I wanted to do something for my choir kids as a thank you for all their hard work this semester. This was a relatively affordable "gift" even though I ended up getting the giant sized Symphony bars (since Walmart didn't have enough of the XL bars stocked....) I conned my sister into helping me cut out the tags and tie up the ribbons. Here is the finished product. I designed the tags in powerpoint. Here is a closer picture and a PDF if you'd like to print your own.

These two barline worksheets give music students some practice understanding basic time signatures so they can comprehend rhythm structure better.

Once in a while I do a blog post more aimed at a music teacher audience, and this is one of those posts. This is the hello song that I sing to start every music for kindergarten and first grade. …

My district is one that is implementing Student Learning Objectives...which are basically large-scale goals for each student in class based on their ability levels. Teachers have to set target scores/learning outcomes for lower level learners to higher level learners. That means there has to be some sort of pre-assessment in order to determine the level of the students. I really have struggled in attempting to create pre-assessments for orchestra. It has been hard to wrap my head around giving a test to see what I know students don't know yet...since I haven't taught the skill, yet. Anyway, I am focusing my learning objective on rhythm. I want to be sure my students are fluent note-readers and rhythm readers. For my pre-test, I will use the 'I Got Rhythm' form that I created. This can be used many different ways and can be a useful tool in a variety of rhythm exercises. For my pre-assessment, I will perform the rhythm from one box on each line...and I will have students circle the rhythm that they think I played. This will help me see if students are already recognizing these rhythms. The rhythms get progressively more difficult as you move down the page, so I will be able to set some learning targets for individual students. Eventually of course, students will demonstrate the ability to perform these rhythms on their own - by the end of year 1. I can also use this form as a rhythm exercise...students can perform the rhythms across and down each line. They can cut them up to make flashcards. You can use the different rhythms for warm-ups and scales.

November 20, 2013 We have been learning all about "tempo" (the speed--fast or slow--of the beat) and "rhythm" in ...

Warning: this idea is 100% completely stolen from my good friend Tanya LeJeune!! Be sure to view her blog by clicking here!!! I saw Tanya present this at the Colorado State conference a number of years ago but it wasn't until this year that I finally made a formal "remote" for the game (before making these manipulatives I would simply write the words on a board). You'll notice in the picture below that there are two remotes: the one on the left I use with 1st and 2nd grades & the one on the right is used with 3rd-5th grades. This is a late practice activity and students will be most successful when they are familiar with the song(s) that this is played with. Basic principal of the game: Have the practice song written on the board in stick notation with the solfege written below the rhythm and the text to the song below the solfa (similarly to the way Jill Trinka notates her songs in her books). I have the remote hanging on my magnetic board. The students read the song by performing it on each of the "channels" (the buttons- ie. they sing it on the words all the way through the song, then they sing it on the rhythm all the way through the song, then the solfa all the way through the song and then (for grades 3-5) the absolute pitch names). After that, if the game is new to the students, I explain how we are going to "channel surf"- this a concept that we are all familiar with. ;-) This means that as the song is sung I am going to have them switch from singing the song one way to another (i.e. they may sing phrase one on the words of the song and then the second phrase on solfa and so on.) I tell them which "station" they will start on and give them a starting pitch. Then, using another magnet (mine is a Fantasia Mickey Mouse that a former student gave me), I place the magnet next to the starting station and as the song is sung move the magnet to other channels as the phrases change. Here are a couple variations to make it more difficult: instead of using stick solfa, have the song written on the staff with the text below. have the song written on the staff but without the text. have them sing all of the song from memory. This one is fun to do with a song/game that the kids ask to play over and over again that they know VERY well. There is one thing that I have haven't touch on and that's the "mute" button: works just like a real mute button and is wonderful for inner hearing. I usually use it as an independent button (not in combination with other buttons), but you can do it in combination with the other buttons as a way to really challenge students. Thanks again Tanya for sharing this game!!!

