Have you ever heard of Edwin Gordon's Music Learning Theory? I'm sharing how MLT impacts the teaching and learning in my music room.
In the previous post, I talked about using voice cards as visual aids. In this post, I will explain a couple activities that use the visual aids. At the bottom of the post, you can download the pdf and print them for free! Name Game For 1st grade and kindergarten, I always review voices on their first music class of the year when we are doing name games. We do simple echos: Teacher: "My name is Mrs. Dennis" Class: "Her name is Mrs. Dennis" Student: "My name is Joshua." Class: "His name is Joshua." thekinderkid.blogspot.com After we go once around the circle learning names, I introduce the voices with the cards. (I also tie this to our school-wide voice level system. I do not have a picture of our voice level posters, but I found a similar one from The Kinder Kid. Our numbers and levels are the same, but we don't have the cute clipart.) When the students understand the voice levels, we get to go around the circle again saying our name to the beat, but this time each student secretly picks a voice (whisper, speaking, calling, singing). We must echo using the same voice and then I ask the class what type of voice they used. Voice level zero For the past 3 years, since I have been relating these voices to the voice level number, the kids always ask to say their names with voice level zero. We now call it "Magic Lips". Anytime I want the kids to move their lips without making a sound, I ask them to use Magic Lips. I actually use this with all grade levels. I usually ask for Magic Lips when I had the kids patting a rhythm while saying a poem and then I want to hear their patting by itself. I also ask for Magic Lips when students are using Curwen hand signs and I want them to stop singing and focus on the pitch levels. Acka Backa I use the voice cards often in repetitive games, just to break up the monotony. One example is an elimination game: "Acka Backa." Here is the poem if you are not familiar with it: Acka Backa, soda cracker Acka Backa, boo Acka Backa, soda cracker Out goes you! There are many variations to the words; you may know a different version, but this is how we play. This is a simple elimination game. To prepare the students, I have them stand in a circle and pass a ball around to the steady beat. We first practice passing to the beat at different tempos. I usually hold a buffalo drum and stand inside the circle showing where the ball should be. If the ball passes up the drum, they know they are going too fast. When they are focused on the beat, we introduce the poem and the rules. The last person to hold the ball on "you" leaves the circle. The student gets to go to my chair where I have the voice cards laying face down. They pick a card to tell us which voice to use next and then they get to mix them up again for the next person. Elimination games are always tough for the kids who always want to win, but going to select a card seems to ease the disappointment that they are out of the game. Free Printable: Voice Cards (whisper, speaking, calling, singing) I suggest printing them on white cardstock and laminating them.
In music theory, names of scale degrees refer to the position of a note in a scale. Learn their names and how to memorize them!
Teaching elementary music? Learn all about classroom management strategies to control those fifth graders in the blog post!
Today on TAP, I’m talking with Dr. Cynthia Crump Taggart all about Music Learning Theory. MLT is an approach that I’m not as familiar with as others, and to
How do you get from where you are to become a musicpreneur? I’ll be honest, it’s a lot of work, but it’s rewarding in the end. First things first though, you have to shift your mindset. You’ll go from one of “this is a hobby” to “this is my business,” reframe your thoughts, consider why you want t
Check out this post for creative and exciting ways to add scarves into your music activities. Also, find some specific scarf music examples.
Origins of the cup song It’s a craze that has swept over schools everywhere and contrary to popular belief, the […]
Shave your legs, listen to rap, wear pink – what's so terrible about falling short of feminist ideals?
Back To School: Music Ice Breakers The Back To School: Music Ice Breakers is a collection of activities to help you cultivate community in your classroom and learn more about your students and their musical interests and knowledge. This resource includes 5 different activities that you can use during the first few days or weeks of the year. All About Me: Music Edition Students will write about and can share their musical interests and background. Musician Interview Students will interview a fellow classmate and learn about their musical background My Favorite Song Students will write about their favorite song and share about their song selection with a partner or the class Find A Musician Who Can . . . . Students will find another musician who can identify the important signs and symbols in written music Rhythm Challenge Students will work as a team or with a partner to come up with 4 different original rhythms given the note values and time signatures provided. The Back To School: Music Ice Breakers is a helpful resource for cultivating a positive community for any music ensemble or general music classroom. Have an excellent start to your school year! Mark -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Become a follower by clicking the ""Follow Me" green star next to my store logo. This will let you know of any updates, new products, and more. Follow me My website and blog
Looking for a fun way to teach children about form? This is one of my favorite lessons! Manipulatives and movement, what could be better?
