On Thursday afternoon I was in the school office and the secretary said, "This came in the mail for you... I have no clue what it is." It was the stretchy band I ordered!!! Needless to say, I was super excited and tried it out with almost all of my classes on Friday! Two kinder classes, two first grades, and two second grades, and two third grades. In hindsight, I probably shouldn't have done it all on one day because using it can get exhausting, but I was just so eager to share this new learning tool with my students. And they LOVED it! I started planning by collecting activities to try on my Pinterest. I couldn't find too much on there; I've heard great things about Artie Almeida's Parachutes book and I think I might order it soon to try some of those. If you have experience with this book or have other stretchy band activities you like, please let me know! Here's some of the things we did yesterday: Third grade was learning Liza Jane on solfege, so as a class we decided where the stretchy band should be for each pitch. In the primary grades we showed high and low sounds by holding the stretchy band over our head and in our lap. We practiced bouncing the band to a steady beat and counting measures in groups of four beats. In first grade, we listened to Elgar's piece, "Faeries and Giants." I asked the students to make a prediction about what the faeries would sound like and they voted by holding the band high or low. I also told my students about my favorite part of using the stretchy band: putting it away! We counted down "3-2-1-GO!" and all let go of the band at the same time so that it snaps into the middle of the circle. What fun. Have a great weekend!