Beatboxing sentences**Free downloadable beatboxing sentences below** One day I was working on some iPad lesson ideas and one of the projects […]

Happy New Year! Two weeks off, holiday celebrations, and time with family really helps rejuvenate the soul. I had an amazing start to my winter break. At around 11:40pm, Friday Dec. 21st, the last day of school in my district, my beautiful niece was born! We are so in love with her and are excited about being "Tia y Tio" (Aunt and Uncle) for the first time. I hope you all had a restful winter break and are refreshed and ready to make more wonderful music with your little ones. No matter how I prepare before a long break I always come back in a fog. It takes me half the day before I feel like I'm back in the swing of things. In my fog, I almost forgot to pull out my Teddy Bear masks! The song alone is fun but teddy bear masks or masks of any kind always make things better. :) The mask idea came from a lesson that Sandy and Gretchen shared during my Level I. Process: 1. SM warm-up 2. Isolate Teddy Bear 3. Add body percussion - we ususally settle on clap-clap pat, clap-clap pat 4. S. sing Teddy Bear w/ Body Percussion, T. sings teddy movements and demonstrates 5. Discuss what Teddy does 6. S. sing Teddy w/ Body Percussion and perform Teddy movements, T. sings teddy movements 7. Discuss order of Teddy movements and lead students to discover rhyming words. 8. S. sing and perform whole song with body percussion and movement 9. Divide group in two and perform: half get masks, half get unpitched percussion 10. Switch This lesson leads to others where we decode the melody and rhythm of the teddy bear phrase, I'll try and remember to post about them later. In case you aren't familiar with this song, I found the notation on Beth's Music Notes. If you haven't checked our her blog, you should. Click here to visit her site! These masks were a bit time consuming because I made 10 but they are very durable and so cute! We are lucky enough to have a cut out machine at our school that I was able to use for the shape of the head. If you don't have one of these machines, I would suggest making a template out of cardboard first. You could find an image and trace it onto the poster/cardboard using a projector or draw it free hand. Once I had the heads, I filled in the gaps using some colored construction paper and cut out little eye wholes. I found sunglasses in the dollar section at Target but I imagine the dollar store would be another good place to look for them. I used hot glue to attach them to the back. I had mine laminated at Office Max because they have really nice heavy duty lamination. I like to use them for all my lamination and color printing needs. They can be a bit pricey but they have teacher discounts, the staff is usually knowledgeable and the quality of the printing and lamination seems to be a bit better than the other office supply stores.

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.

Visit the post for more.

Song Index

Fun and engaging hand clapping game to teach your kiddos!

Teaching Canon Singing. Organized Chaos. Strategies for introducing canons in elementary choir or general music lessons.

Credit- Raymondsanti Students in grades K-4 began the Lion King unit this Monday during Arts Enrichment time. Arts Enrichment is an extra music/art time a week taught by the Art teacher Mrs. Divis and the music teacher Ms. Moon. Photo Credit The Lion King on Broadway Trailer For the next two Mondays students will be learning a fun dance to "The Circle of Life" and making African necklaces. Students will wear the necklaces while showcasing "The Circle of Life" dance at an upcoming school assembly. Photo by: Swiss.frog After those two weeks students will explore The Lion King theme more through various art projects and music activities. Some of the music activity videos are shown below: Hakuna Matata: The Lion Sleeps Tonight Music Video Lion Sleeps Tonight- Just Dance 2 Video I made two different arrangements of Lion Sleeps Tonight (and found the ukulele online) for grades 2-4, to align with what instruments they are learning in general music class. Grade 2 will learn the song on boomwhackers, grade 3 on the barred instruments, and grade 4 on the ukulele. I will also give a brief description of some common African instruments and add appropriate percussion parts (likely only one or two per grade of the percussion parts listed below). Below is a video from a 2nd grade class of students playing the boomwhacker part and some African instruments. Here is a 3rd grade class practicing the mallet accompaniment to "Lions Sleeps Tonight". Although the Lion King takes place in Kenya, the theme of the unit opens up the wonderful opportunity to explore musical activities from all parts of Africa. Obwisana is a folk song from Ghana. Students will play a rock passing game while singing the song. The words of the song mean "The rock has crushed my hand, grandma." I found this description in a book I have: "A child singing this song is repeatedly receiving a message of security and comfort, even in the context of a phrase and game which tells of injury. The injured child can take comfort in the fact that he or she can turn to "Nana" for sympathy and assistance- the ever-present circle of relatives supports Ghanaian children and adults during times of misfortune and celebration both." Che Che Koolay is also a folk song from Ghana. The words have been said by some to be nonsense words. But the movements to the song lean toward this translation: Hands on your head Hands on your shoulders Hands on your waist Hands on your knees Hands on your ankles Hands on your ankles Hands on your ankles, hey! Notation found here Students will learn a dance similar to the popular American song, "Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes" to Che Che Koolay.

