to answer the question (I don't care if they answer in the form of a question).  If they answer correctly, they get the points.  If not, the other teams can steal.  If no one gets the answer correct, then no one gets the points.

I play in 3 teams because of my seating arrangement.  After each question the instrument is passed to the next team member so that everyone gets a chance to represent their team.  After buzzing in I give the team a few seconds to discuss their answer.  For the listening examples, I make them wait to buzz in until I have given them a thumbs up or stopped the recording.  If you don't specify, no one will be able to hear because the kids will be buzzing in.

Tips:  
-Try and provide as many real examples as you can.  I brought in my flute and it gave my kids a much better perspective when it came to the size and shape of the instrument.  Videos are also great for this.
-Buy a few reeds.  I have examples of clarinet and bassoon reeds and I'm hoping to collet others.
-Provide multiple listening examples.  The more the kids hear these instruments the better.

This 9 weeks we will be working on our next instrument family.  Here is a preview:

3rd Grade: Pease Porridge

The first quarter seems to be mostly review for my kids.  There are a few new things I introduce but more of it is content that we started last year and I find slightly more challenging activities.  This past rotation we reviewed downbeat, bar lines, and measures in 3rd grade.

After working to figure out where the strong beats were in the poem and adding the bar lines, we used body percussion to practice 4 different instrument parts.  For this lesson, I used a SMD melody so that we could review singing these patterns, finding them on the barred instruments and in some classes notating them on the staff (this was an extension that I did not have time for with all classes this rotation).

Melody:
Pease Porridge Hot  Rest  Pease Porridge Cold Rest Pease Porridge in the pot nine days old Rest
S        MM       S               S        MM        S              S        MM       S  S   M   S     M     D

Snap to show the strong beats.
Pat to show where the quarter rests are.
Clap the rhythm of the words.
Sign the SMD pattern in the melody.

Formation:  Seated Circle

I set the instruments we were using around my staff rug.  We used xylophones (SMD), lollipop drums (strong beat), triangles (rests) and rhythm sticks (rhythm).  We transferred the parts to each instrument and then played them altogether while singing the melody.  We rotated clockwise one instrument, reviewed the parts and performed it again.  This process was continued until everyone had a chance to experience playing each part.

First Grade Lesson: Up and Down

I don't feel that this lesson is earth shattering or innovative but it worked.  The kids were successful, it was a great review and it was a lot of fun.

1.  Hello Song (3 min.)
 - We do this at the beginning of every class with steady beat movements.  I will probably continue it through the first quarter before picking a new hello song, just to keep things fresh.

2.  Sing Me Your Name  (7 min.)
- I demonstrate how my voice can move up and down by singing a simple SM phrase "Sing Me Your Name".  What's very cute is how all of the kids kind of move their head up and down slightly with me. Then we practice the answer together "My Name is ______" and everyone fills in the blank.  After we practice I go around the room and each student gets to sing solo into the magic microphone.

3.  Moving Up and Down (3 min.)
-This week I had my flute with me, so I played scale patterns up and down and the students responded with movement.  I really liked how this worked.  While I have done this with my students before, I really liked how playing the patterns on the flute made them listen carefully.  When I play a barred instrument or the piano they can see my hands and respond to the direction I move my hands.  Some of the students aren't truly listening.  I will have to remember this in future years.

4.  Playing Up and Down (10 min.)
-In K we learned how to play upwards and downwards glissandi on the glockenspiel.  We reviewed mallet technique and what bar to start on to play up/down.  Then we moved to the floor, seated in 6 lines.  I would say up or down and the person at the glockenspiel would play 1 up/down glissandi.

5.  Hickory Dickory Dock (Idea from Game Plan) (3 min.)
-We have used this poem during the previous 2 lessons moving our voice up and down like the mouse in the poem.  We played up/down sounds on the words in the poem during this lesson.

6.  Mortimer (Mallet Madness) (12 min.)
-If you have not checked out Artie's Mallet Madness, you definitely should!  I love this little story (it reminds me of my brother when he was 2).  For the first reading the kids sang along with me and showed a thumbs up/down for the sounds I was making with my voice.  Afterwards we played up/down sounds on the glockenspiels to help tell the story.  You can find more details in Artie's book.

