Three Things {Kindergarten movement, a book, and a dance!}

Three Things {Kindergarten movement, a book, and a dance!}

Hi everyone! I'm excited to start a new linky party today, called "Three things." I'm going to blog about three things that worked really well for my students this past week...things that were magical, that they beg to do again, etc. I am hoping to do this every Sunday afternoon as a way to share great activities. If you are a music blogger, and would like to link up with your three things, see the directions at the end of this post. Thanks to Whimsy Workshop Teaching, Kimberly Geswein fonts, and Jax and Jake for the cute clip art and fonts!

#1: Kindergarten movement activity

As many of you know, Kindergarteners are a bit different to teach than any other grade level! They sometimes have a hard time sitting still, so I try to add movement activities pretty often throughout the lesson. One of my favorites, especially at the beginning of the year, is simply to have them find their own self space around the room and make a statue. Then when I say a movement word like "walk," "jog," "crawl," "skip," "gallop," etc., they do that, but when I play the finger cymbals or triangle, they have to freeze like a statue! The kids love this, and it's a great way to practice gross motor movement! (I model how to skip, gallop, etc. before we do the activity.) To make it more challenging, you could have two different instruments, like a wood block and finger cymbals, and you play both, but they only freeze when they hear the finger cymbals! For more tips about teaching Kindergarten music, see this blog post.

#2: "Tap that magic tree" by Christie Matheson

This book is truly magical! I use it after students sing and play "Apple Tree." On each page, students have to do something, like blow a kiss to the tree, knock on the tree, tap the petals, etc., to get something to happen on the next page. I did this with first grade, and they were SO excited to get a chance to knock, to touch, to blow a kiss, etc.! You can purchase the book by clicking on the picture above.

#3: I love a rainy night

Last year, for my 5th grade program, I had them perform a line dance for the song "I love a rainy night," which I learned about from Sanna Longden's folk dance book, "More folk dance music for kids and teachers." You can view it by clicking on the picture below:

You can also see the dance directions here.

My fifth graders last year absolutely LOVED this dance, which uses the song by Eddie Rabbitt. I decided I had to do the dance with every fifth grade class I have until I retire, because c'mon, you know it's a good dance when fifth graders beg to do it! I taught it this last week, and one of the kids yelled out, "That was FUN!" and another kid yelled out, "That was like being at the beach!" 

A dance that is like being at the beach? Yes, let's do that again!

I also love that is easy to learn; some of the line dances for this song I saw online would be tricky to teach to fifth grade, but the dance in Sanna's book is both interesting yet accessible.

For your listening enjoyment, here is "I love a rainy night." Listen and imagine a line dance to this. It really is that awesome!

Make sure to read the ideas of others by clicking below! Happy teaching!

An InLinkz Link-up

YouTube videos for music teachers

YouTube videos for music teachers

Hi everyone! I've been having fun posting YouTube videos to my YouTube channel lately, so I thought I'd share some videos here in this post in case you hadn't seen them! If you haven't subscribed to my YouTube channel, you can do it by clicking the link above or clicking on the YouTube button on the right side of my blog.

Here is a new video I just posted with a tour of my music room. To see more pictures and explanations, see this blog post.

Here's a video I posted about lesson planning:

Watch this video to learn about creating song lists:

This video is about creating song indexes...

...and this video is about creating year plans:

This video showcases one of my favorite folk dances, "Dandiya Raas." My Level I students from last year at DePaul were kind enough to agree to be recorded! Check out this blog post for more details about the dance, and to watch two other song/ dance videos:

Let me know if there is anything else you'd like me to record. Enjoy!

Classroom Reveal {2015-2016}

Classroom Reveal {2015-2016}

I'm really excited to link up with Tracy King from Mrs. King Rocks to blog about what's on my wall and in my classroom!

Here is a view of the first part of my classroom; I chose a jungle theme for my classroom this year! I'm really, really lucky to have a fairly large space in my classroom. I have been in other situations, with itty-bitty rooms, and appreciate the large space I now have! I like to label all of my drawers to I remember what's in them...I have so many that otherwise I'd forget! The bins you see on the left of the picture are used for my grade-level materials; you can read a post about that here.

Here is a close-up of my word wall. I decided this year to try a word wall by grade (suggested by my friend Nyssa Brown, who is a phenomenal educator; check out her blog here). I've been putting up the words as we learn them instead of having them listed alphabetically. You can purchase my jungle-themed set, which includes my word wall, here.

