Hello all my imaginary followers!
Sure is lonely in here.
I've been hard at work making a Nutcracker unit to use this month. There are a lot of great things out there for you to use!
Primarily, I love this video of Jim Gamble using marionettes. It's short, has (almost) all the great music we love, and no one is asleep from watching ballerinas prance across the stage. (My students have not yet developed an affinity for that, but they are mesmerized by these puppets.)
This page has all of his video productions.
I usually get it out of our county's library, but I'm thinking about investing in it next year since the quality on the VHS is terrible!
I also found a quicktime version for you to use in a snap (How handy!)
I also love the original fantasia's versions for older students that may have already seen this video with me, or may be sassy & not like the cool puppets. AS far as I can tell, it's stuck in the vault. I bought a used copy from my local CD/Record/VHS/DVD store, but you may be able to find it in your library or *gasp* on youtube...
Conveniently, Jim gamble also made a DIY hand puppet for the kiddos to make in centers after the video is over. With younger students, this may be the only thing you get to, but if you are lucky enough to have extra time, you can have them march around with their puppets to the "March" or the ladies can prance to the "Sugarplum Fairies."
Nutcracker Puppet
Other centers I love,
I got a short book out of the $1 bin at target, students can partner read this.
Make a quick little CD for your listening station and have them respond using forms like these...
This is a slide chart that I made. You'll need to assemble enough for your students. You can find instructions for that in the Description.
This is a basic coloring & short response form that I found on colorinmypiano.com up for younger kiddos.
This blog has two GREAT listening response forms for older kiddos (one may need more guidance than the other.)
I made a Vocabulary Memory Match Game with words we discussed before, during & after the movie. Instructions are in the Description.
I also found in my extensive research of ideas this wonderful Nutcracker unit from a homeschooler's blog. Wow she really did her research, saved me some time. I love the last 2 pages of the PDF file with the writing prompts.
Lastly, I had my older classes listen to the podcasts from classicsforkids.com about "Ballet" & "Tchaikovsky" and make anchor charts in their groups. This took about 20 minutes but it was a great activity for my 5th graders. My 2nd & 3rd graders do one class wide with me on the PPT screen (what I wouldn't GIVE for a smartboard!!).
Tuesday, December 11, 2012
Thursday, November 29, 2012
Truth or Dare? Letters on the Treble Clef
Hello again!
Surprise! I didn't forget! I was just scared that my ideas aren't good enough. And well, I still am, but I'm going to post something anyway.
As an avid pinner I am always gleaning ideas off of my most followed and treasured peers in Music Education. Some have published books that I use, some are complete strangers. Regardless I will probably never meet this wonderful and inspiring people, and I'm unlikely to ever muster the courage to strike up a converstation with them.
One such pinner/blog is pianimation.com. I found this fun game there and looked into it to see if I could take a shortcut and just press "download." Well, maybe I could but unfortunately, all the levels used the grand staff, intervals, and key identifictaion. I don't have a need for any of those, so I made my own.
I made a deck for just treble clef with no ledger lines. Not because I avoid teaching them, but I wanted to use this for several grade levels and my 2nd graders are not ready for ledger lines. Also, making these was a wee bit difficult and I wanted to save myself the hassle. I can always make a ledger lines sheet later.
Anyway, I made it 3 pages long with every note in there at least twice. I printed them off in one color with the title "Play this note" and then I changed that to say "Name this note" and printed it in a different color. If you have lovely expensive cardstock, use that. If you have a laminator I recommend that as well or you can combine the two! A fortress of a card!
I hope this will be useful to someone, likely though, not a soul even reads my little rookie blog. No biggie. I'm happy being me.
Now to figure out how to post documents....
AHA A free Teachers Pay Teachers Thing-y
Truth or Dare: Nameing Notes on the Treble Clef
Surprise! I didn't forget! I was just scared that my ideas aren't good enough. And well, I still am, but I'm going to post something anyway.
As an avid pinner I am always gleaning ideas off of my most followed and treasured peers in Music Education. Some have published books that I use, some are complete strangers. Regardless I will probably never meet this wonderful and inspiring people, and I'm unlikely to ever muster the courage to strike up a converstation with them.
One such pinner/blog is pianimation.com. I found this fun game there and looked into it to see if I could take a shortcut and just press "download." Well, maybe I could but unfortunately, all the levels used the grand staff, intervals, and key identifictaion. I don't have a need for any of those, so I made my own.
I made a deck for just treble clef with no ledger lines. Not because I avoid teaching them, but I wanted to use this for several grade levels and my 2nd graders are not ready for ledger lines. Also, making these was a wee bit difficult and I wanted to save myself the hassle. I can always make a ledger lines sheet later.
Anyway, I made it 3 pages long with every note in there at least twice. I printed them off in one color with the title "Play this note" and then I changed that to say "Name this note" and printed it in a different color. If you have lovely expensive cardstock, use that. If you have a laminator I recommend that as well or you can combine the two! A fortress of a card!