Name that Note: Staff Review

I have been doing a bit of staff review during each lesson with 5th grade and this week I included a new variation on an old game.  We have played Name that Note as a class, around the world style, in centers, etc.  Today I didn't want to spend a lot of time playing the game because we had other things to move on to like "Play Me Maybe!" so, we played it game show style.

I gave each team an unpitched percussion instrument (conga shaker, jingle bell, large maraca).  I would toss a bean bag on the staff rug and students would buzz in to answer.  The first to buzz in answered.  If they got it correct, their team got the point.  If not, the 2nd team to ring in could steal it.  This was easy to play, fast and we only had to do 8 rounds at most before the game was done.  I think I spent 7 min. from introducing the game to concluding it.

The kids were actually disappointed when they didn't get a second chance to answer for their team.  I will definitely have to play this again when we have spare time and it may even be something I can leave for a sub during a planned absence.

Play Me Maybe!

I was looking for a fun way to continue reviewing the staff with my 4th/5th graders and I happened across a pin from Elementary Music 3T.  I tried it out today with my kids and they loved it!!!

I found that this was a great way to reinforce the name of the Treble/G clef with my students.  With my 4th graders we only focused on playing the verse because we are still learning the staff.  I don't introduce students to reading the staff this way until 4th grade.  In 3rd, I focus on solfege, skips, steps, pitch direction, etc., so today was my 4th graders first opportunity to read line notes in a piece of music.

For 5th grade, this ended up being a great review of the notes we have already learned on recorder.  We played the verse on xylos and the refrain on glocks.  I did make a change to fit the video I had of this song.  When I tried out the refrain before my classes arrived it didn't quite fit with the version I had.  So, I altered it to B-G-G, G-D-D.  That may not work with the recording you have but it fit with what I was working with.

My boys, who were skeptical at the on set of the lesson were jamming along by the end.  When we were lining up one of my 5th grade boys said "That was fun, still don't like the song, but it was a fun lesson!".

I think I will extend this lesson when we start recorders.  This would be fun to play along with!  I'll let you know how that goes.  :)

Seven Blind Mice Lesson

Earlier this month I posted a request for ideas on how to use the book Seven Blind Mice by Ed Young. I guess there aren't many of you out there who have used this book before, so I had to brainstorm.  I tried out a lesson with my 1st graders today, and it was a lot of fun!  This was just a portion of my mouse themed lesson.

After reading the story (I did this in line during my last rotation in anticipation of using the book), I introduced this cute little refrain.

A Something?  A Something?
What could it be?
A Something?  A Something?
We'll go and we'll see!

After echoing to learn we discussed that "to see" doesn't always mean see with your eyes, since after all these little mice are blind.  To refresh their memories, I read the story and we spoke the refrain before each mouse said what he thought the something was.  This was a great opportunity to work on dynamic contrast.  We started the poem very softly and then crescendoed through the 3rd and 4th lines.

When we had finished the second reading.  I told my kiddos that we were going to tell the story again but that I wanted to use instruments to help.  We listed the things the mice thought the "Something" was on the board.  Then I pulled out a basket of instruments I had selected for the story:

wood block
jingle bells
maracas
conga shakers
large hand drums
guiro
triangle

I find it is easier to give 1st graders a limited number of instruments to select from.  If left it up to any instrument in the room it may take the whole class just to select sounds that represent each part of the story.

I demonstrated each instruments sound and then we discussed which instrument fit best with each item in the story.  I was actually surprised by some of their decisions.  They decided that the guiro sounded like a cliff because it makes a sound like you are climbing one step at a time up the cliff.  After assigning each instrument a part in the story, I distributed the instruments.  We sat in 6 rows and each student in the row had an instrument assigned to a part in the story.  When their part came, I cued them and then cut them off so that the story could continue.

We told the story again with the refrain and instrument sound effects.  It was truly a pleasurable experience, smiles all around!

I did this lesson in 20 minutes which is a little than less than half of my class.  Now I had read the story previously, so we were able to move a bit more quickly but if you were limited on time, you could just use this story as a way to experience dynamic contrast.  You could split it up between two classes, there are many options.

I hope you like this lesson and use this book in your classroom, it really is a cute story!  If you do decide to try out this lesson, let me know how it goes or any changes you make to fit your kids.  :)