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.

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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.

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I start by going to my concept plan.

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(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

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Quickly find what I need by typing in the title.

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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.

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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?

Monday Music Manipulatives

I think it is time for another Monday Music Manipulatives Link Up! 

If you are a music teacher blogger, feel free to join the link up (directions at the end of the post). If you a blog reading music educator, please make sure to follow any other blogs that link up at the bottom of this post for more great music manipulatives ideas.

I am trying to use the American Methodoloy and Yearly Plans books this year more in my planning and sequencing. 

During sol-mi prep one of the things it suggests is having the students place the text of the song on the board to show "high" and "low". I put the words for the song, "Rain Rain Go Away" on umbrella die cuts and placed magnets on the back. 

I was able to use this with practicing steady beat as well as having students place them on the board to show which words (or parts of words) are high and which were low.

Here are some pictures:

Students place umbrellas above the heart beats to show steady beat.

Pass out umbrellas and have students put the song in order with their umbrella either showing high or low. We talk about spacing just like when we do it on the individual student high/low charts. 

Don't have access to umbrella die cuts? Download this freebie in my TPT store.

I want to hear about and see all the fabulous manipulatives you are using in your music room! Please link up below. 

Here's how:

1) Write a blog post about your manipulatives in the music room

2) Include my Monday Music Manipulatives picture in your blog post with a link back to this post.

3) Sign up below to have your finished blog post linked to mine! 

Lindsay

Making Musical Transitions

When I first started teaching I had no concept of musical transitions. I would simply move from one activity to another. Often during this time the kids would get off task waiting to see what the next activity was going to be. During level 1, I got to see how the fabulous Jo Kirk would weave her songs together through stories and though I am not as creative as she is, I began to create stories to connect the songs I was using with my first and second graders. After my Kodaly Levels 2 and 3, I feel like am better at making MUSICAL transitions.

A musical transitions will guide your students throughout your entire lesson, connecting songs with melodic and rhythmic activities. These should never be drills, but simply a way of getting from point A to point B.

Here are some examples of melodic transitions using the melodic element "fa" and the songs,  "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" transitioning to "Chairs to Mend"

Students sing "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" on solfa with hand signs.

Teacher then shows 4 or 8 melodic flashcards. Here's the key. They are NOT FOR DRILL! The flashcards should be purposefully selected, not just "let's do a stack of flashcards". The first flashcard should have some tonal pattern from the song you are coming from and ending with a tonal pattern of the song you are going to. In between are tonal patterns of known songs. I would write down the exact tonal patterns I was going to use in my lesson plans including what songs they are from so that I could have all my visuals ready.

Here's how it would look: 

(pattern from "Twinkle Twinkle"

(pattern from "This Old Man")

(Pattern from "Are You Sleeping?/Brother John")

(pattern from "Chairs to Mend")

Which leads right to our next song! Sing on text then add canon:

Another way to get from songs with similar tone sets would be to use a tone ladder. Taking the same two songs, you could first sing "Twinkle Twinkle" then point to the pitch ladder having students sing on solfa with hand signs. You could do the whole song, then move to song fragments from other known songs ending with your starting phrase of the next song in your lesson. Your tone ladder could be projected onto the board like this:

Or you could use cut outs like these:

Rhythm transition activities:

Another rhythmic transition that could be used here would be flashcards. Again, the use of the flashcards is not for drill, but to guide us from one song quickly to the next for a seamless transition with no wasted time.

I could start with:

(from "Chicken on a Fence Post")

(From "Dinah")

(From "Golden Ring Around the Susan Girl")

(From "Old Brass Wagon")

And off you go with singing "Old Brass Wagon" and performing the square dance!

One of my goals for the upcoming school year is to work on including more musical transitions like these for grades 2-5. What other kinds of transitions do you use? What are your goals for the upcoming school year?

If you like the transition resources I have used in this post, they are all available at my Teachers Pay Teachers Store:

Fa Melodic Transition Staff Cards {FREEBIE}

Tone Ladders (Over 50 Pages of tone ladders that you can project or cut out and put on your board)

Rhythm Flashcards - Available by concept or in a Mega Set-The ones I used in this post were from my tiri-tiri (or tika-tika, takadimi, etc.) set

Thoughts on Kodaly Certification

So far this summer has flown by! I can't believe June is almost over! I finished up my Level 3 Kodaly Certification at Wichita State University a week ago and learned so much under the direction of Susan Tevis. I loved seeing my previous Levels instructors, Jo Kirk, and Lisa Simmelink and having them meet my daughter, Ellie. 

Here is a little reflection on my experience taking my levels training over the past three year for anyone who is pursuing Kodaly Certification.

