Thanksgiving Week {Take a Peek at my Week}

Looking for some ideas for your elementary music classes in the days or weeks leading up to Thanksgiving?

1) Ho Ho Watanay - I used this song with kindergarten and first grade this week. In kindergarten it was perfect timing as we are practicing loud/soft and introducing the term "lullaby". We also tapped on the feathers to the feel of the music (preparing the steady beat). In first grade, we review the beat tapping page, but then take it a step further and look at the rhythm of the song. It is great ta and titi practice. We play the rhythms on hand drums as we sing.

You can find slides for the song "Ho Ho Watanay" here. This file teaches loud/soft, lullaby, prepares and practices steady beat, prepares/practices rhythm of the words and ta/titi.

2) Children's Literature for Thanksgiving in the Music Room
I introduce the song "Ho Ho Watanay" with the book "Northwoods Cradle Song". I sing the song on the page turns following every page that reads "Sleep, little warrior, sleep. Go to sleep. Go to sleep." I have looked all over for a song or melody to go with this book from the Menominee tribe, but have not found one yet. Ho Ho Watanay is actually an Iroquois lullaby, but because of the theme of the book and song, I pair them together.

I used the book, "One Little, Two Little, Three Little Pilgrims" last week with kindergarten. They enjoyed comparing the lives of the pilgrims and Indians in the book. 

I love to use the "I know an Old Lady..." books. I have several of them and they may great "fill in the blank" books as Jo Kirk would call them. I sing most of the book, but give the students a special part to sing, in this case the "perhaps she'll die". Thank goodness she doesn't die in this book. She just inflates until she becomes a balloon in the Thanksgiving Day parade. Hopefully none of us eat that much over Thanksgiving! ;)

3) Pumpkin Patch Rhythm Compositions

I had to be gone a couple days this month, so I left this "Pumpkin Patch Rhythm Composition" activity for a few classes while I was gone. It was easy for them to do while I was away, gave them more practice writing and working with a specific set of rhythms. I had them do these compositions with a partner and then on a later day, they combined with another pair and taught the other pair their composition and created one long composition out of the two that was 16 beats. The group of four then performed them for the class when I was there, so I was able to use it as a composition and performance assessment and assess two different skills. Working with a partner and then teaching their composition to another pair was really neat to watch. I could tell that because they were writing, manipulating, and teaching it, they really "got it". 

You can find this Pumpkin Patch Composition lesson here.

4) Turkey Trot Rhythm Races

My kids love rhythm races. They are fun and competitive. I love that it gives me a chance to see which kids really are getting it. I divide the class into teams. My classes have about 25 kids, so I do five teams with 4-5 kids on each team.

The teams stand in lines next to their team color turkey. I read/clap/or play a rhythm and one player from each team races to the other end of the room. When they get there, they see piles with turkeys of their team's color. They must locate the correct rhythm and bring it back to their team. The first team to bring back the correct rhythm gets 2 points. If they bring back a correct rhythm, but they are not first, they get 1 point for their team. If they bring back an incorrect rhythm, they get 0 points and they have to go take it back because they will eventually need to find that rhythm.

(Photo shared from the classroom of Shelley Potter).

You can find this game here.

I hope you have enjoyed a peek at my week and some of the things I am doing right before Thanksgiving!

Writing in the Music Room

I know that one of the things I have tried to do more this year is provide more writing practice on known concepts during our lessons. I hope to blog more about this topic in the future as it is an on-going goal to continually do more with this. It such a great way for me to have a chance to really see who is getting the concepts, and who may need more help and support. It is also good for assessment and many districts are experiencing a huge push towards writing with the Common Core.

My kiddos have been practicing la so I pulled out this song:

Here's how we play the game. One student is "it" and sits facing away from the class. The class sings the first two lines and one student who I choose sings the last line as a solo. The person who is "it" must guess who is the mystery singer. This song is a great opportunity for me to hear individuals and squeeze in some solo singing assessment when they think I am just keeping track of turns. Sometimes when I have a squirrely class that may sing silly I do tell them that I am taking a pitch matching grade, but usually I don't need to.

After playing the game we go to the board and read the song with melodic icons like these. They sing on text first as I point to the pictures, then we sing on solfa with hand sings. Eventually the icons move onto the staff and we show where la would live if sol and mi are on lines or spaces.

Then, instead of printing out a worksheet for each student, we did this page together, projected onto the board. We focused in on the second measure only and I had individual students come up to the board and fill in the note heads. Once all the note heads were added, we then added the stems and beams. Doing this together as a class is really helpful for the students who need to see it modeled before doing something similar on their own.  

