You know what they say, reading is fundamental.

We are in the final stretch!! I hope that you have had a moment to soak up some of the joy this season brings a midst all the insanity and chaos! Today, I am going to follow up my last post, "Ways to Practice and Prepare Rhythms" with the Melody Edition! Just like last time, this is not a comprehensive list. However, I keep this up as a reminder of the many, many ways I can help my students master melodic concepts! A quick FYI... These ideas are more related to helping your students learn to sing pitches and pitch relationships correctly, and not to staff work. Maybe that will be my next post. :) 1. Texting Sticks I first saw these used at the Colorado Music Educator's Conference. At first, I was skeptical. However, I find that my 2nd and 3rd graders really enjoy using them, and they are a great reinforcement of note relationships. The only draw back is that they have the whole scale on them... I simply sing a melody on solfege or a neutral syllable and then the students sing and "text" it back to me by playing the notes on their stick with their thumb. 2. Solfa Buttons/Melody Dots You can use these a lot of ways- echo singing, decoding, point to a pattern and then have your students sing it back. I especially like using this visual because you can remove/add notes as you introduce them. I find that it is a really great way to reinforce steps/skips and how notes relate to each other. Sometimes, I even have my students come up and put the buttons in the right order, leaving spaces where there should be spaces. If you don't have a set of Solfege Buttons, you can find my set on TpT by clicking here 3. Hand Staff I will often have students use a hand staff to "write" melodies. This is especially effective with limited pitch sets (so-mi-la), and it is a great visual and physical way to practice staff notation! 4. Hand Signs Using the Curwin Hand Signs is a great way to practice and prepare melodies. Some of the many ways I use them are: Sing my Sign- I will sign a pattern, but only sing the first note. Then they sing it back to me. Echo singing with hand signs Sign my Song- I will play a short melodic pattern on the xylophone or piano and they sign it back to me 4. Echo Sing This one is pretty obvious, but a very important part of developing correct intonation and pitch relationships for your singers! 5. Fill in the Missing Solfege I will notate a song in stick or staff notation and then have my students come up and write the solfege below the notes. You can have them fill in all the solfege or leave just a few blank. 6. Melodic Ostinato I love adding melodic ostinatos to reinforce the concept we are working on. For example, when my 3rd graders learned low sol, we used the song "Morning Has Come" and added an ostinato of "s, s, s, d" (three quarter notes followed by a dotted half). This is great practice of singing low sol and part work, plus it excites the kids to add complexity to the music! 7. Aural Decoding I sing a pattern on a neutral syllable and they sing it back in solfege. 8. Composition This could be a whole post, so I am not going to dive into it too much. However, composing is one of the best ways for kids to practice melodies (in my opinion). You can compose with manipulatives, using stick notation, on the staff... You can compose as small groups, a whole class, individual composers... The options are endless! 9. Orff Instruments Using Orff to reinforce melodic concepts is a great way to add variety to the singing-focused Kodaly lesson. When I teach ostinati or patterns on xylophones and other Orff instruments, I teach them completely through solfege. I have a big xylophone that I laminated so we can write the solfege on the bars along with the absolute pitch name, and that allows me to have a moveable do. It's also great, because you can take the bars off to represent the pitch relationships! Here are just a few ways you can use Orff to reinforce melodic concepts... Echo playing- you sing a pattern on solfege and they play it back on Orff Ostinati- add an ostinato to a folksong you are using to reinforce the note you are working on. Song Extraction- my kids love to extract "l s m s" and "m m r d" from 'Liza Jane and play it on the Orff instruments. Composition- Kids love to create melodies on the Orff instruments! 10. Question and Answer Phrases I sing a "question" in solfege and my student/students respond with an "answer." You can have a set answer that is a four beat melody everyone knows, have students come up with their own answers, or ask students to include some of your question in their answer. This is definitely challenging, but it can also be a lot of fun! 11. Don't Sing/Only Sing My kids love this one. When we are practicing a note, I will tell them "don't sing" or "only sing" the note we are practicing. For example, if we are are working on "la" I would have my students only sing the "las" in Bounce High, Bounce Low and I would sing everything else. You can also do the reverse and have them sing everything else while you sing the new pitch to help them hear the correct intonation. A final step is to split the class into two groups and have the groups sing each part. This works really well with older students, too! 12. Games that highlight the melodic concept The first example of this that comes to mind is "The Farmer's Dairy Key." The way I play this game, the gates lift up their arms at the high do (which is the concept I teach with this song). So, that is a great physical and visual reinforcement of that pitch. 13. Listening Examples I sometimes forget that listening is a great way to practice melody. Having students listen for melodic patterns, ostinati, etc. are GREAT reinforcements of new melodic concepts. I've mentioned it before, but if you haven't checked out "From Folksongs to Masterworks," I highly recommend it! 14. Dictation Dictation having students simply writing down what they hear, and it can be used at any phase of a melodic concept. If you are preparing, you can have the students write the solfege underneath the stick notation. If you are practicing, you can have them notate the melody on the staff. I like to mix-up my dictation by having them dictate from my singing, the piano, a xylophone, my recorder, etc. As your students get older, you can make the melodies longer and more challenging to keep them engaged! 15. Eraser Game. Write a melody (in either stick or staff notation) on the board. Have the students sing it and then "accidentally" erase it piece by piece until they have memorized the whole song. You can also have them rewrite the melody when you are done for extra practice! 16. Poison Pattern This is the same as the rhythm version, except with sung melodies. There are TONS of poison games on Teachers Pay Teachers that you can check out if you are looking for a specific concept to play with! 17. Mystery Songs Write a song in either stick or staff notation and have students sing it on solfege. Then have them try to identify the folk song. I often will give 3 or 4 choices to help students narrow it down! 18. Phrase Sort/Song Matching Cut up a song into phrases or short chunks and have your students put it back together. You can also show several short phrases and ask students to identify which song they came from (I provide a song bank for my students to use). It's also fun to include an extra or a mis-fit phrase to trick your students! 19. Flashcards Flashcards are pretty obvious, but there are SO many things you can do with flashcards. One game my students love is "Flashcard Elimination." I put 5 or 6 one measure melodies on the floor and then play a song for them to walk around to. When the music stops they stop at a flashcard. I then sing or play a melody from one of the flashcards. If they are at that card, they are eliminated and have to sit down. The game continues until their is one child remaining. It usually goes pretty quick (because you have a lot of control over which card you sing) and the kids are always asking to play again! This is a great way to reinforce reading and connecting sight and sound. 20. Resonator Bells/Boomwhackers While I don't love the sound of Boomwhackers, I really love that they allow you to practice how pitches are related to each other. Sometimes we will set up "Solfa Street" in my class with live people and instruments (like resonator bells or boomwhackers). Kids go for a walk down the street and "ring the doorbell" at each house. When they do, the child at that pitch plays their instrument. It's a fun way to get kids moving, listening and learning! I feel like I have only scratched the surface, but hopefully you have a new idea or two to take with you! Please comment with any brilliant ideas you have used in your classroom! Wishing you all a happy, healthy, and safe holiday season!!