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

Chrome Music Lab- Andrew Keegan shares 5 lesson ideas to try to save you time. Full of practical ideas to share with you students.

Looking for a fun way to review the instruments of the orchestra? This write the room activivty was a huge hit with my elementary music students!

Visit the post for more.

Some of you are "lucky" and are still on winter break. . .. I'm not one of those "lucky" ones. But, it's all in the eye of the beholder, isn't it?! It was a really fun first day back. The kiddos were really excited to share about their break and ready to get back into the swing of things. Speaking of getting back into the swing of things, we brought this favorite back in 4th grade today. We used it in 3rd grade for low la but are bringing it back now to prepare syn-co-pa (feels like I've been prepping this forever. . . . .). Here's the song: This is a fun boomwacker part that we added with it in 3rd grade: And here's a really EASY Orff accompaniment that my 3rd graders this year did for our Parent Engagement Night: As I mentioned, we're prepping syn-co-pa so here's a new PowerPoint that I made: First, we have lyric slides: Then there are some low la prep slides that I included for next year's 3rd grade: After preparation comes practice, so here are a couple of the practice slides we'll use for review with 4th grade as a warm-up when prepping syn-co-pa: Here are the rhythm preparation slides: And here are the practice slides: After syn-co-pa is presented we'll sing it on solfége, using the stick rhythm and maybe even play "Remote Control" with it: And we'll practice reading the solfa on the staff, with the rhythm. Again, we might use an inner hearing game for this: I mentioned in an earlier post that I know I need to do a better job practicing reading Absolute Pitch Names, so here are those slides: Once we've read syn-co-pa in numerous songs we'll finally get to these cards. I made them for the Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer game but never got to them. Things happen and the kids we're prepared enough, so we "rolled with the punches" and had to change our pacing: I'm presenting at CMEA (Colorado Music Educators Conference) at the end of the month: one session called "Upping the Ante" and another one called "Manipulative Mania". This is for the "Manipulative Mania" session, sponsored by ROCKE (so, all you Colorado folks, you can buy this at CMEA this year!). I LOVE the way this turned out and we'll be using this as an assessment in a few weeks. Here's the beat board, the oars act as barlines: The students will have four canoes and they must put them in the correct order to match the song: Using the back side of the canoe, they can compose their own 4-beat rhythms on each canoe using a vis-a-vis marker. The boards can also be used with other die cutes such as fish, boats, seashells. Here's a couple fish thrown on: If you would like a copy of the PowerPoint above, it's available at my Teacher Pay Teachers store and includes the non-holiday song sorting game from the Rudolph file. I hope you all have a GREAT weekend!!

Looking For An Easy Music Game for your Class? You've come to the right place! I'm sharing an easy music game I like to do in the spring time with my preschool, kindergarten and 1st graders. Check out

Music a la Abbott Amy Abbott Kodály Inspired Blog and Elementary Teachers Music Education Resource

This music dominos game is a great reinforcement activity for categorizing instruments into brass, percussion, string, and woodwind families. Players will need to match the instrument side to the correct instrument family side of the dominos. This game is perfect to use for a music center or substitute activity. This download includes a full color and black & white line set of 64 dominos each and an instruction card. Also included are 4 family reference cards with basic definitions for each and 1 large reference sheet including definitions of each family and corresponding instruments found in the game. There are 4 instruments featured in each family: trumpet french horn trombone tuba flute clarinet oboe bassoon violin viola cello string bass bass drum timpani tubular bells marimba If you enjoy this resource, please follow me and leave feedback! I appreciate hearing from you! If you like this product, please see my other items. Instrument Family Spoons Game Instrument Crazy 8th's Game Instrument Who Is It

Folk song based on pentatonic scale with lesson plan ideas for elementary music

An update to everything happening in the world of Musicplay, MusicplayOnline, and Themes & Variations directly from Denise Gagne!

