Queen, Queen Caroline ~ a teaching story

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In thinking about my first lesson for Kinders and First, I wanted to include my very favorite story that I tell to illustrate the four major voices ~ talking, whispering, shouting and singing. Some of you may remember this from a previous post, but for all of the new folks that have recently joined our community (WELCOME!!), I wanted to share it again……and hopefully it will be a refresher for everyone else!

I learned this story in an Orff class years ago in Boston. I loved it immediately! It is funny and the kids get a big kick out of it! …..and I have a blast telling it!

I usually tell it on the first class and have added a follow up lesson or two, but that will have to wait until next week! Until then, click HERE!

How To Have The Best First Week Ever!

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The first day of school for us isn’t like a classroom teacher’s first day of school. Where those teachers are seeing their kids for the first time, we are seeing kids that we have known since kindergarten ~ for the most part ~ AND our first day is actually our first week, as we do not see ALL of our kids one day a week! So, in thinking about how to have the best first week, here are my favorite 5!

1. Reconnect with your students ~ find out what they did over the summer, what music did they listen to, did they go to any concerts, etc.… The first essential question of the Responding Strand from our NAME K-8 music standards states “How do individuals choose music to experience?”. This first class creates a perfect opportunity to start understanding the answer to this question. Not only do we want to know what music our students listen to, but why do they like it. Granted, verbalizing this concept takes time, but the first step is to ask! (and I am sure they will come up with the best answers!)

2. Have fun activities ready to go! ~ We want our kids to love music class! ….and it is important that we love what we do, as well! Choose some activities that are tried and true for you ~ or perhaps some that you have wanted to try out for awhile ~ and have a blast!

3. Have a behavior plan in place ~ This is very important. Letting kids know EXACTLY what you expect of them saves much time and energy later on! You can have the kids create the rules or you can choose and explain them. Which ever way you go, it is important that you are clear and consistent! …and to help your kids be successful immediately……..

4. “Catch” them doing something helpful (as much as possible) ~ I remember an internship in a 3rd grade in grad school. The teacher made sure to compliment her students every time they did something helpful. Her point was to set her kids up for success! They already knew how to behave …and the first class is when they will most likely be on their best behavior….so take advantage and let them know that this is what you expect, and that they are capable of delivering! ….for those kids that will act up on the first day (and you know there will be a few), have a plan ready to go. Try to find ANYTHING that they do that you can “catch” as good behavior? Also, for the tougher classes, creating an overall class point system where they earn points and have points taken away (for a greater prize) can be helpful. It encourages the tougher kids to behave so as to help the group.

5. Make music!! ~ OF COURSE!! I like to have some sort of improv activity on the docket so that kids can create at will. It sends the message that you know they are capable and that you value their input.

I hope these have been helpful! Please let us know in the comments below what you do to ensure a great first week!

The Best Of ADHD On YouTube!

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In the last few months I have become obsessed with ADHD. I am convinced I have it (I need to be tested) and am always looking for ways to manage it! I was searching for all kinds of things on YouTube one day and stumbled upon videos that have proven to be quite helpful. They are not only good for those of us that have ADHD, but more importantly, for those of us that teach kids with ADHD….and we ALL have these kids in our classes. Some of the lectures are a bit long, but I put them on in my car when I know there will be traffic (please put on while parked, NOT while driving! 😊).

There are 3 people that have been the most helpful:
1. Dr. Russell Barkley ~
The most helpful was his video This is how you treat ADHD based off science, Dr. Russell Barkley part of 2012 Burnett Lecture. In it he details the 6 steps to manage ADHD.

2. Jessica McCabe in her video series How to ADHD ~
These videos are short and entertaining to watch! She has a lot of helpful tips and strategies and provides links to articles and other videos if you are interested in learning more.

3. Eric Tivers in his video series ADHD Rewired ~
I haven’t seen as many if his videos as the others, but the ones I have seen have been helpful.

We do a lot in our classrooms to help those students that need to move, (as stated in my blog post Helping ADHD Students Succeed) but by learning more, we can help them even further. There are simple and practical ideas in these videos that can we can easily implement. I will leave you with these top 3!
1. “Chop up large projects into manageable steps” – Barkley / This means having written out steps for activities available for students when they work alone or in small groups. See examples for different grade levels HERE.
2. “Make motivation external” – Barkley / Consequences need to be in the now. Check in with your ADHD kids periodically (even with just a look) to let them know that you are noticing when they are doing a great job ….and when they might need to change their behavior.
3. “Leave yourself a trail of breadcrumbs” – Tivers / For projects that are done over the span of many classes, (like longer composition projects) it makes sense for the individual or group to write out what the last thing AND the next thing that needs to be done so that the information can be easily found next time. This means there will be no time wasted during class trying to figure out what to do next!