I'm joining up with one of my favorite bloggers, Aileen Miracle (Mrs. Miracle's Music Room) to blog about my favorite pins of the month of January. I have been on a pinning rampage as of late, so get excited! 1. I loved this pin about using monster manipulatives to guide students into composing rhythmic patterns. I have a monster recorder station already, and thought something like this could be added in nicely. The die cuts used are great, but I'm sure computer graphics and notation could be done all on the computer. In fact, maybe I'll make them today on my snow day! 2. What Does the Fox Say for Orff Ensemble: My kids love, love, love "What does the fox say?" There's an arrangement here that has some good application for the classroom. I'm not sure which kids will be the lucky ones to get to perform this, but I know whoever is chosen will love it! 3. I loved this PVC/Noodle four measure composition idea. What a great way to compose and perform quickly as a beginning of class warm up, or for use in stations. My dad has made me a ton of stuff out of PVC, so I'm sure he'll be thrilled when I show him this idea! 4. Though I'm not a big boom whacker fan, I have found them to be a great tool for working with my part time learning support class. Many of these students are not very verbal, and motor skills are difficult. Boom whackers allow them to make music very simply. I found this pin and have been doing this activity during our snowman music unit with the part time learning support kids. They've loved it! 5. Speaking of boom whackers, check out this great way to organize them. I always have trouble keeping them organized and neatly stored!

Elementary Music Classroom Tour 2018-2019. Organized Chaos.

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In the past, I have posted about my Boomwhacker storage, but have acquire many more sets since then. Here is a look at my previous Boomwhacker Storage. I created these dividers out of hand drum boxes. I would slide the box right into my wall of cabinets. Since I have purchased more diatonic, bass, and chromatic sets, I needed a new storage system. For the diatonic treble sets, I took an adjustable shelf off my short metal bookcase. I went to Big Lots armed with a post-it with measurements of the height, width, and depth of my shelf and the width of one Boomwhacker or 2 side by side. I took some measuring tape with me to the store. After much deliberation, I purchased 8 vertical file holders which cost $2.50 each. At first, I was going to spray paint them to match the Boomwhackers, but getting custom colors would be expensive very quickly. So, I decided to make some labels. This shelf used to store textbooks which I rarely ever use. Those books are now in my wooden cabinet and are available if needed. These Boomwhackers are now easily accessible and visually pleasing. To store the bass and chromatic sets, I used grocery bag holders from IKEA. These were only $1.99 each! They are mounted with 3M Velcro strips. I have left room to grow my collection and plan on purchasing some more bass and chromatic sets this year. I love how this useless space behind the door now serves a purpose! My custodian has sent a work order for maintenance to install a doorstop on the tile to prevent the door from squishing the Boomwhackers. I'll add a picture when it is installed. If you would like a copy of my Boomwhacker labels, I have added them to my store on Teachers Pay Teachers. They include labels for treble, bass, and chromatic sets. There is an option for labels with solfa hand signs or with staff notation. There are bass labels with single notes, or with combinations of notes like you see above in my picture. This set has lots of options for you to customize for your own Boomwhacker collection! Click To Download

