Five Favorite Pins of October!

Hi again!

    Thanks to some other great bloggers, I've been trying to link up as much as possible. Thanks to Aileen at Mrs. Miracle's Music Room for hosting this linky party! Also check out Steph at Stay Tuned! and Brittany at Making Music Memories for more great pins!

Here are my Five Favorite Pins of October, click on the pictures to go to the pin:

1) Pumpkin, Pumpkin:

       This short song/movement activity is pinned from last Fall, but I used it with my 3rd graders to explore tempo on Friday and it was so much fun! Thanks to Amy Abbott for this one!

2) This is an awesome Color-by-Note activity- a great way to review rhythms while also having some Fall-themed fun!

3) Fall Rhythm Match-up Freebie!

4) Smart Notebook activity for Danse Macabre

5) Cute picture that sparked an idea for my next bulletin board!

Happy pinning!

~Molly

Collaboration: Music and Art Reinforce Classroom Concepts!

Good morning everyone!

    I've been slacking a little bit on my posts this month- Honors Chorus auditions and the start of after-school clubs have recently taken over my life. However, I wanted to share this project that I did last year and have carried over with a new twist to this year.

    Every year, I read The Little Old Lady Who Wasn't Afraid of Anything to my 1st graders to start our discussion of Percussion instrument sub-families. Click on the link to get a SafeShare video of the book being read for you!

    This year, however, I collaborated with my art teacher to make the lesson even more exciting! She read the book to the students the week before I did my lesson, but she didn't show them any of the pictures. Then they had to guess what all the articles of clothing made at the end of the book (a scarecrow) and create it on their paper. This was really effective for me, because when the students came to my class the next week, they were excited to see the pictures and learn the ending! It was also a pretty awesome way for us as specials teachers to reinforce the concepts that are being taught in their classrooms right now: Characters, Setting, knowing details of a story/retelling the story by recalling what order the articles of clothing come in, as well as concepts of Fall as a season, and, most importantly- the Scarecrow!

    The video above helps, because I have many instruments that I am demonstrating during the story. Last year I juggled them all, but this year I'm using the video! Here are the instruments that I use:

Shoes go Clomp Clomp- Wood Block

Pants go Wiggle Wiggle- Guiro

Shirt goes Shake Shake- Maraca

White Gloves go Clap Clap- Hand Drum

Black Hat goes Nod Nod- Triangle

Pumpkin Head goes Boo Boo- Tambourine

    After I demonstrate how to play the instruments along with the book, I distribute the instruments  evenly between the students. We read the book again, and the students may only play when their article of clothing is making noise (two beats). On the third iteration of the book, the students switch instruments with their seat partner and play again, this time for a different article of clothing.

    Once we have played through it twice, we talk about our instruments, what they are made of, and that they all fit into the Percussion Family of the Orchestra. While discussing what each instrument is made of, we divide our instruments into 3 sub-families: Skin, Metal, and Wood. This sparks some good discussion about some of the instruments that may seem to fit into both (Hand Drum has both wood and skin qualities, Tambourine often has wood, skin, AND metal qualities).

    The students love the story (and yelling the different noises each piece of clothing makes), and of course they enjoy getting to play different instruments and talk about the different sounds we hear (timbre) depending on what material is involved.

   If there is extra time at the end of the period, I often use this free coloring sheet I found from Live Love Laugh Kindergarten on TpT: http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Roll-N-Color-Scarecrow-The-Little-Old-Lady-Who-Wasnt-Afraid-Of-Anything-385775---I just use the coloring sheet, not the Roll and Color, since I don't have time to do that after the whole lesson.

Happy reading!

All Star School Song

    When I first came to my school in August 2012, I found a big poster with words to what looked like our school song. Unfortunately, no one in the school could remember the tune and the words were...well, kind of depressing. Our school has been labeled as "struggling" up until this year, so apparently someone thought it was a good idea to cite the fact that "even though we don't make the grade, we're still proud of our school." Seriously, the words were very similar to that.

    SO I decided that we needed a new school song. We have been working very hard at building a solid sense of community within our school, and I thought a school song would reinforce those goals. Since last year was my first year teaching at Hoffman-Boston, I spent the year getting my program together and didn't focus on this whole "school song" issue. However, around March/April, my principal (who was also new to our school last year) expressed an interest in creating a music video/song/something to that effect that would reinforce the values that we were trying so hard to instill in our students.

     I did some research on the net, and came up with a few different prospects. I landed on SongSpun, the website of Mr. Brian Chevalier, who does workshops in schools that focus on respect, anti-bullying, etc. Since our school has been focusing a lot on Character Education, I thought that he would be a great choice of people to come to our school and help us write our school song.