The recorder printables are a fun way to internalize concepts and skills for recorder; you can purchase them from Teaching in Tune here.

My levels of understanding posters help students assess their own learning; they are included in my jungle-themed set. The idea of the partner poster is that students can go to the poster if they can't find a partner, and then solve the problem of no partner by partnering up with someone there! You can download it for free here.

I have to admit...this is a Pinterest-inspired idea! I took zebra-patterned duct tape and applied to my file cabinet! Easy and cute!

The three chairs are my time-out chair, the ready chair students can go to after they have thought about their choices, and my special chair students sometimes get as a reward after they are a star student. One of their favorite rewards to sit in this chair during music class!

Here is my "Wild about Beethoven" bulletin board. I am doing composer of the month this year (using this set) and am using the bulletin board to teach students about composers each month! (And I have to say, I was VERY excited when I realized I had a cartridge for my Cricut with Beethoven's signature!!!) You can find this bulletin board (minus the Cricut letters) in this set as well as the growing bundle.

Here is another bulletin board, called "Bananas about music"! You can find it in my jungle-themed set.

And here is my last bulletin board, in the hallway; it is from Amy Abbott's "We are the music makers" set; I love how bright and colorful it is!

I got the idea for my mallet jars from two sources: the ribbons around the mason jars from Pinterest, and the mallets in the jars from my former colleague Clinton. I love how organized the mallets are instead of just shoved into a drawer, and the jars were super easy to decorate! Of course, the idea could be applied to any theme!

I have these instrument rules posters by Cori Bloom posted by my Orff instruments. Love the idea of having rules just for the Orff instruments!

These bookcases are new for me this year. I needed a place to store my interactive journals (and please, ignore the fact that unfinished wood is on top. I'm not the best at putting things together...and these were actually supposed to be twice as tall!) The magazine files can be found here at IKEA; here is my 3rd grade interactive journal and my 4th grade interactive journal (I'll be blogging more about  using those in my classroom soon!) I found the notebooks at Target for 17 cents each...woo hoo!

I just posted this on my wall...love it! I have added woodwind, strings, percussion, and brass visuals to my jungle-themed set; if you've already purchased, you can re-download under "my purchases"!

Here is a view of the area students face as I am teaching. I have my agenda (templates can be found here), with my "I can" statements, posted on my SMART board. My hand signs are posted to the left of my board, and my musical symbol wall is posted to the left of the hand signs. I find the symbol wall a great way for students to apply what they've learned from me to the "real" musical names! My rules, the symbol visuals, and the hand signs are included in my jungle-themed set.

I was inspired to get this tree (from my local teacher store) from a customer named Dana who bought a very similar tree and posted one of my bulletin board sets in the branches. Here is her pic of her classroom...beautiful!

 I loved the idea, but instead of posting the bulletin board set, I'm having some of my star students put their names on the leaves. The containers to the left of the tree are for the fourth graders' recorders.

Here is another Pinterest-inspired idea; I used two different types of zebra-patterned duck tape to decorate my stool! (Lots of compliments from my students on this one!)

I would use this staff board for writing on the staff...but it is behind the students, and I have a SMART board, so instead I use it for restroom numbers and classroom jobs! The area to the right has jungle animal magnets that students can move when they go to the restroom or the nurse (see the post I wrote about that process here); the second picture is a close-up of the animals, which I bought at Michael's. My classroom jobs help me assign students jobs for each month and make my classroom more efficient; you can see my set here.

Here's another view with my new zebra lanterns up!

Here is a picture of my bookcase; the labels help me as I'm looking for resources!

I had fun decorating AND revealing my classroom! Click on any of the pictures below to either see blog posts by other music bloggers with what's on their walls, or to see sets that you can decorate your classroom with! Have fun! And feel free to comment below with what's on your wall!

An InLinkz Link-up

Lesson Planning Tips

Lesson Planning Tips

I hope you are all either enjoying the start of your school year or enjoying the last days of your summer! I just started school yesterday and it's been wonderful! Even though I will miss staying at home with my girls, I was reminded how much I enjoy teaching, and how much I enjoyed seeing the kids!

Now that I'm getting back into the swing of things, I thought I'd write a blog post with links and information for lesson planning.

Here is a video I just put together on YouTube about lesson planning. I hope it's helpful!