Ali Qapu - Music room - Isfahan - Iran | اتاق موسیقی - کاخ عالی‌قاپو - اصفهان by Pedram Veisi on Flickr.

10 great examples of music classroom decor: Includes ideas for organization, instrument storage, and more!

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When we came back to school this year, I was pleasantly surprised. I had planned my usual first week activities…rules, behavior plan, procedures, and reviewing some basic rhythms and solfege…

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Welcome to the Music Room! Each year I post a tour of my classroom and this year I'm so excited to share my teaching space with you! Parents and students: I hope that you enjoy this sneak peek of the music room. Visiting music teachers: I hope you are inspired! If you have questions, feel free to leave them in the comments. If I don't answer right away I'll try to address them some time this school year in a separate post. This is my desk and planning corner. I acquired a couple of filing cabinets this year and am so thankful to have some storage for my files, magazines and bulletin board supplies. The computer is connected to the SmartBoard that you'll see later in this post. Notice the fan under the desk? I'm one hot mama and use it all year round! The shelf beside my desk. The shelves aren't tall enough to store my books standing up, so they are all horizontal. I don't love it, but it works. I love that it is red though! Cheery! Ah! Pinterest! I saw these piano pots there and knew that I had to have some. The flowers are fake. I kill real plants. It's sad but true! A closer view of the shelf. I have my things sorted by topic: Orff, Singing, General Resource, Holidays, Theory, History, etc... The boxes on the top shelf are my goody box and sticker box. The binders on the right are for lesson plans, attendance, sub plans and then a binder that stores all of my worksheets, graphic organizers, writing prompt sheets, etc... The bulletin board on the right is actually on the side of a filing cabinet. The clips are magnetic. I plan to clip up schedules, memos, pictures from student, etc... The shelf contains manipulatives that I use often. The bulletin board on the left is for Songs of the Week. This is a close up of that area. I added some family photos this year. They make me happy! Aren't my kids adorable? :-) A closer look at the cabinet reveals cups for the cup game, some supplies for rhythmic dictation, musical Yahtzee, ribbon streamers and more. So, I use lots of props and other fun things. On this shelf you'll find a rubber chicken. Its great for passing during a game of Make Five or for singing and moving to "Chicken on a Fencepost". There's a pop-up puppet used for vocal exploration, Bop-It and electronic Simon for centers, inflatable microphones for individual singing or vocal explorations, a hooty owl, bones for "Doggie Doggie", the Aflac duck and of course, a tiara! I don't know why the Rubic's cube is there. *shrugging* Perhaps I'll solve it someday. :-) The little shelf by the big shelf contains dry erase markers, magnetic abc letters hot glued to popsicle sticks (using those for letter recognition songs and games with Kinders), Lap Packs (Some day I'll write about these.), poker chips (rhythmic and melodic dictation and a few other charts), clothespins for Rocket Rhythms (Google it. One of Artie Almeida's awesome products.) and a few other things like that. The bottom shelf contains bottlecaps that I use with a treble clef staff for melodic dictation and composing patterns using steps and skips and teaching the younger students about lines and spaces. A little peek at my word wall and my collection of pointers and flyswatters. You can get some word wall kits here. They are not what's in this picture but the word list is pretty much the same. A view from my desk area. Those doors hide some FABULOUS storage. I'm so thankful for the previous music teacher that made that happen. All of my books, bulletin board supplies, large props, Orff instruments, stands and even a fridge and microwave are stored there! The rug was funded through Donors Choose (Don't forget we have a project up now that you can donate to!). The chairs are mostly in the position that I use for most of the older grades. The younger grades sit most often on the carpet. Back to school bulletin board "Whoo can clap OWL of these rhythms?" Which features 4 beat rhythms on colorful owls. A view of the entire board. Its behind the piano in the shot of this side of the room. New Boomwhacker storage made from coffee cans. I like that this will make transitioning to activities smoother and love the pretty rainbow it creates! They sit on top of the cabinet that I store my smaller classroom instruments in. Rhythm sticks, maracas, triangles and other instruments are stored in containers there. A view of the window side of the room. You can see the instrument storage shelves. The tubs on top are used for bass drums. They are roped laundry baskets from WalMart and make a surprisingly lovely sound! Yeehaw! The swimming noodle ponies are in their stable and ready to go! The other swimming noodles in the basket will be used for a couple of different things. We'll use them as "swords" and bump them together to create steady beat or simple ostinato patterns. I also plan to use them to...well...its kind of hard to explain, but look for a post later this year! A launch pad area near the door. Student papers that I need to pass back go in the mail box. It also makes for nice iPad storage. I have two now, but hope to snag 2 or 3 more to use them more efficiently with groups. Under the table is a box of clipboards. We use these all the time for writing activities. The soda can bulletin board is available here. A closer look. I love the polka dot labels! These were created in PowerPoint with a simple text box and polka dot background. Yes! Books in the music room! I teach many lessons that incorporate children's literature. One of the summer school favorites was "Mortimer" by Robert Munsch. When learning at workstations this center is very popular! We love singing books and reading noisy, musical stories. This is between my desk and the door. I plan for it to hold some out the door activities like goodbye songs, rhythm cards to practice or just some fun things to share or talk about. The trash cans on the bottom shelf aren't used for trash. In one classroom activity I pass out instrument cards and then ask students that have a card from the woodwind family to feed it to Hungry Harry (that's the trash can's name) or Mimi the Muncher. Then we go through each family and do the same thing. Its silly, but a fun way to review. I've also done a similar activity with rhythm cards, composer trivia, etc... The poster in the back is one that I designed and created. Its the Depth of Knowledge scale as it relates to music. Each section lists musical skills that fall under each of the levels. I don't have a cost effective way to produce this yet so this prototype sits on my wall waiting inspiration. A view from the far corner of the room. The open space is used for movement and lining up. The music room is ready for the 2012-2013 school year. Now all I need is a room full of music makers! Stay tuned!