    Mr. C came to our school a few weeks ago and worked with grade levels K-5 on Monday to come up with lyrics and a "feel" for our song. The students used their critical thinking skills and reading/writing knowledge to come up with short poems that ended up comprising the lyrics of our song. The lyrics talked about our new PBIS pledge (you'll see it in the first verse), as well as our identity as a STEM school. Here are the lyrics we came up with:

       Verse (2nd grade): We respect ourselves and others
                                      And our surroundings too
                                      Allstars shine, all the time
                                      Allstars are true blue

        Chorus (3rd grade): We're the Hoffman Boston Allstars
                                        Shining brightly in the sky
                                        Learning through discovery
                                        So our dreams can come alive

                     (4th grade): We're the Hoffman Boston Allstars
                                        We're yellow and we're blue
                                        We don't give up until the end
                                        We help each other through

                                        Respecting me, respecting you (4x)

         Verse (5th grade): No matter your appearance
                                       No matter who you are
                                       Here at Hoffman Boston
                                       Together we'll go far

                                       Chorus

         Bridge (1st grade): Through science and technology
                                        And math we show the way
                                        We're working hard on projects
                                        We're learning every day

                                        Chorus

       Kindergarten helped Mr. C come up with movements for the chorus of the song, which we then taught the whole school in the assembly on the following day. Mr. C then went home and recorded the song with his voice, guitar, and a beat and provided me with a CD recording of the whole song, as well as a karaoke version to use with the kids once we have learned the whole song.

Here is a video of me singing our new school song, which I am now teaching to all my students!

    At age 24, I still remember my elementary school song, and I hope that my students remember theirs for years to come!

Hope everyone is having a wonderful week!
~Molly

2/4 Tuesday- Favorite Music Apps!

I'm linking up with some other bloggers for our 2/4 Tuesday Linky Party!

Here are some of my favorite music apps that I've been able to use this year!

1) NoteWorks:

    This app costs money, but it's worth it, because it is a fun way for your students to review solfege or the musical alphabet!

2) MadPadHD:

       Again, it costs money, but it's amazing because it allows you to record your own sounds and create compositions from them. I plan on using this for my Found Sounds unit and finding sounds around the school to use.

Now for my favorite free ones...

3) Shrinky Kid's Boogie Box

      I use this with my younger students to allow them to create ostinati and explore different instrument sounds with fun characters!

4) Blob Chorus

      This app is a great way to teach students about "same" and "different," while also making them laugh a lot- especially when they get one wrong and the blob explodes!

5) Singing Fingers

      This app is an amazing way to show high and low sounds, but also entertain students with the different colors and exciting visuals!

Hope you enjoy!

Don't forget to check out some of my fellow bloggers in our 2/4 Tuesday Linky Party!

Steph at Stay Tuned!

Brittany at Making Music Memories

Lauren at Music in the City

~Molly

How to Survive an Hour-Long Kindergarten Music Class

Last year when I started at my school, I was given a specials schedule that required me to teach hour long classes to each grade K-5. I had never taught such long classes to primary grades before, so this was a big adjustment for me. The worst part? Kindergarten was at the end of the day.

After weeks of trying to fill every second with "meaningful and instruction-based" musical activities, I realized that ending the class with a silly movement activity or a coloring project was the only way to go. By the time the students entered my classroom at 2:40, they were exhausted from a day of schoolwork and ready to check out. So each week I make sure that the class ends with something fun. This schedule has carried over to this year, so I have come up with a few more activities to pull out of my back pocket.

Here are some of the end-of-music activities I have come up with for Kindergarten:

1) Freeze Dance:
      Obviously the easiest one is Freeze Dance- and the kids LOVE it. I always have stickers handy, so that I can reward the winners. The trick to this is that you can use ANY kind of music, so I have a CD handy that mixes classical music with pop music to really spark the student's dancing creativity.

2) Coloring!
      Sometimes the kids really just want to sit down and color and have a conversation with one of their friends- and I figure that at 5 years old, they deserve that at the end of the day. I often connect my coloring activities with a concept that we have learned that day in Music and then hang the finished products outside my classroom for the school community to see. Here are a few examples, some of these I made myself and some I searched for online:

MUSIC

Musical Symbols

3) Chicken Dance

      We did this for the second week of our farm unit when we were singing about Chickens. They LOVED it, especially the part where it slows down and accelerates gradually. I used this YouTube video for the recording: 

4) Kindergarten Game Plan has a really great activity that goes along with the farm unit. It introduces colors that correspond to different movements. The kids love adding a new movement each week and it just gets them up and moving. Even if you don't have the Game Plan series, you can easily make some color cards of your own and do this activity with your students:

Red- Stop

Green- Walk

Yellow- Jog

Blue- Tiptoe

Purple- Jump

Pink- Hop

Brown- Gallop

5) Musical Simon Says

      Kids love to volunteer their own ideas for things we are learning in class, so since we begin the year talking about steady beat, I have students come up and say Musical Simon (or Sally) says: Keep the beat on your (insert body part) or by (insert movement). If the sentence does not begin with "Musical Simon (or Sally) says," and someone changes their movement, they are out! I start out the year being Musical Sally, but then allow student leaders to take over once we are comfortable with the game.