I hope this will be useful to someone, likely though, not a soul even reads my little rookie blog. No biggie. I'm happy being me.
Now to figure out how to post documents....
AHA A free Teachers Pay Teachers Thing-y
Truth or Dare: Nameing Notes on the Treble Clef
Friday, October 5, 2012
First Post - Meet My Room!
This is my first time blogging, please excuse the dust. My plan is to post here some of my favorite lesson plans, resources and procedures that have worked exceptionally well for me. To begin, I'd like to introduce you to my space. It's a medium sized room (not too big and not too small...) with a fantastically awkward 5th corner (imagine the type of post-it arrow you would find on a document you needed to sign).
It has recently been re-carpeted and repainted and they let me have my whimsical way: I have yellow and orange walls! How fun, right? I have a few bulletin boards (too few in my opinion, I think they are great! Even if one is virtually unusable because it's behind my desk) and one chalk board.
I have a pull down projector screen but it takes up too much of my precious blackboard space so I turned my projector around and use the glossy paint, this let's me use the most of my space.
I have a few desks for a listening & writing station, (hey check out my sing-a-ma-jig collection! Gift from a student!)
some tables (currently for storage, hopefully will be used for student/group work),
and two bookshelves.
One bookshelf is completely devoted to housing student folders- the folders hold students worksheets and notes from our lessons, in the older grades the also have recorder/ukulele music and their Listening Journals.
The other bookshelf holds my Music Library (depressingly unorganized and tiny to boot), games, Cd's & videos, and student text books.
I have a puppet theater with which I'm still not sure what to do, and 12 "cubbies" to hold the lunchboxes & book bags that some grade levels bring with them. I use the top sections of these to hold crafting supplies like crayons, markers, student scissors, etc.
I keep my cart for station rotations next to my nifty dehumidifier (my instruments are grateful, especially the ukuleles).
My larger instruments sit on the floor or under the tables,
my smaller instruments are kept in baskets on a "step" I made out of my risers. (The sheets actually make it look better... when their neat and tidy... oops!)
My piano is used more than it looks like it is,
I just need more storage for all the stuff that is supposed to go behind my desk... we won't go back there!
The horror!
I use the fabric covered tiles near the ceiling for my word wall words, my rules, and informational posters, I plan on making content clouds and pinning them directly to the ceiling if I can. (I think I just need to laminate it in order to get by the fire-marshal.)
I keep all recorder related things in the "Recorder Dojo." This is where students that want to work on recorder instead of centers will find all of their supplies.
I have my rewards system up on one bulletin board (I got the system from Rhythm & Glues)
and my "Fist-to-Five" (courtesy of Classroom Collective) up on the other.
I may be able to change the second one later on, once students have become more comfortable with the procedure. I'll go more in-depth into my procedures in future posts. For now I leave you. It's been grand! I hope the pictures work out!
It has recently been re-carpeted and repainted and they let me have my whimsical way: I have yellow and orange walls! How fun, right? I have a few bulletin boards (too few in my opinion, I think they are great! Even if one is virtually unusable because it's behind my desk) and one chalk board.
I have a pull down projector screen but it takes up too much of my precious blackboard space so I turned my projector around and use the glossy paint, this let's me use the most of my space.
I have a few desks for a listening & writing station, (hey check out my sing-a-ma-jig collection! Gift from a student!)
some tables (currently for storage, hopefully will be used for student/group work),
and two bookshelves.
One bookshelf is completely devoted to housing student folders- the folders hold students worksheets and notes from our lessons, in the older grades the also have recorder/ukulele music and their Listening Journals.
The other bookshelf holds my Music Library (depressingly unorganized and tiny to boot), games, Cd's & videos, and student text books.
I have a puppet theater with which I'm still not sure what to do, and 12 "cubbies" to hold the lunchboxes & book bags that some grade levels bring with them. I use the top sections of these to hold crafting supplies like crayons, markers, student scissors, etc.
I keep my cart for station rotations next to my nifty dehumidifier (my instruments are grateful, especially the ukuleles).
My larger instruments sit on the floor or under the tables,
my smaller instruments are kept in baskets on a "step" I made out of my risers. (The sheets actually make it look better... when their neat and tidy... oops!)
My piano is used more than it looks like it is,
I just need more storage for all the stuff that is supposed to go behind my desk... we won't go back there!
The horror!
I use the fabric covered tiles near the ceiling for my word wall words, my rules, and informational posters, I plan on making content clouds and pinning them directly to the ceiling if I can. (I think I just need to laminate it in order to get by the fire-marshal.)
I keep all recorder related things in the "Recorder Dojo." This is where students that want to work on recorder instead of centers will find all of their supplies.
I have my rewards system up on one bulletin board (I got the system from Rhythm & Glues)
and my "Fist-to-Five" (courtesy of Classroom Collective) up on the other.
I may be able to change the second one later on, once students have become more comfortable with the procedure. I'll go more in-depth into my procedures in future posts. For now I leave you. It's been grand! I hope the pictures work out!
Woot!
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