Here is a blog post I wrote about planning for your Kindergarten lessons...

...and here is another blog post about lesson planning.

I hope this helps as you begin planning out your lessons. Good luck, and enjoy!

Implementing games and activities

Implementing games and activities

Hi everyone! In my last two blog posts, I discussed organizing your games and activities and choosing your games and activities. In this post, I'm discussing the best ways I've found to implement those games and activities that you have organized and chosen.

There are a few layers of implementation. The first layer I tackle is plugging all of those games and activities into my long-range year plans, so that I remember to play them! I briefly discussed long-range planning in this blog post, but I'll give you a peek at a year plan and how I decide what to do, and when to do it!

Let's say we are looking at third grade. This year, my third graders will be practicing re and half note at the beginning of the year. Because of this, I made sure my half note folder was organized well. I even added my own sets to my "files to use" folder so I wouldn't forget to use my own files! Here is what the half note folder looks like:

Since I'll be reviewing half note right at the beginning of this year, I'll probably just need the "all year" files. After opening up the "all year" folder, I see lots of stuff to use!

So much to use! The fuzzy patterns are a great way to review rhythm reading, as is the rhythm squares file by Karla at C Major Learning and "Wild Rhythm Races" by Lindsay Jervis (especially since I'm using a wild "jungle" theme in my room this year!)

I love using "Sammy Sackett" and "Who's That Tapping at my Window" for half note practice, so I could use those files (one by me and one by Lindsay Jervis.)

Centers are a great way to review and practice rhythmic concepts; I could use my "I have, who has" game during centers so I could work with students in a smaller group.

The "Which animal" file is a great way to identify half note patterns, and could be used as an assessment. Poison could also be used for half note identification as a whole group.

Oh, but there's so much more in here that I want to use! I haven't yet used "Rhythm Basketball" by Pitch Publications, and it looks quite fun. "Sakura" is such a beautiful song...and those wristbands are so stinkin' cute!

But I have to make some decisions (and only have so much time in the year before moving onto 4/4 preparation), so here goes!

On my year plan, I have several categories that are listed in vertical columns, such as reading, writing, partwork, improvisation, etc. Then the months are listed in horizontal columns. On my third grade year plan, I went ahead and plugged in "Sammy Sackett" and "Rhythm Squares" under reading, at the beginning of the year, like so (thanks to the Paula Kim Studio for the cute arrows!):

Then I plugged in "Which animal" as an assessment, and the Jungle Rhythm Races as a fun activity to practice half note:

After looking at "Rhythm Basketball" for the song "Happy," I realized it actually would work really well as a 4/4 AND half note practice activity, so I plugged it into October's plans:

Of course, I still have lots of work to do, as I need to plug in files for re, 4/4, ti-tika, etc., until my year plan looks fleshed out AND I can make sure to use lots of the great files I have!

Another layer of implementation comes to actually using it in the classroom. One of the best pieces of advice I ever received was from my Kodaly Level I teacher, Julie Swank, about playing games. "Keep them wanting more," she said. Up until then, I had played a game over and over again until all students have had a turn, and that's pretty tedious and time-consuming! Although she was referring to singing games, I think this also applies to games and activities you play for student understanding. I don't want any of the games or activities to last too long...because I want them to play the game again in some other lesson!

The last layer of implementation has to do with how much you play a game, but instead of within the same lesson, I mean within the year. Although my students would play Poison every single lesson and probably would love it, I want to make sure to keep them wanting more...so I may play it a few weeks in a row, and then leave it alone for several lessons. If students ask for it and we have time, I may play it...or I may not, so they are EVEN more excited when we do!

I hope this 3-part series has been helpful for you, from organizing your digital resources, to choosing which games and activities you will play with your students, with how to implement into your year plans and your daily lessons. Do you have any advice for games and activities? Feel free to comment below!

Choosing games and activities

Choosing games and activities

In my last blog post, I discussed ways to organize your digital games and activities so you can access them easier. In this blog post, I will discuss how to go about choosing the right games and activities for your students. Please note that the post isn't necessarily about singing games, but musical games to deepen students' understanding. Here is the criteria for how I choose games and activities for my students.

