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?

Pin It to Win It Giveaway

I am falling behind on my Monday Manipulatives, but I decided I would throw a "Pin It to Win It" giveaway on my blog.

With October on the horizon, I will be pulling out all of my fall and Halloween songs and activities soon, so I thought I would feature my bundle of Songs and Activities for Fall in this giveaway.

Here's what's included: 

With over 300 pages, this set is packed full of songs and activities specifically geared towards fall and Halloween in the Kodaly music classroom.

In this set you will find PDFs of the following:

I Climbed Up the Apple Tree (PreK-1st) - A fun rhyme for steady beat vs. rhythm or preparing ta and titi

See the Old Witch (K-1) - Prepare, present, and practice ta rest (or piece of silence); high/low, and sol-mi

Naughty Kitty Cat (K-2) - Prepare, present and practice ta rest (or piece of silence); prepare, present, and practice la

Apple Tree (K-2nd) - Slides to prepare and practice steady beat, ta / titi; prepare, present, and practice do

Let Us Chase the Squirrel (2nd-3rd Grade) - Slides for half note

Skin and Bones (2-4) - Game idea plus slides for preparing, presenting, and practicing low la. Rhythm slides not included since it is in 6/8

Candy Corn Rhythm Races: ta - titi

Candy Corn Rhythm Races: ta rest

Vocal Explorations for Autumn - 13 vocal exploration pathways plus 7 for the teacher or students to draw their own lines on SMART board, Mimio or white boards.

Vocal Explorations for Halloween - 11 ready made vocal explorations pathways and 11 for the teacher or students to draw the lines on SMART board, Mimio, or white boards, plus 2 printable black and white worksheets for students to compose their own vocal exploration

Beat Charts for Fall - 15 beat charts for fall including apples, acorns, pumpkins, black cats, witches, and many more!

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The giveaway will end on Wednesday, Oct. 9th, so you have enough time to get the goodies before Halloween. If you are the lucky winner and you have already purchased this bundle from my store, I will give you a $12 credit towards anything in my store.

Just enter the rafflecopter below!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Featured Item of the Week: La Bundle

I have started doing a featured item of the week in my store. For that week only the featured item will be 20% off. This is the biggest percent that TpT will let us take off of our items, so it's a great time to grab it if it's a product you've been eyeing.

This bundle of songs and resources for teaching "la" contains:

PDF of slides for
-Naughty Kitty Cat
-Snail Snail
-Johnny's It
-Bounce High, Bounce Low
-Lucy Locket
-Ickle Ockle

All are set up for use during prepare/present/practice to allow you to use them however it works best for your concept plan.


I have also included a powerpoint of the Solfa  Street.

Repertoire list for La Songs

Hand Sign Posters for mi, so, and la

La Kodaly Bundle

I finished up my Bundle of La songs and I am really pleased with how they all turned out. There are SO many great songs out there to teach la, so I looked for some tried and true favorites and maybe one or two that may not be used as often. With each song I include slides for preparing, presenting and practicing the new concept. This gives me the flexibility to change which song I am going to use to present the concept if I think they will really feel/hear it better with that song.

Here are a few clips of my la bundle:

 

Songs include:

Bounce High, Bounce Low

Ickle Ockle

Johnny's It

Naughty Kitty Cat

Snail, Snail

Here is an example of a page from each. I have blogged about these:

Ickle Ockle

Naughty Kitty Cat

Johnny's It

This set is available from my Teachers Pay Teachers Store here. You can save $5 by purchasing the bundle vs each one separately, but if you just want one or two songs from the set, they are also available for individual purchase, just click on the song title below. You can see more pictures of each one and download preview of some of them this way.

Johnny's It
Ickle Ockle
Naughty Kitty Cat
Bounce High, Bounce Low
Snail, Snail

All of these also include slides for steady beat, rhythmic icons, rhythm with stick notation and for any that ta rest is the new rhythmic concept there are also slides included to prepare, present and practice ta rest.

If  you have already purchased one of these individually but would like to purchase the bundle, I would be happy to send you another file for free equivalent to the one you purchased. Simply send me an email to LindsayJervis@hotmail.com after you have purchased the bundle stating your TpT username and the items you have purchased and what item(s) you would like for free.

Don't forget, my store-wide sale ends tomorrow, 4-1-13!

Hope you had a Happy Easter,

Lindsay

Ickle Ockle: a song for ta rest or la

This song is perfect for my kiddos. I pull it out first when preparing ta rest. When creating my slides for the songs I always include slides that work specifically for preparing, presenting or practicing a concept. That gives me the flexibility to use it however I want. When deciding which song I am going to use to "present" a concept, I always pick one they know and sing well. So it may not be the same one every year. This year I used "Naughty Kitty Cat" to present ta rest but I used this song in the prepare and practice stage and can pull it back out when we get to la. Sometimes I focus just of the rhythm aspect of the song or pitch aspect of that song depending on the grade level. Since this song contains just so, mi and la and ta, titi and z, it is great for rhythm or pitch use. 

Game: Students are standing in a circle with partners in promenade hold. One student (or the teacher) is in the middle of the circle. During the song, partners walk clockwise. After "please choose me" all players must drop hands and quickly find a new partner. But here's the catch: the person in the middle is going to try to steal someone's partner so that they don't have to be in the middle anymore. If they are successful, a new person will be "it" in the middle and the game will start over. If they are not successful, they are still "it" and the game repeats. It is a lot of fun for the kids! You just have to really emphasize that they do not want to be it, and that if someone wants to be their partner, you need to go with them. 

Examples of preparation slides for rhythm:

I always start out with steady beat-

 Then move to rhythmic icons:

 Show known rhythms and new mystery rhythm:

Presentation slides: 

 I also include slides like this on my TpT PDF in case a teacher labels it differently they can still use this:

I actually show my kids both ways of making the ta rest, but I just say that one is kind of tricky so it's ok to use "Z", but a lot of times they like to use the "fancy" version, so I let them.

Melodic preparation slides:

Presentation slides: 

Solfa Street:

Practice slides: 

Finally we read with standard noation:

I usually write it out in F do and G do so kids can practicing seeing the new note on both lines and spaces.

A few extras:

Iconic flashcards without solfege:

 Iconic flashcards with solfege:

 

 Rhythm stick with solfa flashcards:

Hope those of you who are on Spring Break are enjoying your last day! I go back to school tomorrow.

Lindsay