If you are interested in the slides and printable/projectable worksheet that I used for "Johnny's It" you can find it here.

What are some of the most successful ways you incorporate writing in your music room?

Monday Music Manipulatives {Cotton Balls & Bingo Counters}

Welcome to another Monday Music Manipulatives!

I am so excited to share this neat idea that I found from my good friend, Erin Johnson, on her Facebook page. Erin went through all three levels of Kodaly with me at Wichita State University. :)

She had been working on preparing ta rest and was actually doing dictation with it, without labeling it. 

She had found two sided bingo counters and used them to make ta's and ti-ti's. 

Then for the beats with no sound, she passed out some cotton balls, and the students were able to dictate on which beat they heard the piece of silence. I love this idea! Cotton balls are cheap, and fun for tactile learners. 

Today she used the beat charts and left the hearts where they heard a piece of silence blank. They numbered the beats, showed which beat was "empty" and labeled it as silent. She then presented the ta rest notation, moved right to flashcards to practice and on they went!

A big thank you to Erin Johnson for sharing her pictures and letting me blog about her idea!

Do you have a fun manipulative you want to share? Link up below! Here's how:

1) Save my "Monday Music Manipulatives" image from the top of my blog

2) Insert it into your blog post and hyperlink it to this post

3) Blog about your own music manipulatives 

4) Copy your blog link and link up below!

Yearly Planning for Music Teachers

My first year teaching (during my pre-Kodaly training days) I planned for each day and and no real long term vision for my classes or from year to year. During my Level 2 training, Lisa Simmelink really helped me understand concept and long range or yearly planning. One of our assignments was to map out concepts for the whole year for one grade level.

Every music teacher wants to get their year started off on the right track, reviewing where they left off with each grade level and getting new students caught up to speed.  From there we hope to stay on track progressing through the musical concepts we have planned for that grade level. In addition to that, we are thinking about our music programs and performances and how that all fits in to our yearly calendar and planning.  Having a plan in place helps to guide my planning for the whole year. 

So let's get started with yearly plans. When I do long term planning, I like to start with yearly plans and break it down by month, just looking at concepts. What do I want my students to be practicing by that month? Will I be preparing any new concepts? Will I be presenting a concept? Make sure that you are always working both melodically and rhythmically in every lesson. Go month by month for each grade level deciding about how long you will spend preparing/practicing each concept. Remember to be flexible!

Here is a sample of what my long range planning looks like. This is for kindergarten from August through December. I make different colors for different concepts (pink for Kindergarten concepts, yellow for rhythmic concepts, blue for melodic concepts, and the older grades also include scale and meter). I separate by month across the top and the light shades of each color represent concepts that are in the Practice stage (known concepts), while the darker shades represent the concepts that are being prepared and presented.

Want to see more?

These templates are samples from my planning sets on TPT which includes both yearly plans and song lists by concept for each grade level.

Getting from Yearly Plans to Lesson Plans Once you have the concepts you want to teach for each month and each grade level, make song lists for each grade level. Make a list of all the concepts you included on your Monthly/Yearly plans for that grade level (I’ve started one for you for each grade level, but you may need to adjust it to fit your needs). Under each concept heading make a list of all the songs you plan to use while working on that concept. That way when I are look ahead to my third grade planning in September I can see I want to be practicing re and tiri-tiri and preparing ti-tiri, then I would go to my third grade song list and find a song list for ti-tiri to find songs under that concept to weave my lesson plan together.

Here's a sample of what my first page of my 3rd grade song list looks:

For the little kids I like to have a ton of songs/games/activities in each lesson (probably 7-10) in a 30 minute lesson. For the older kids, I choose less song materials per lesson, but go deeper with the songs. Plus by then, their songs are a bit longer. 

Want a closer look at my "Ready, Set, Plan" yearly planning set? Check out this video:

Do you have different strategies for long term planning? I'd love to hear them in the comments below!

Ideas for Surviving the End of the School Year and a $2 Tuesday Flash Sale

I am linking up today with Amy Abbott and several other music teachers to share some ideas for surviving the end of the school year.

TIPS #1: Keep them moving with singing games and folk dancing

Jump Jim Joe

This is the closest version I could find to the one I do with my kids.I use the recording from the Amidons and I have the inside circle move because it is a shorter distance to travel. When teaching a double circle dance, make sure you are always on the outside so that you can see everyone! This will eliminate a lot of problems.

Our Old Sow

I learned this game from Jo Kirk last summer and my kids LOVE IT!