#1: Fun and engaging

Do the students ask for the game or activity over and over again? Do they get visibly excited when you say the name of the game? Then by all means, play it! The students will learn without realizing they are learning because they are having SO. MUCH. FUN. One of my favorite games and activities that the students repeatedly ask for is "Poison." To play, you simply write a rhythmic or melodic pattern on the board--which is the poison pattern--and students have to echo you...unless you sing or play the poison pattern! You can keep adding to the patterns, and students get SO excited about the challenge! You can simply do this with dry erase marker; you can see my ta and ti-ti poison set here.

Another favorite of my students is "Write the room," by my friend Karla from C Major Learning. You could hear a pin drop when my students did this game...and they are SO excited to find all of the patterns around the room! Here is a picture of some of my students writing their patterns:

#2: Age-appropriate

Sometimes a game that we think will work just doesn't, because it is too hard or too easy. Sometimes you can tell by looking at the game, and sometimes it just comes from experience. (All teachers have had the experience of something falling flat on its face...and that's okay, because you learn!) Think through the game and make sure it is sequenced out well enough that your students will be able to play successfully.

I love playing "I have, who has," but the youngest I typically do the game with is second grade, because it is a somewhat complicated game, and kids might get a bit overwhelmed. You know your students well and what they can accomplish, so by thinking through the steps and the developmental appropriateness, we can save ourselves and the students some stress!

#3: Challenging

It's good to think about age-appropriateness...but it's also great to throw in some challenge! The poison game I wrote about above can provide a nice challenge to students. Another challenging activity I love is Amy Abbott's "Every Birdie" series, because they challenge the students not only to read rhythms, but to do so in parts, which is awesome for their partwork skills AND a nice challenge!

The eraser game is another example of a challenging game. Write the rhythm to a known song on the board (or stick notation with solfa) and have students memorize each line. Just keep erasing until they can do everything from memory. They LOVE the challenge and it's great for their memory skills!

#4: Seasonally appropriate

Of course, I don't mind using a game with flowers if it's October...but I usually put away anything with shamrocks after St. Patrick's Day. I try to plan the games so they can happen before or during that holiday, as the kids are SO excited about the holidays and it helps keep them focused on learning! I'll write more in my next blog post about how to plan games and activities to happen at the right time of the year/ during the right season or holiday.

#5: Can be used to assess

I love using games and activities to assess, because students don't realize they are being assessed...they just think they are having FUN! Although assessments could be pencil and paper, they often don't have to be. You could use a game like "Unlock the door" to have students identify rhythm patterns, and "Clip it" by Tweet Resources to identify melodic patterns.

I hope this has been helpful! What are some reasons you choose games and activities? Feel free to comment below, and stay tuned for my next blog post, about how to implement those games and activities!

Organizing your games and activities

Organizing your games and activities

I've had such a great summer so far, but I know that with school a month and a half away, I should probably start thinking about the start of the school year. I'm not ready to sit down and write year plans and song lists quite yet (see this post about that process), but I am ready to organize so that the process of writing year plans and song lists is easier.

I know where all of my files, games, and activities are on my computer, but when I purchase a game or activity from another seller, or when I download one for free, it can get lost in a mess of files and folders. Then, even though it's a great file that I should use with my students, I either forget about it or don't know how to find it. So today, I'm going to write about organizing those games and activities.  This will be a three-part blog post; next time, I will write about choosing games and activities, and lastly, I will write about implementing games and activities. Please keep in mind that this process for organizing only works on Macs; see the end of this blog post for info about organizing files on a PC.

I have had a folder in my Dropbox for a year or two called "files to use." This is where I put anything that I purchase or download that I want to make sure to use. Because my mind works like this, I then put sub-folders into that folder, categorized by topics like rhythm, melody, instruments of the orchestra, etc.

I'm going to focus on rhythm today, and how I just organized that folder even better! Before I did the work, here is what it looked like:

Notice that I have folders for ta and ti-ti, tika-tika, etc., but then I have a bunch of other random files that aren't categorized. Of course, I may forget to use them because they're just sitting there in a mess of other files!

I heard about an amazing way to organize clip art (I will admit, I have a bit of an addiction to all things clip art!) so I decided to use this idea to organize my files. Here is the video I watched, but I'll explain each step in how I organized my games and activities. Keep reading until the end, as I'm sharing the pictures I'm using as a Dropbox link, so you can organize too!