The Yellow Brick Road Blog is a website dedicated to providing music teachers with fun education resources for serious music literacy.
Every piece of music you hear has a tempo. On a piece of sheet music, it is almost always found at the top left of the first page, immediately above the
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Read on for time signature games students will love and not even know they're practicing meter! Review games, active centers, and lots more!
There are many different ways to heal your chakras, one of them is through music! Here is the complete guide to music for the seven chakras.
Desert habitat song "Coyote, Coyote" makes learning easy when students sing, read and write. Get your students “howling” with this jazzy upbeat song.
We all know and love Kahoot, right? If you do not know about Kahoot then we have a few blog posts with tips and ideas to get you up to sp...
In this blog post, I will discuss implementing what you learn at music education conferences in a way that makes sense for you.
Getting your head around EQ should be a priority for everyone learning to mix. Read our in depth blog on how to EQ your mix.
One thing I've learned through the pandemic is the power of concept-based planning. When so many of my usual lesson activities and methods were no longer viable, I was still able to maintain my sequenced instruction. Knowing the concepts I was teaching made it so much easier to figure out what to teach, when I was having to reinvent so many of my lessons. In this post I'm compiling all my favorite lessons for teaching those fundamental concepts for general music in one place to make everyone's lesson planning lives a little easier! First please note that this post is focused on concepts, rather than skills or materials/ methods (we'll talk about those another day). Each of these categories has tons of specific lesson ideas and teaching strategies for specific elements within that category- click below to see each one: I hope this makes it a little easier to find effective and engaging lesson plans for whatever concept you're hoping to teach! As new posts are added, I'll continue to update this page, so this may be a good one to save somewhere. And if you want ideas to cover all your lessons in a sequenced, comprehensive curriculum, I've published all my lesson plans and materials in this set here.
This home is every music lover's dream.
One thing I've learned through the pandemic is the power of concept-based planning. When so many of my usual lesson activities and methods were no longer viable, I was still able to maintain my sequenced instruction. Knowing the concepts I was teaching made it so much easier to figure out what to teach, when I was having to reinvent so many of my lessons. In this post I'm compiling all my favorite lessons for teaching those fundamental concepts for general music in one place to make everyone's lesson planning lives a little easier! First please note that this post is focused on concepts, rather than skills or materials/ methods (we'll talk about those another day). Each of these categories has tons of specific lesson ideas and teaching strategies for specific elements within that category- click below to see each one: I hope this makes it a little easier to find effective and engaging lesson plans for whatever concept you're hoping to teach! As new posts are added, I'll continue to update this page, so this may be a good one to save somewhere. And if you want ideas to cover all your lessons in a sequenced, comprehensive curriculum, I've published all my lesson plans and materials in this set here.
Out of all the tiny homes I've seen, this one definitely takes the cake.
Theta healing is a way of dramatically changing your limiting beliefs and restoring your connection with the Creator. Read on to learn more!
Malcolm Gladwell at the 92nd Street Y Malcolm Gladwell – Why do some succeed where others fail? What makes high-achievers different? Malcolm Gladwell – Outliers 1 (2009) Mal…
I know that I’ve been talking about books for the music classroom a lot recently so I thought I’d share some of my current favorites! If you saw my post from last week, I go over some different ways to use books in the music classroom. These books are all great books that teach a […]
Listening to the music of Mozart can temporarily increase your spatial intelligence, but if you want it to stick--take music lessons.
A little peek into my life with synesthesia, including examples of Grapheme-Color, Chromesthesia, Auditory-Tactile types. Remember to love ALL parts of you.
Band directors - have you heard of Flipgrid before? If not, you need to check out this informative article! Click here to learn more.
Don’t miss the giveaway at the end! Do you know what PHOTOGRAMMETRY or THERMOPHILE mean? How about ZOOMETRY or SYMPHILY? Your children will be able to tell you quite easily what the definitions of these words are after spending time playing Rummy Roots. This game is teaching my children all about English words through learning […]
Knowing how to choose, maintain, and replace a reed are important skills for young woodwind players. This article answers the most common questions about reeds, for saxophone and clarinets.
Learning about the Renaissance? This Renaissance worksheet lends extra help remembering important people, places, and things of this important time in history.