TIP #2: Keep them "on track" and engaged in music learning until the end. I usually spend the last 2-3 weeks as review time to practice the concepts we got through that year as well as looking ahead to next year to prepare the upcoming concepts for the fall.

I've been using my "Race to the Finish Line" planning guide to keep myself and my kiddos "on track" from January through May.

(click the picture above to see it in my TPT store)

It includes song lists for each grade as well as an excel file for each grade that lays out the different concepts through the second half of the school year.  Since it is in excel, it is totally editable. You can add song titles under each concepts, or move the concepts to a different month depending on where you are in your sequence.

TIP #3 Remember the good times!

Music should be a JOYFUL experience for your students. It is so much fun to take a moment and reflect on the experiences shared together in music. I created some "Music Memories" pages for each grade level so that I can see what they remember most about our year together, their favorite singing game, favorite piece we listened to and more. The packet is totally editable, so you can add your own questions if you think it is something you would be interested in using with your kids.

(click on the picture above to see it in my TPT store)

One more fun thing I wanted to share with you was the a bunch of music teachers will be teaming up for another $2Tuesday on TPT. Enter "$2TuesdayMusicFlashSale" in the search bar on TPT to see all of the hugely discounted items from some amazing TPT music teacher/authors.

The file from my store will be my melodic flashcards for preparing and practicing sol-mi.

(click on the picture above to see it in my store)

These flashcards are amazing resources for melodic transitions between songs. I could have a mystery song on the board like this: 

Starlight Starbright

See Saw

I don't have cards for "2,4,6,8" but I had my kids construct it using the cards from the other songs. Then we added the rhythms above. Next time we will transfer to the staff.

The kit includes 164 flashcards designed to go with the following songs:

Bee Bee Bumblebee
Blue Bird (1st measure)
Come Back Home My Little Chicks
Doggie, Dogggie (1st measure)
Hey Hey Look at Me
Lemonade
Rain Rain Go Away
See Saw Up and Down
See the Old Witch
Snail, Snail (1st measure)
Starlight Starbright

Pitch is shown using: 
Icons only (can be used in the preparation stage)
Icons w/ solfege
Icons on staff
Rhythm stick notation w/ solfa (where rhythms are appropriate)
Icons on staff with solfa
Standard notation with solfa inside note head

What are your tips for surviving the end of the school year?

Music Room Organization {Part 1: Digital Files}

Let's face it! Music teachers have a LOT of STUFF! Our rooms are full of instruments, sound equipment, puppets, books, manipulatives and that doesn't even scratch the surface of keeping everything organized on our laptops!

On my Facebook page, I asked for some topics to blog about and one teacher requested that I write a post on how I keep all my visuals organized and ready to use without wasting too much down time!

For today's post, I am strictly going to show some ways that I (try to) keep organized so that I can quickly find what I need for each class, especially when you have classes with zero break in between and so that there is as little down time as possible DURING the class. I don't know about you, but I only see my kids for 30 minutes twice a week- each second counts!

To start off with I have anything and everything that I would ever need at school all saved to an external hard drive.

I bought two of them on sale during Black Friday.

I have several reasons for doing this, and it may or may not be something you want to look into. 

1) If anything should happen to my computer, I can take this and hook it up to ANY computer. I've had to borrow my PE teacher's laptop for a day when mine decided not to work. Having all my files stored on an external hard drive was a life saver and meant that I could continue on with my lessons as planned.

2) It gives me a permanent back up of all my files that I create or download from other TPT music teachers. (I also store many things on dropbox and google drive). I'm just SO terrified of losing my things.

3) I store a TON of clip art that I use to make all of my files, so I really need a lot of storage space.

To start off with, I save to that hard drive in one main folder with several sub folders.

Click to enlarge

Within this main teaching folder are many, many sub folders organized by concepts. I also have a big one titled "Songs" which I will explain in a minute.

So, say I am working on my lesson planning for teaching half note, I pull up my half note folder and it has ALL of my digital files for that concept.

Click to enlarge.

I start by going to my concept plan.

Click to enlarge.

(snapshot taken from my concept plan for half note, available in my Songs and Games to Teach Half Note) Here I have outlined all of the songs I can use and I make a column that says teaching materials where I list any resources I have created (or collected) that I don't want to forget. I haven't made visuals for all of the songs on the repertoire list, so I make a note of what songs I do have those digital visuals ready to go.

