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What do you like to do when you listen to music? Practice writing sentences by answering this question and more about music in this creative writing worksheet.
As a review of rhythm notation, I always play BINGO with my kiddos! I made a SMARTboard presentation during my first year of teaching and print/laminated boards. Now that I'm older and wiser (and with iPads), I put the bingo boards in Dropbox instead and have the images saved to the iPads. Typically, we use a Whiteboard App to cross off symbols. After playing BINGO many times, I've noticed the Whiteboard App (FREE) I was using had too many ads and tons of pop ups that distracted my kids. Today, we used the newly updated EduCreations instead and it worked much more smoothly! Here is a link to my TPT store where you can get Music BINGO for your classroom! **NO SMARTBOARD REQUIRED!** This file requires SMART Notebook, SMART Express, or SMART Notebook Interactive Viewer. SMART Express is a free online program and SMART Notebook Interactive Viewer is a free download. Check out the SMART website for more information. http://smarttech.com/Support/Browse+Support/Download+Software
Too many classroom icebreakers require students to take big social risks with people they barely know. Or they don't really help students get to know each other. Or they are just plain cheesy.
I used to dread making custom dice for my classroom, unless you are lucky enough to have wooden cubes to paste pictures onto, one step on a cardboard template dice from a student and th…
Write for the NAfME Blog SEARCH & FILTER Search Category Subscribe to NAfME Notes Subscribe to NAfME Notes, our biweekly e-newsletter, to receive highlights from the blog and other NAfME news in your inbox. Subscribe Now Write for the NAfME Blog Interested in sharing your experience with the music education…
Music class is an active, engaging, and joyful experience! This is especially true when our musical activities are grounded in creative and intentional teaching strategies. One of the most important teaching strategies has to do with teaching the difference between steady beat and the rhythm of
Vocal warm up routines that are fun are EASIER to remember. And singing warm ups using animal sounds employ a lot of the "primal" sounds beginning singers need to learn how to use.
October 12, 2013 Fourth and fifth grade students are reviewing "rhythm" (the short and long patterns of the beat) in music class...
Well... back to school after spring break.. sort of. I've been out for 3 months, back for 2 weeks just half days and surgery again next Thursday- hopefully a minor one, this time! What a crazy school year! As promised, here are some of the center ideas I've been working on... These are a set of cards you can download, print, cut out and use to work on "musical math" or create a game where students work in groups and time themselves to see how quickly they can figure out the correct answer! Could also be used as a whole class competition; divide class in half and see how quickly students can get the correct answer. Play using "hangman" and see which group wins. Let me know how you use it!
Write for the NAfME Blog SEARCH & FILTER Search Category Subscribe to NAfME Notes Subscribe to NAfME Notes, our biweekly e-newsletter, to receive highlights from the blog and other NAfME news in your inbox. Subscribe Now Write for the NAfME Blog Interested in sharing your experience with the music education…
This free printable “I Spy” music-themed picture activity features guitars, harps, keyboards, drums, saxophones, and more. Have your child count each item and record the count below the picture…
Echolalia- Learn strategies for your Autism classroom. What echolalia is and how to reduce it with activities to decrease repetitive speech or non-authentic communication.
What are your top 5 best hits? Here's a fun way for any music lover to analyze their favorite songs.
Lean Forward Lean Backward - a song with actions and activities ready-made for your music class. Great to practice music aural & music theory.
I started back to school this past week with my kids on Tuesday. I had such a great first week and I am so excited to be back making music with them. We spent our first few days going over music room rules and procedures (click here to see rules post), emergency drills, and jumped right into making music. Can I just say that I LOVE pinterest! I found so many great ideas for back to school games through Pinterest as well as from Susan during Level 3. I thought I would share some of the really fun ones that the students enjoyed our first few days back: "Up The Ladder" is a great game for learning the names of your new students. "Down, Down Baby" is from the Amidons. SO FUN! Apparently this is a favorite, because it's being sung on the bus! Hickety Pickety Bumblebee is a fun one to use with K/1. In first grade you could review four voices with "can you sing (whisper, call, speak) your name to me". With kindergarten, it might be a bit intimidating to ask them to sing their name to you on day 1 of music, but let's be honest we are still learning all their names several weeks into the school year. Pull this out with them a little bit later (maybe after you have presented the four voices) and do this then. Mamalama: I learned this in Level 3, and we take it a bit faster than in this video, but it is SO FUN! I even had a student get the last part after just a few listenings. CRAZY! What are some of your favorite first day songs and activities? Still looking for ways to set up and decorate your room? This music room decor catalog will give you lots of idea, plus a back to school tip on each page!
There is a Level 1 which is MUCH easier- students write in ONE letter to play for each beat of rhythmic values. Level 2 students have to wr...
I love using QR codes to make my task cards more exciting and interesting. They are so easy to make and even easier to use.
Song Index
I have frequently been asked and I have seen similar questions posted on Kodaly and Music Ed Facebook groups. "I am interested in learning ...