Knock the Cymbals is a great song to review several basic music concepts as you get closer to the end of the year. You can use this song and game to practice steady beat, do pentatonic scales, and instrument techniques.

Looking for a fun music lesson based on a book? My first graders loved playing instruments along with the rhythms from Chicka Chicka Boom Boom!

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So, I absolutely LOVE the anchor charts I’ve been seeing on blogs and on Pinterest. Apparently, anchor charts are supposed to be minimalistic so as not to confuse the children with extra inf…

Behold! The Wall of Whackers! Boomwhackers are great for the elementary music classroom, but they are such a pain to store. For the past six years I have kept my large Boomwhackers in laundry baskets and my smaller ones in buckets. It looked messy and was hard to find the tubes I needed. I just moved to a new classroom with a very long, empty wall. I knew I wanted to use the large space for a word wall (which as you can see is still on the to-do list,) but then I found this.... The original inspiration for my wall. This picture (above) was the inspiration for my Wall of Whackers. How simple! What a great idea! I had searched all over the internet for Boomwhacker storage ideas, and this was the only picture I found that really got me excited to try something new! After figuring out how much space this whole thing would take, I ordered 14 feet of 1-inch bulletin board strip through my school. The maintenance crew installed the bulletin board strip. I used long strips of self-adhesive Velcro (prickly side) on the bulletin board, and put short, 2-inch strips (fuzzy side) on each Boomwhacker. It took about an hour of my time to complete. The pitches are much easier to find now, and are very easy to grab! The tubes also give me an easy visual/auditory reference to show students that large instruments make low pitches and small instruments make high pitches. They also provide some much needed color to my new classroom! I plan on using the remaining top half of the wall for a word wall or musical timeline. The black things on the top of some of the tubes are the Octavator caps. I would love to get enough caps to put on each tube! I also have another few feet of space to put more Boomwhackers! Because I use this blog to share interactive resources, I thought I would share a useful (and free) Boomwhacker program called "Boom." Boom is a program (yes, you have to download it) by The Music Interactive that you can have students use on individual computers, but I recommend using it on an interactive whiteboard. You can drag and drop virtual Boomwhackers into melodic patterns or chords. It also has a writing space at the top of the page where you can write rhythmic notation or anything else you may need. The beauty of this program is that you can use it in whatever way works best for you. You can click here for the link, but will need to scroll down a bit to find the program. Make sure you check out some of their other great music programs, too!

So, I absolutely LOVE the anchor charts I’ve been seeing on blogs and on Pinterest. Apparently, anchor charts are supposed to be minimalistic so as not to confuse the children with extra inf…

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Preparing for Your First Elementary Music Teaching Job. Organized Chaos. Top 5 suggestions to help you get ready over the summer for your first elementary music job.