I use my concept plans, my notes from my Kodaly Certification, the American Methodology and Yearly Plans while writing my own plans, but this organization on the digital end helps me figure out what songs/activities I can plug where. If you don't have those materials, I highly suggest you look into them. Another thing that you might find helpful in your long term planning is my Jan.- May Planning Guide

It includes song lists by grade level as well as rhythmic and melodic concepts mapped out for when I plan to prepare, present and practice them (from Jan-May). I hope to make another set before back to school for Aug.through Dec.

Once I have my plans done, and the school day is upon me, how do I transition between files for each class/grade?

In the morning I see 4th, 3rd, then 5th, so I go to my lesson planner before school and I see what digital files I will need for the morning, and have them all pulled up so they are ready to go and I can quickly move from one to the next while my kids are singing.

If they are all songs, an easy way I have found is to have a folder that has all my song visuals. I just go to that folder and type in the song title and poof! There it is! That way I don't have to dig through all my concept folders. 

Song File contains ALL my song visuals in ABC order

Click to enlarge.

Quickly find what I need by typing in the title.

Click to enlarge.

At lunch I close out of all my 3rd-5th files and open all my 1st and 2nd. 

How to transition during/between classes:

Since all my files that I need for a class are already open, all I have to do to transition between files, is hover over the PowerPoint of PDF icon at the bottom of my screen, depending on what kind of file it is, and select my file. I always try to do this when my kids are busy doing something else. Say we were at the board to read and clap the rhythm for "Who's That Tapping At Your Window?", then we went to the circle and played the game, as my kids are going back to the board and I am transitioning to the next song (and file) I can have them sing "Who's That?" and assign soloists or if the next song is one they know well by memory, I have have them sing it while I pull up the slide. They are not sitting there waiting for me because it takes them more time to get to their spot than it does for me to switch files, and I can quickly make the switch to Rocky Mountain.

Click to enlarge

I hope this helps give you some ideas on how to organize your digital files. Later this week, I hope to blog about getting manipulatives organized for each class period.

If you have different/more efficient ways of organizing digital files, PLEASE feel free to share! :) We can all learn from each other! Either comment or link up below!

An InLinkz Link-up

Cut the Cake

Here is one of my all time favorite books:

I think I got really lucky at some point and found this on ebay for about $50. Yikes! I didn't even know what a gem it was at the time! If you ever see this book, snag it. It will be worth it!

This book is jam packed full of singing games in any formation you can think of and it sequences them not by melodic/rhythmic concept, but by movement concepts, which I think is really neat.

Obviously I am not going to try a square dance or cicilian circles with my kindergartners, but this offers a variety of different kids of dances and gives you and idea of what grade level it might be appropriate for. So many of these singing games and dances will fit right into your concept plans, but some are great just to do for FUN even if they melodically/rhythmically to difficult to read for your students.

One of the songs that I pulled recently for some more ta rest practice is singing game called "Cut the Cake". 

Here's a quick demonstration video of some of my kids playing the game. I wish I wouldn't have sung along, I was sick and sound terrible. Great reminder to let your kids sing alone, Lindsay! During phrase one students clap hands, phrase 2 we shake, phrase 3 everyone in the circle grabs hands, phrase 4 "it" slices the "cake" and holds out both hands. Where ever "it" sliced the cake, those two students race in opposite direction around the circle and tag "it's" hand when they get back. The first one to tag "it's" hands becomes the new "it" and the game starts over. You need to talk about safety before you start this game. When the two people are running in the opposite direction they will pass each other at some point. They need to watch out for the other person. In my room, if they bump into each other, the game is over. The kids love to play the game, so they are really careful not to bump into each other.

After we have played the singing game we go over to the board and I have this slide projected: 

Find these ready-made slides on my TPT page here.

We pat the beat in our laps as we sing and identify that the party hats are showing us the steady beat.

If I am in the preparation stage of ta rest, I show this slide where the hats with rests look different because they are a gray or "empty" looking. Students quickly see that they are like that because there are no words underneath them. We practice tapping and clapping the rhythm (the "way the hats look").

Once ta rest has been presented, we can use this song for practice and try reading the rhythms with their rhythm syllables and making no sound on the rests.

In level 3 we worked on creating musical transitions from one song to the next to make our lessons seamless. I love to use a rhythmic transition from this song to "Pitter Patter" which I first found in one of John Feierabend's books. I play the "eraser game" transforming "Cut the Cake" into "Pitter Patter" by erasing beats 3 and 4 of the 1st and 3rd line and changing them to ti-ti's. The 2nd and 4th lines stay the same!

Find ready-made slides for isolating rhythmic and melodic elements of "Pitter Patter" here.

 Have you used either of these two songs in your ta rest concept plan? What are your favorite ta rest songs?