I was exposed to very little of the Kodaly Method in my undergraduate and really did not have any idea or appreciation for how it worked. I saw some of the sol-mi folk songs and thought "how boring" and had no intention of every being an elementary music teacher or going through my Kodaly Certification. 

During my student teaching my elementary cooperating teacher was not a Kodaly teacher, but she did use a similar system for counting rhythms. I saw how well her kids could read rhythms and I was really impressed, but they didn't do much singing or melodic reading. While student teaching, the school district brought in Leigh Ann Garner for an elementary professional develop day and this was really my first real look at what Kodaly is. I couldn't believe how much fun we were having while singing, playing instruments, and even more importantly reading both rhythmic and melodic elements. I was in love with her style of teaching, the songs choices and the games she played and I knew that if I were able to teach music in that way, that I would love teaching elementary music and I could make a difference in my students love of music and their ability to really read music.

I couldn't afford to take my level 1 training the summer after I graduated, so I was a camp counselor for the Children's Kodaly Choir Camp at WSU and I had the privilege of observing Elaine Quilichini work with the students who attended the camp. Their vocal transformation in one week was astounding.

The next summer I was able to take my Kodaly Level 1 under the direction of Jo Kirk. It was everything I wanted and needed at the time. She was full of love and support as showed us how joyful teaching music should be. Jo is so precise on every single step of her lessons, whether it is directions for a circle game or presenting a concept. It is amazing to watch her! We spent a lot of time in level 1 focusing on analyzing the song materials and learning about the Kodaly sequence. Suddenly the sol-mi songs made sense! :)  Everything is so developmentally appropriate for the children, which really leads them to music literacy.

In Kodaly Level 2 with Lisa Simmelink, we looked at each of the concepts and spent time learning songs and games to teach each one well. We also focused on planning individual lessons, concepts plans, and yearly plans. This was such a huge help to me! I feel like I am a lot more organized because of Lisa! 

Everything really came together for me in Level 3. We didn't spend as much time on each of the concepts, but we spent a lot of time on one, and it was nice to see one concept prepare, presented and practiced really well and we can use that experience to apply to the others. Susan spent a lot of time on musical transitions. I couldn't believe the thought she put into each lesson connecting songs to create one seamless lesson! This is definitely something I can aspire to and try to do in my own teaching! We also spent more time peer teaching. I have been so blest to have the most supportive group of teachers in my level all three years, but teaching other teachers is always a bit intimidating! It is a great opportunity to practice how you are going to give clear, concise direction and try out different activities before trying them with my own kids!

Without a doubt going through the Kodaly Certification program has changed my life and my teaching. I feel like I am more a more joyful, thoughtful, and purposeful teacher because of it and I would encourage any music teacher who is considering it to take the plunge! You will never look back and regret it!  It is definitely a lot of hard work, but that is nothing when you see what you have gained. 

If you have any questions about Kodaly Certification or taking it at WSU, please feel free to ask in the comments below or send me a personal message at LindsayJervis@hotmail.com

By the way, everything in my TpT store is 15% off 6/23/13-6/24/13! 

Click the picture below to check out the sale!

I have recently added some "I Have, Who Has" Rhythm Games:

This game is in the American Methodology and I some cute cards. They are available by concept and each concepts has a different color - to keep me organized! You also have the option to print in black and white if you don't have access to a color printer, but I would print them on different colored paper  if you go that route! Always print on cardstock and laminate if you can and then you will have it to use for many, many years. 

Check out my level 1 game by clicking on the picture below:

This set would be perfect for older beginners and so I have also included it in my Older Beginner Collection. If you have already purchased that, you're lucky- simply go to "my purchases" on TpT and re-download the file at no additional cost!

Or you can check out my ta-a and tiri-tiri set here:

Check back soon for more sets!

I hope you are having a great summer,

A Bundle of Spring Songs

We still have snow here on the ground in Kansas but with Easter this weekend I am finding myself wishing for the warmer weather and looking forward to spring.

I don't really teach in themed units, but if there are folk songs that are appropriate to the season and contain the concepts we are preparing or practicing, I try to include them.

All of the songs in this bundle are available individually on my TPT store, but if you are interested in several you can save several dollars by purchasing as the bundle.

This set contains these seven songs:

 A few page examples:

 Examples of Solfa Street (in song slides):

 Spring time vocal exploration:

This bundle is available here: http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Spring-Songs-and-Activities

Or you can check out each individual song by following these links:
John the Rabbit
Old Mister Rabbit
Closet Key
Frog in the Meadow
Pitter Patter
Rain Rain Go Away
Come Back Home My Little Chicks
Spring Vocal Explorations

Happy Spring!

Lindsay