Sakura, Sakura | Free Sheet Music Orff Orchestration (Digital Print) - Visit MakingMusicFun.net for more free and premium sheet music, music lesson plans, and great composer resources.

As my theme this year is "Music Around the World," I've been looking into lots of different folk songs from around the world. I found this little gem, Kokoleoko. I've found it in several different places, all slightly different versions. The version below is the most common, found in "Spotlight on Music, Grade 5," as well as several South American sources. If you change one note of this song (the f sharp to an a), it is a great recorder piece - using only the notes G-A-B-C, as shown in this example: The translation is pretty simple. Apparently "Kokoleoko" is just another way of saying "cock-a-doodle-doo," and "ahby" is "goodbye." Now, each source I find this song says something different about where exactly it's from. Most often, they say either Liberia or Ghana. So, I've just labeled it as a West African folk song to be more accurate. Anyway, this song is great for teaching the half note, which I do in 2nd grade. We spend awhile preparing, using songs that have half notes, before actually labeling what they are. This song is also great if you bring it back in the end of 3rd/beginning of 4th, or whenever you teach syncopation. There is a clapping game that goes with this. It looks more complicated than it actually is. My 2nd graders are challenged by this, but really enjoy doing it. You can watch an example below:  I recently made a Teachers Pay Teachers product for this song that has rhythmic practice slides, melodic practice slides, clapping game instructions, and notation for both voice in the original version and recorder in the revised version. You can find it here: http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Browse/Search:kokoleoko    There is even a great treble choral arrangement out there by Mary Donnelly and George Strid. Here's a cute recording I found of it on YouTube: Hope you can find use for this great song! My kids are absolutely loving it :)