Sarasponda
Song Index
Song Index
Rock, Paper, Scissors, SING is a fun, PowerPoint music game for reinforcing so-mi melodic patterns! This is a great activity for music students to practice sight-singing on the 5-line staff because it's a fun twist on a game that most kids already love to play! This is a team game that also allows for informal assessments, but it can also be played in centers with 2 or more players. This edition is only in the Key of C, but my other games use examples from C, G, and F. More Rock Paper Scissor Games: BUNDLES Rhythm BUNDLE with Stick & Standard Solfa BUNDLE! Rhythm Games STANDARD Notation Quarter Note, Quarter Rest, Eighth Notes Half Note Beamed 16th Notes Syncopa Rhythm Games STICK Notation Quarter Note, Quarter Rest, Eighth Notes Half Note Beamed 16th Notes Syncopa Solfége Games Sol-Mi **FREEBIE** Sol-Mi-La Sol-Mi-La-Do Do-Re-Mi Pentatonic Try my 4 Corners games, another school favorite! 4 Corners BUNDLE! Thanks for stopping by, and don't forget to leave feedback to earn TpT credits. :) Follow me for updates and freebies! #musiccrewfreebies
High Shoals Elementary School Music Blog, Oconee County GA, Orff Music Instruction
I teach Junior Kindergarten, which means I have 4 and 5 year olds who are in a half-day program at my school. They are L.I.T.T.L.E! Cuties, for sure! Their classes leave me wrung out; exhausted! And after only 30 minutes per class. But things are BUSY with them and I always over plan just in case something doesn't work out during a lesson or we move too quickly through a particular song or concept. Right now my littles are learning about dinosaurs! ROAR! Although I have lots of songs that are about dinosaurs, I wanted a song that helped them with a musical concept. This morning while wandering through my stash, I came across some plastic bones I have used before (mainly at Halloween). The kids love to play them like rhythm sticks, although we have to be a little more careful as they are plastic and not wood. I got these at Dollar Tree several years ago but you could also use rhythm sticks and call these the bones! I did find some here for sale and these are about 3-4" long. These are from partycity.com and look to be about the same, also about 3-4" long. I keep everything in my room labeled like this with how many I have so I know I can have 12 children playing these (2 per child) and my students will need to have partners. It makes it easier to label everything with the quantity! So this morning after I found the bones I wrote a quickie to go with it. You will get the general idea from the song; I will be using Garage Band to play along with them using a growly electric guitar on Smart Guitar (love that feature) and will hold my dinosaur bones to demonstrate what to do with them as I find this works better than me at an instrument for these littles; one class in particular has to have the assistant stay as she is a wiggly, wily, willful child who becomes angry very easily! Yikes! I will have the children learn the song first and play with our "human bones" (hands), then partner up, one student will get dinosaur bones and the other child will sit behind them. We will practice playing our bones in different ways, maybe even make some letters out of them, then sing and play with our "dinosaur bones". The rhythms included are just suggested. After I wrote the song (of course I printed it, too!) I thought of a second verse, "Dinosaur eggs..". We will break out the "dinosaur eggs" (shakers) and play and sing that one, too! If you want a cleaner copy, email me at [email protected] and I will send you a jpeg or pdf file of the song. Happy Bone Playing! (oops, does that sound weird).. ha ha! Aimee
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One of my most favorite classroom activities to do is Composition. I just love, after teaching students the basics, watching them go through the creative process. I just love watching them as they realize that they can create a melody that sounds pretty. The smiles that come with this activity are so worth it! For […]
There are many ways to celebrate diversity and honor a multicultural classroom. Help create a classroom environment that has students explore and appreciate other cultures and diversity. Allow students to break through cultural barriers, so they learn to appreciate different ways of celebrating or communicating, and bring the classroom community closer together.
Create a sub plan so that you are good to go in the event of needing a substitute teacher as an art teacher or music teacher can make your life easier. There are many tips on putting together a sub plan and here are a few to get your started.
Song Index
Most of us teach multiple grade levels. I teach 4 year olds through 94 year olds. I skip 12 year olds through somewhere in the 60's, though. I think that probably needs explaining, right? I teach Junior Kindergarten through fourth grade and also facilitate music and drum circles at an assisted living center every 2-3 months. The youngest were probably my most difficult age to plan for starting out as a brand new teacher and I continue searching for great material to add to my "collection". We all know how it is - in a singular 30 minute lesson with the younger kiddos we might go through 10-15 activities! Interestingly, my oldest sometimes seem the same! I seek materials from various sources; blogs, bools, fellow teachers, and websites. Several years ago I found a childrens music performer named Nancy Stewart. Each month she posts a Song of the Month! You can search by category, year/month, and alphabetically, and even better - all her songs are downloadable, some have visuals to download, and most have the sheet music to download - all for FREE! YES! There are songs for Eid, Christmas, St. Patirck's Day, Diwali, Valentines, seasonal songs and everything in between. Most of the music is original and I have found some really wonderful material! One of my favorites is the Rhythm Stick Song. Nancy so kindly gave me permission to share the song with you here - the mp3 is available on her site - click the link above. Hope you enjoy it - my kiddos do! We also make up additional verses - "With my sticks I run...", walk, hop, etc. My favorite rhythm sticks are the Basic Beat Combination Sticks pictured below. I love these - perfectly sized at 8" long, no splintering, and one is smooth and the other ridged. They are about $3.00 a pair, and an awesome investment! You can get them here from West Music. Have fun with these! Happy New Year!
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Song Index
Song Index
Song Index
