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.
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I've been posting some ideas and things I do during the last couple of weeks of school. This is a final exam that I created for my beginning orchestra to go along with the SLO (Student Learning Objective) I have been working on all year. At the beginning of the school year, I gave students a pre-assessment on rhythm to determine their level of ability, then I divided the class into high level learners, middle-level, and lower-level learners. By the end of the school year, I wanted every student in my class to reach proficiency (writing, labeling, and performing) on whole notes, half notes, quarter notes, eighth notes, dotted quarters, and corresponding rests. This final exam helped me to determine their final level of proficiency. In one of my beginning classes, every student passed the test and I was feeling good, but then in my other beginning class, I had 4 or 5 students fail the test and I felt like I failed. I still need to work on differentiation to reach the kids who really struggle. Students worked on this exam while I held a playing test on the rhythms at the bottom of the page. For the playing test, I listened to each student individually and I let them choose 2 out of the 3 rhythms to perform. They were sight-reading these rhythms, but the last students to perform did have an advantage after hearing the rhythms performed previously. This is the 2nd page of the exam. I wanted to be sure that all beginning students knew these basics about fingering and they did very well.
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Do you use music in your classroom? I absolutely LOVE using music! I think it can help keep students focused and relaxed while working, I also think it’s great for classroom management, and I think it’s a wonderful motivator for students! Let’s face it… MUSIC can be quite MAGICAL in the classroom. However, for today’s post I am going to focus on how I use music to teach my students all about MOOD. {If you’d like a free copy of these resources simply click here.}You see mood is one of those abstract concepts that can be quite tricky to understand. That’s why I decided to use music in the first place. You see my students were having a hard time identifying mood in texts. So I decided to begin with music, something we are all familiar with. I also think that for kids it might be easier to “feel” mood in music. Especially since many of us choose music to listen to depending on how we are feeling at the moment. I began by introducing the term MOOD with the poster on the left. We then had a discussion on the types of music we like to listen to and […]
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It is now time to add rests to our music. This is basically the same lesson as lesson 8 but it includes the quarter rests. The addition of the rest means there are a lot more options for grouping the notes in sets of 4. Just a reminder that the rest gets one beat just as the quarter note does. Whenever the children are reading and clapping music it is important that the rest be "felt" even though there is no sound. For this lesson you may want to add instruments for variety. I always told my kids that preparing for the instruments would make us successful musicians so we read and clapped the music first to be sure we were ready to transfer it to instruments. Once again you can cut the strips out without the words and let the children find the matching pairs. Then print and cut out individual notes and rests and let the children find new ways to group them into sets of 4. Use these to create a musical piece to play. I created 26 different groupings. Any of the groupings you create are in sets of 4 which means they are in 4/4 time signature - 4 beats to a measure. The children can play these patterns along with any number of songs that are in 4/4 time. Here are some suggestions: Yankee Doodle https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CObFQznhls Rainbow Color song https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pt2DCGYzSsc Wheels on the Bus https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nKBKPcycFE Row, Row, Row Your Boat https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYLKEePMvIU Be Doodle Dee Dum https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zI9OaTJyg_Y Dance Myself to Sleep https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQmut5GI7-k&list=AL94UKMTqg-9DC1_3UPjnhZVQhZ2NCqrzH Honker Duckee Dinger Jamboree https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tdv5uuYrTKQ&list=AL94UKMTqg-9DC1_3UPjnhZVQhZ2NCqrzH
Beginners can play in tune. Really...they can. And they WANT to play in tune. No one wants to sound bad. I learned this while studying the Suzuki method as my son (age 4) began his violin lessons. He was taught to place his fingers perfectly and he wasn't to pull his bow until his fingers were set. That means, we had to pause after every 'tukka tukka stop stop' to place the next note before pulling the bow again. With this careful practice, my son never had the chance to play out of tune. Soon enough, he developed the muscle memory to land his fingers in tune add we no longer had to pause between pitch changes. In a beginning orchestra setting, we may not be able to physically check and move each student's finger to the right place, but we can use tapes for a guide. Students in a classroom are older, anyway...and they need to learn how to monitor their own playing. When students are struggling to get pitches in tune, I have found it helpful to step back and use the Suzuki strategy. Set. pull, listen. Does it match - is it in tune? Recently, I did a warm-up with my beginning orchestra class and it helped their overall intonation so much that I started doing it with all of my groups. We often warm-up with finger patterns and scales...this is just a new way to approach the patterns. We drilled only 3 notes at a time. In my experience, students are most often out of tune when playing half steps. This little drill helped students fix those intervals and they performed with better intonation through the entire rehearsal after playing it. I don't have students read the sheet music for warm ups because I want all of their focus to be on their fingers, half steps, intonation, tone, bow placement. etc. They easily pick up on this simple warm-up by rote. The other thing I have learned about beginners and intonation is that they sound a lot better when I tune them! This is pretty obvious, but I used to not tune them very carefully. I have 50 students to tune in each of my beginning class, so I'm in a hurry...I tune them all in 5 minutes or less. With tuner blaring, I used to tune via pizzicato. Then, after nagging my class to fix their intonation, I noticed that their D's and A's didn't match...and I had tuned them! I learned that I am not very good at tuning accurately when I use pizz. Now, I tune every kid's instrument using my bow...and wow...what a difference. You students just might be playing better than you think. Every now and then, I even tune my advanced class...just to make sure their instruments are perfectly in tune before we focus a rehearsal on intonation.