I first went through each file in the folder and made sure it was in the right folder. Some of the games and activities covered more than one rhythm, so I created a various folder.  Then I created pictures that I could use on each folder, so I could quickly visually see what was in each folder. For my beat folder, I opened up the beat jpg I had created (which you can download at the end of this post), and then hit command A, command C, which selected the picture and then copied it to my clipboard. 

Then, I clicked on the beat folder so it was selected, like shown below:

 Then, you can either right-click and choose "get info," or click command-I, so "get info" pops up, like shown below.

 Then, I clicked the small folder icon (next to the word "beat," in the upper left hand corner), and clicked command-V so it would paste. Now, the beat jpg is decorating the folder!

I did this with all of the sub-folders in my rhythm folder. When I was done, it looked like this:

...so then I had to drag all of the pictures so they were lined up neatly, like this:

When I was specifically looking at my ta and ti-ti folder, I realized that I had a mess of holiday files. I wanted them organized so when it is winter time, I can find all my winter files easier! I created folders for each holiday, then copied and pasted those pictures. Now it looks so much more organized!

Interested in organizing your digital files? Click this link to download all of the pictures. Let me know if you have any questions. It seems confusing at first, but once you get the hang of it, it's very easy!

Update: If you are a PC user, Malinda at My Musical Menagerie wrote this awesome blog post about doing the same process on a PC!

In my next blog post, I'll discuss how to take all of these games and activities and choose which ones to use throughout the year to further your students' learning! 

Pool noodle rhythms

Pool noodle rhythms

Today I'm once again linking up with Tracy King/ The Bulletin Board Lady at mrskingrocks.blogspot.com to write about a summer project: pool noodle rhythms!

My summer project is actually inspired by the one and only Tracy King! I found this awesome blog post about pool noodle rhythms on her blog and decided I had to try it out.  There are so many reasons I think her idea is fabulous, but to list a few:

• It's a GREAT activity for those tactile learners!
• It's a wonderful way to show length of rhythms.
• It's a great way to practice meter/ time signature.
• It's a brilliant way to do group work AND composition at the same time!

So I set off to Meijer and bought four pool noodles (and a couple more for our new pool, because hey, you can never have enough pool noodles!) and gathered up some other assorted items, shown above.

My thinking is that I would do them for ta, ti-ti, quarter rest, tika-tika, and half note, and that I'd make enough for four groups (so if I have 24 kids in a  class, 6 would work in a group.)

Tracy is exactly right that not all pool noodles are made the same. The blue and purple noodles had the same length and diameter, but the green noodle was quite a bit thicker. I decided to do blue for all my rhythms, purple for the barlines, and green for the time signature. I also used clothesline rope for stringing the rhythms (Tracy used jump ropes, which is also a great idea!), a knife for cutting, a sharpie, a measuring tape, and two more things not in the picture: a towel to place underneath the noodle while you are cutting and scissors for cutting the rope.

I measured the blue pool noodles, and they were around 55.5". Tracy's one-beat rhythms were about 3", but since I only bought 2 noodles for rhythms, I decided to do 2" for the one-beat rhythms and 4" for the two-beat rhythms. I cut 1" barlines out of the purple noodles, and 2" noodles for time signature/ meters. Here are the totals of everything I cut:

Eight 4" rhythms for half note
Twelve 2" rhythms for ti-ti
Twelve 2" rhythms for ta
Eight 2" rhythms for tika-tika
Four 2" rhythms for quarter rest
Eight 2" noodles for time signature
Twenty 1" noodles for barlines
Four 64" pieces of rope (I changed this from my original 32" length...that was too short! 64" is probably more length than you need for 4 measures but gives kids room to work and if the rope gets frayed, you can cut and still have plenty!)

I did this so that each bag for each group/center would have 2 half notes, 3 ti-ti's, 3 ta's, 2 tika-tika's, 1 quarter rest, one 2/4 noodle, one 4/4 noodle, 5 barlines (so that students could compose/ write 4 measures and have two barlines for the double barline at the end), and could string all of that onto the rope.

Here is what it looked like as I was cutting:

And here is what it looked like when I composed my own four measures!

I am SO excited to use these with my students! There are so many ways to extend their learning...and once students know 3/4 and/or 6/8, or different rhythms, you can add more noodles to the set!

Thank you to Tracy for the awesome idea AND for the linky party! Make sure to read her ideas by clicking on the picture below, and read her original post, as she did the noodles slightly different, and you can decide how you will do them for your own students.

Have a great rest of your week!