6) Hey Hey Look at Me

      Found this activity on Pinterest and have used it several times. Great way for kids to show off their individuality without feeling too self conscious.

That's all for now! Have a great weekend!

~Molly

Listening Journals with a Pop Twist

Hi everyone!

    This week I thought I'd share my procedure for my listening journals in 4th and 5th grades. Each student receives a journal on the first day of class and I explain the activity and play the first example. Now, by the 3rd week of class, they know to come into the classroom, get their journal and a pencil, and sit in their own personal space ready to listen.

     In 4th grade, the students are given 3 options: 1) they may write a paragraph (defined as 3-5 sentences) that summarizes their reaction to, or their feelings about, the piece I have played, 2) they may write a story explaining what they think is happening in the music, or 3) they may draw a picture showing the story of the music. For my 5th graders, I eventually eliminate the picture option, so that they are encouraged to write more and explore their imagination through words and not just pictures.

     Last year this worked really well, and it allowed me to differentiate instruction for the students who were not as high in writing. It helps to have the picture option in there for my special education students or second-language learners, because they can share what they are thinking without being stressed about writing a lot.

    The music I present to the students varies, honestly depending on my mood that week. I often hear a song on YouTube and share it with my students that week during our 10-15 minute listening activity. The past couple weeks, I've been looking for interesting versions of songs that my kids are listening to on the radio (often songs that I can't play normally in the classroom because they are uncensored) and playing them as listening examples. Here is the one I used last week, a ragtime version of Macklemore and Ryan Lewis' "Thrift Shop" (starting at :40 because I had to skip over some minor language):

The students responded very positively to this, especially because they had previously asked me to include "music that we know" in the listening examples. The majority of them actually liked this version better than the radio version!!

I've also found this one, a Doo Wop version of Miley Cyrus' "We Can't Stop," however I'm still trying to figure out how to censor the material, therefore haven't shared it with my students just yet:

If you have any suggestions of videos or songs like these that you think students might respond to, please feel free to comment and let me know!!

Happy journaling!

~Molly

2/4 Tuesday Linky Party!

Hi everyone!

   I wanted to join in the fun (albeit a day late) of sharing some of the things I'll be using in my classroom this year! Steph at Stay Tuned suggested that all of us with music teaching blogs share 2-4 things we use that we've either made or found somewhere. Here are mine, and be sure to check out the links to my colleagues blogs at the end!

1) Incredibox:
      http://www.incredibox.com/en/play - This site allows students to experience with layering and creating their own unique blends of musical ideas. It is a great way to get them used to using technology before moving on to Garageband or something more complicated.

2) Movement activity from GamePlan Grade 1- enhanced:

      Students walk around the room in response to quarter note beats on a drum (played by the teacher). When students hear the teacher tap ti-ti ta- they freeze! This is a great way to allow students to differentiate between the two rhythms at the beginning of first grade.

       I added my own twist to this game. Once students are used to freezing on the cue rhythm, ask them to move to the quarter note beats like different animals (eg. monkey, frog, bird, crab). The students love to make noises and be silly- but the challenge is that they have to always be listening for that cue to freeze! (ti-ti ta)

3) Xavi Lozano's weird instruments:

     Have you ever wanted to do a Found Sounds project? Well, this is a great movie to show that you can make music using anything you find around the house- and the kids love to see what he'll come up with next!

Check out my blog post on the project in which I used this video as an example: Is it Music? An Introduction to John Cage



Now check out some of the other blogs using the following links!

Lauren at Rhythm and Glues: http://rhythmandglues.wordpress.com/

Lauren V at Music in the City: http://musicinthecitylv.blogspot.com/2013/09/24-tuesday-goals-and-time-filler.html

Lindsay at Pursuit of Joyfulness: http://pursuitofjoyfulness.blogspot.com/2013/09/4-ideas-for-organizing-your-music-room.html

Steph at Stay Tuned!: http://staytunedmusicteacher.blogspot.com/

Enjoy!
~Molly