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Today I'm giving a glance into my first day of school lesson plans, from TK - 5th grade. In the first day of music class, students are arguably the most attentive they will be all year. This puts a unique pressure on the first day's lesson plan to set the tone for the rest of our time together.
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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!
Introduction About this lesson In this music tech lesson, students will write a short rap within a provided structure, create […]
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
Teaching Canon Singing. Organized Chaos. Strategies for introducing canons in elementary choir or general music lessons.
VOCABULARY RELATED TO MUSIC AND DIFFERENT ACTIVITIES. Two pages. - ESL worksheets
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.
Fun and engaging hand clapping game to teach your kiddos!
Folk song based on pentatonic scale with lesson plan ideas for elementary music
At the start of the school year, my focus for beginners is to develop excellent, comfortable bow holds and perfect position. We played by rote for a couple of weeks and have since been learning rhythm and note names. I don't like to drag note-reading out for too long. All they have to do is learn 8 notes and they can play so many tunes! INTRODUCING THE FIRST NOTES Students are usually excited to begin understanding music and reading notes. I teach the open strings first. I introduce the staff by comparing it to a highway with lanes and lines to show that notes are drawn (they travel) from left to right across the staff. I then teach students that notes are 'parked' on the staff. Some notes park in a space, and other notes park right on a line. I tell a story about a person driving an expensive BMW who didn't want to get their car scratched, so they parked right on a line. I have found that some students new to note-reading need the explanation that notes can be drawn ON a line. This goes against all kindergarten/grade school coloring rules when they're told over and over to stay in the lines! Student learn open string notes so quickly - it only takes minutes. I use my dry erase packets equipped with a staff and a dry erase marker. I show each section of the orchestra where their open string D is 'parked' on the staff and tell them to memorize that spot. I tell a story about I time I went to the zoo and couldn't remember where I parked and was wandering the parking lot for 30 minutes before I found my car! I explain that open D will ALWAYS be parked in that spot. We also learn where open A is parked. Next I call out various patterns of D and A and students draw them on the staff. (D, A, D, D), (D, A, A, D), etc. Students race to be the first one to draw the notes and hold up their packets. After a few minutes of this, students are allowed to create their own arrangement of D's and A's on the staff and perform them pizzicato with their stand partners. MEMORIZING NOTES My favorite method to get students to memorize notes is to use the foldable flashcards from orchestrateacher.net: http://www.orchestrateacher.net/2013/08/13/foldable-music-note-flash-cards/ I copy a set for each student, but only pass out one string at a time. Students spend 10 minutes in class memorizing the D string notes and passing them off with their stand partners. For flashcard pass-offs, students must say the note name on the flashcard and pluck the correct note on their instruments. I require students do this in 10 seconds or less. After a week or so, we add the A string notes and students must pass off all 8 flashcards in 20 seconds or less. I try to pair up students with piano/note-reading experience with those who are new to note-reading. WRITING NOTE NAMES Sometimes we may underestimate how much a student can learn at one time. When I was seven, I begged Santa Claus to bring me a recorder for Christmas. I didn't know how to read music and had never tried an instrument before, but Santa delivered me a quality recorder and a book. It was easy to look at the diagrams and understand the notes and fingerings. I immediately wrote in all the note names for the first few pages and was able to play several songs. After that, I got sick of having to look up note names for each note, so I decided to memorize them. It didn't take long...in 10-15 minutes I had memorized the notes and no longer had to write them all in. Allowing students to write note-names in their music hinders and slows their progress. Unless a student has special needs, expect students to memorize the notes! USE THE FORCE Sometimes it can appear students do not know the notes