So, I've created my first concept specific packet for Teachers Pay Teachers. This is something that I have been debating to do. I want to make products that are accessible and usable for teachers, regardless of their training, experience or background. But I'll be honest that my products are created with the Kodály metholodogy and sequence in mind. That being said, I also don't want to undermine or sell products that you really need to create on your own when taking a Kodály level. I know, sounds kind of mean and selfish. Let me explain. I did my levels at Portland State (four years worth) and then two more (level II & III) at Colorado State University and I'm going to be teaching level II this summer at CSU. At Portland State I learned pedagogy from the brilliant, amazing Susan Brumfield. Then at CSU I had Sue Liethold-Bowcock and Ann Eisen, who, too were amazing and wonderful. Each of these teachers presented things in a different way. Some of the things that they taught me are amazing and I use them each and every year. There are other ideas that I pull out from time to time (you know what I mean. You go back to your notes or you go to a workshop and you recall something from levels and you say to yourself "oh yeah! I forgot about that activity or song!!") And other ideas flopped because either I was so overwhelmed with everything going in my brain that I forgot how to do the activity or I wasn't sold on it and in turn my kids didn't "buy it." Each of us are going to develop our own style and ways to prepare, present and practice melodic and rhythmic concepts. You get all these tools and ideas in levels, from your teacher and from your peers. Some are going to work beautifully and some need to be adapted and tweaked to meet the needs of your kids. When I started thinking about creating concept specific files I didn't want to give away my concept plans or some of my specific preparation and practice activities because I know that the plans HAVE to be specific to you and that some of the things I do you have to see in action because they are too complex or complicated to explain. You have to choose your song literature, you have to choose the activities that you like to teach (because face it, you won't sell it to your students if you don't like it). And with the activities, it's back to the old saying that there's more than one way to skin a cat. There are a gazillion ways to prepare and practice each concept. Each are wonderful and amazing and quite frankly creating and selling a file of things that I do that are concept specific overwhelmed me because of how vast of a task that would be!! So, I decided to go to the bare bones of ways that each of us prepare and practice elements and make things that really exam at the critical attributes of that element. So, the meat of this file is 10 PDF files (that you can run like a PowerPoint, the instructions are included or that you can convert into a PDF) that are adaptable so you can use them for either preparing, presenting or practicing Ta & Ti-Ti: There is notation for 15 songs and chants and games, if applicable. And I included my ta & ti-ti flashcards. Here are the songs that are included (I know, three of the songs are in the Bee Bundle, and these are similar but made specific for ta & ti-ti): There are also worksheets (I'll show you a couple more down below): Here's an example of one of the PDFs, they are all set up exactly like this, so you can choose what to use out of the file. There is a lyric slide: Then a beat slide(s): Then a rhythm prep slide with iconic representation: Then the presentation slides. This notation presents ta and ti-ti written both with and without note heads: Then immediately applying this knowledge to the song: Then reading it, this can be for immediate practice (same lesson as presentation) or later practice: And then one more time with note-heads: For every PDF there are two matching worksheets (which are in color and black & white): There is one that is a rhythm chart: To go with this, for practice after ta & ti-ti I created rhythm strips. There are multiple rhythms. I suggest in the file to print each set of rhythms out on different colored papers. Cut along the lines and then I tell you how many of each rhythm pattern to have in each set that you will then put in an envelope. This way, you can use the same set of envelopes with all 10 songs (rather than cutting all these strips and tailoring them for each song) AND the color coded strips make it REALLY easy to assess. As you look around you class to see who has the correct rhythms all you have to do is look at the color: There is a writing worksheet for that goes with each of the 10 songs in PDF form: And then I included rhythm preparation cards. I have to say that these are one of my favorite visual ways to prepare ta & ti-ti. (There are cards that match each of the 10 PDFs and the hearts for the chart). The idea is that the hearts only are in the chart. The class (or you could use this as a station) derive the way the words go. This is an example of "Jean Jean": (this is my big chart, it can actually hold 16 beats:) After your kiddos know ta & ti-ti, we then use this in early practice to go from the iconic to the symbolic representation. As you can see, the first line has been replaced (I usually just stick the cards on top and then sort them later): And here the whole song has been replaced: I also use the hearts on a chart like this. There are paperclips that I inserts into slots that I cut using an exacto knife that hold the cards in place: Same idea, then the rhythms replace the icons: This is available at my Teachers Pay Teachers store. Have a GREAT weekend everyone!

It's back to school time! Yay! I am so happy to see all of you again! I am looking forward to a fun school year with you! Here's what's up so far! Grades 4 & 5 (Rooms 13, 17 & 19) are starting the year with the song "Somebody That I Used To Know" by Gotye. We began by watching a cover of the song by the group Walk of the Earth, where each member plays one part on the guitar. From left to right: Player 1: Uses the guitar as a percussion instrument Player 2: Plays the ostinato (a repeating pattern) which is actually just IIV to I chords Player 3: Plays the guitar melody Player 4: Plays the off-beat chords (on beats 2 & 4) Player 5: Plays accent chords Then we watched another version of the song: Gotye saw that so many people were doing covers of his song that he made a compilation video of a whole bunch of YouTube videos from around the world! Next week we will be learning to play this song on the Orff Instruments: From: http://musescore.com/user/24296/scores/49627 Grades 1/2/3 are learning the Tritsch Tratsch Polka by Johann Strauss. We have coupled it with Deborah Ziolkoski's story and movement about the ringmaster and tightrope walker from Fun With Composers. We are learning about ABA form in music (same/different/same), and a little bit about the life of composer Johann Strauss. Here is a recording of it - ask your child to show you the story and movement! Did you know that the Tritsch Tratsch Polka is also used in the video game Mario & Sonic at the London 2012 Olympic Games? It can be found in the Synchronized Swimming section! Pretty cool, huh?