when they struggle to play through a simple exercise. One day after some painful minutes working in our method book I became worried that my students were not fast enough at note-reading. After having them say note names I realized this was not the case. Students were slow at reading the notes because they were looking at their fingers instead of the notes on the page and they were getting lost. I joked that they need to 'use the force' to find notes and stop looking at their fingers! The next day, I did a lesson to help students learn how to find notes on their instruments using their sense of touch and hearing. They can't always use sight to find the note - it's a lot better if they listen and train fingers to land in the right place. To help students learn the skill, we watched a short clip from YouTube: (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljybsB1LwVY) showing Jimmy Fallon and Taylor Swift attempt to draw each other without looking at the page. After the clip, student used blank paper and tried to draw their stand partners without looking at the page. They LOVED this activity and the pictures were hilarious. We began reading a few exercises in the method book and it was totally different from the day before. Students were more focused. They were following the notes on the page and not looking back and forth between their fingers and the page. They sounded so much better! ASSESSMENT Every week I have been given my students note-reading assessments to make sure they are on target with note-reading skills. Students must know that you are serious about them learning the notes! I have students play the exercises are far as possible with NO hints written in the music. After that, I allow them to label notes and fingerings to reinforce speed and memorization. Students also complete bellwork exercises each day during tuning to reinforce note-reading. I use my book, 'Be An Amazing Note-Reader,' 'Rhythm Packet,' and 'Rhythm Bellwork.' Here are a few assessments I have used in the last couple week. Happy note-reading!
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...
One of my absolute favorite lessons each year goes along with the children's book, The Mitten, by Jan Brett. I got this idea from my mentor teacher years ago and have adapted it and tweaked it over the years. I use it as a way to culminate the major units that my first graders have been studying throughout the year - rhythm patterns and basic mallet skills. It is also a great way to ease them into preparing for their Spring Musical. First, I read the story to the students and we discuss the various characters in the book. For each character, we learn a rhythm pattern and I have the students practice playing the rhythms on various percussion instruments. Then, I teach the students a song that goes with the book. We add a simple bordun and an octave glockenspiel part at the end of each phrase. Finally, we add some actors! I choose students to represent each character and they follow the narration of the book. I created some masks that I printed from Jan Brett's website, laminated them, and added some elastic bands. I used a cheap white sheet and cut it into the shape of a mitten for the actors to sit on top of during their performance. After the students have practiced all of the parts, we put together a performance that we show to their classroom teacher. As the story is read, one student plays the rhythm pattern on the percussion instrument while that character "gets into" the mitten. When the bear sneezes in the story, the actors toss the mitten up into the air and pretend to fall into the snow while the percussionists play all together. We begin and end the performance with our mitten song accompanied by the mallet instruments. If you have larger classes, you can add actors for Nicki and his grandmother, Baba. You can also double instrument parts and even add sound effects on the sneeze part (think: crank, vibraslap, slapstick, etc.) This activity makes a great "informance" piece at PTO meetings or other school events. The students LOVE it and it is definitely a crowd-pleaser for teachers, too. Fun and learning - that's how we roll at HSES! :)
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…
November 20, 2013 We have been learning all about "tempo" (the speed--fast or slow--of the beat) and "rhythm" in ...
An update to everything happening in the world of Musicplay, MusicplayOnline, and Themes & Variations directly from Denise Gagne!
I have frequently been asked and I have seen similar questions posted on Kodaly and Music Ed Facebook groups. "I am interested in learning ...
Song Index
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.
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Song Index
Hello! This is Tanya from Teaching Music: Tanya's Kodály Aspiring Blog talking today. Several grades in my school are currently focused on standardized testing this week and, honestly, there is a feeling of stress radiating off the classroom teachers and many students. This has caused me to refocus on a few basic ideas that are important in my music classroom. What do I do with my students that will contribute to their growth as people? There is a well known quote from Maya Angelou that I think rings true: "I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel." My goal is to make them feel joyful, empowered, and confident through music. I have a faded purple notecard pinned above my desk that has lived there since I saw Julie Swank present a ROCKE workshop in 2006. Julie Swank spoke of how she aimed to include these 3 activities in every class every day. This really resonated with me and right after her workshop I wrote out this purple card and tacked it up on my wall. Here are a few reasons and examples: 1. Sing (Of course!) If you are reading this blog, I'm assuming you already understand the value and importance of singing. In tune, artistic, musical singing is a skill that can be taught and learned. Our communities should be reminded frequently that singing is a skill and not a magical talent that some have and others do not. If our society valued singing as much as we value reading and writing, and our schools and families were focused on strengthening singing, wouldn't everyone be able to sing? (I realize I am preaching to the choir!) In my music class, we will sing in every class. When we are playing recorders in 3rd and 4th grade we sing our recorder pieces on solfa and letter names first. There are many strategies to get students singing and keep them singing. (Aileen gave some excellent examples of how to incorporate more singing throughout the class period.) Fun, non-sensical, quality songs can be included to turn kids on to the joy of singing. As Ella Fitzgerald said: "The only thing better than singing is more singing." Here's a 4th grade favorite song, The Hippopotamus. It's a good song for anacrusis and tim ka (dotted eighth sixteenth), and students love singing it in canon. It can be found in Katinka Daniel's Kodály Approach Book 4: 2. Connect Julie Swank mentioned that she uses the word "connect" rather than "join hands." I like the term "connect" because when we engage in a dance or play party that is what occurs; we are communicating and connecting with others. Sometimes a new student will come to my school and is initially taken aback by all the "connecting" that happens in music. Once he sees that this is the norm and everyone is doing it, he joins in. (We take hands, not sleeves or wrists, please.) Students most likely won't be joining hands during math class or during reading. Even during team sports they will not get to work together in same way a folk dance, a singing game, or a play party, requires. What a great opportunity we have in music to show the social bonding and community building that can happen with music! So yes, we will connect! This week my 3rd graders are letting off steam after their testing with the dance Galopede from the Amidons Chimes of Dunkirk. 1. Solo Why solo? These are my top two reasons: Students improve their skills at a faster rate than if they are only performing within a group Solos build independent, confident singers who begin to feel comfortable taking musical risks There are many songs with solo opportunities. Yo Ho, I Pull the Anchor is a favorite with older students. (The opportunity to pull on a big, heavy rope with classmates sure is enticing!) This is another great tim-ka song. I have a collection of finger puppets that I pull out for short solo singing activities. My collection is a bit out of control, I have more than one for each student in my largest class, but hey, if they continue to increase my class size at least I'll be prepared with finger puppets. Once upon a time Starbucks sold seasonal finger puppets, (they came atop sticks of candy,), and I just could not stop buying them! You can play Who Has The _______? with anything, when I was student teaching, my cooperating teaching used every opportunity to connect with classroom themes and students sang. "Who has the igneous rock?" "Who has the sedimentary rock?" "Who has the metamorphic rock?" I'd rather use my Beatles's edition finger puppets: In the younger grades many solos are not sung, but very short spoken solos within chants. A good example is Rooms to Rent. Rooms to Rent Rooms to rent, apply within. When I move out let _________ move in! Solo work is not regulated to singing; there are many opportunities for students to solo as the drummer who chooses our tempo, the xylophone player who plays the ostinato, or the hand chime player who accompanies with a simple harmony. I want my students to build their musical independence and feel good about making music. Have a great week!
I've been reading the book, Mindsets in the Classroom by Mary Cay Ricci, and just finished chapter 3. It was a real eye-opener. Through all of my years of teaching, I thought I was differentiating by planning and implementing reteaching and enrichment lessons and activities as my class worked through a unit. But in this chapter, I learned how important it is to start the differentiation before the unit even begins! This process begins with the preassessment. So much valuable information can be gathered before you begin teaching a unit. The purpose of the preassessment is to find how much students understand the content before you plan and teach the unit. Do they have a complete understanding of the content? Then they will need enrichment and/or accelerated activities. Do they have a partial understanding of the content? Then you need to make note of the gaps in their learning so you can plan accordingly. Checklists are a great way to keep track of the objectives and student mastery. From this checklist, you will also see students that need to be grouped for instruction. Keep in mind that this grouping will change as students master the objectives. Another insight I gained from this chapter is the different types of assessments used in a classroom. I put together this graphic to sum up the three types of assessment you should be using in your classroom. Click on the image to download the pdf version. You can also download this free packet with three quick and easy formative assessments you can use
This awesome folk song has multiple uses. Its pentatonic range of low la up to la (la, do re mi so la) allows teachers to use it with multiple grade levels. The syncopated rhythms and dotted quarter note and eighth note rhythms make it engaging for upper elementary as well. The call and response format