Why Sharing Is A Four-Letter Word

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Yesterday I was at a playground in an open mall here in GA with my daughter. She saw a wall activity where kids can flip a series of large tiles. Although another child was playing, she thought she would join in. He got angry at the intrusion and pushed her away. His mom immediately jumped in and told him to not do that and to share. She also told me that it was so hard for kids to get this concept at this age. My daughter is almost 3 and her son is about 2. I saw a teachable moment ~ a bit audacious of me, I know, but it was a perfect opportunity ~ especially because I could see that the mom felt badly about it.

I first said to Pea (that is my nickname for her 😊), (she didn’t cry, but was taken back some), “You’re ok. When he is finished, you can have a turn.” I then turned to the child and said something along the lines of when you are finished, she can have a turn, but please don’t push her. I can’t remember exactly what I said, but that was the gist of it. The mom continued to feel badly, but I assured her that it was fine. I told her that he may be figuring something out and Pea disrupted his thought process… or he just needed some alone time. Either way, he deserves a chance to play with it for a time ~ and then Pea can have her turn with the same parameters.

My mother, an amazing teacher in her own right, would always talk about this when she was in the classroom. It is presumptuous of us to know what is going through a child’s mind at any given moment, especially at this age when “using your words” to express a thought is still developing. Each child has a right to tinker and play with materials in their own way until they are finished, or their turn is up due to time constraints or limited resources.

Why can’t we give them the time they ask for? After all, aren’t we, as adults, allowed to tinker with something before we give others a chance? Example, if you are working on your computer and your significant other needs to use it for whatever reason, you finish what you are working on and then let him/ her use it…. You are not required to drop what you are doing immediately and give it to him/ her or let him/ her use it at the same time…. it is no big deal! …yet, we ask kids to stop what they are doing and accommodate another child all of the time! We somehow think this is the way to be a good friend.

Of course, this isn’t to say that children should be allowed to claim a whole play area for themselves or allowed to use a material for hours on end. Parameters do need to be set, but with each child’s interests in mind.

In the end, it is about respecting children’s rights and giving he/ she the time needed to explore. When finished, the next child will have a turn….and as 2 added bonuses, you will avoid an outburst of anger AND more than likely that child will invite the other to play along or will be finished with the material soon. When given the same freedoms that we enjoy as adults, children will surprise us with just how amazing they are!

A Last-Minute Lesson

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As the year comes to a close, we are all looking for simple fun lessons that still get in a bit of teaching but will hold the children’s attention as their thoughts wonder to summer activities ….as do ours! Here is such a lesson! I did it with my first grade and they loved it!

I was in Target a while back and I found these cool magnets in the shapes of “spring” things. There were flowers, snakes (yeah, I’m not sure why snakes are in there, as well!), lady bugs, etc.… I had the idea of categorizing each magnet into either one syllable, so it was in the “red” category or 2 syllables, so it would be in the “yellow” category.

 

 

The above photo is what we ended up with. “Red” items were a snail, snake, bug and fox, while “yellow” items were a flower, chickee and turtle. We spoke about what we would call each and how that determined which category it would go into. The chickee, for example, could simply be a “chick” ~ one syllable or a “chickee” or “chicken” both with 2 syllables. We had to name it before we could categorize it (…a little science thrown in for good measure!).

We also ran into this when we got to the ladybug, as the word “ladybug” has 3 syllables, and that wasn’t an option, so they settled on bug; however, at the end, we found a solution (which, of course, is why I chose it):

 

 

This activity lasted about 10 minutes, if that, and got the kids thinking! You could easily use this if you had some time left or as a starter as you get the class going!

Let us know below short fun activities that you do with your kids this time of year!

Lesson Builder 2

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It occurred to me that my third graders may not be ready to play multiple parts at once, as I only started in January and their last music teacher left early in the fall. I looked at the rhythms they composed for the word tambourine and was looking forward to playing them simultaneously ~ must assess first! So that is what I did! (Click HERE to see Lesson Builder 1)

As expected, not all of the students knew how to count out a rhythm and share a steady beat. I decided to focus in on this. We think that only by doing, kids will understand what it means to share a steady beat among a group of players, but do we ever REALLY explain it? This is what I wanted to cover today ~ I wanted to give them the theory behind the activity.

Here is LESSON BUILDER 2:
• I laid out a row of 8 red Note Knacks and we said all 8 as a steady beat (what is this called when one says the same color repeatedly? A steady beat! Correct!)


• How many reds equal a blue? 2! Correct!
• How many reds do I need to count in my head while I sing or play a blue? 2! Correct!


• This is what it looks like ~ demonstrate by saying color while beating 2 times
• Everyone practices

You can do this activity with every color, using Note Knacks to help students SEE how long or short to hold their notes

• Now let’s look at the rhythms you wrote last time and play on a Boomwhacker each using our new counting method


(NOTE: tap Boomwhacker on knee or hand and lift to show sustained sound)
• We practiced this for several times before we divided the group into 2 and had each play a different rhythm.
• It was a rough first go at it, but we will continue to practice!!!

I think we will stay on this concept for a while and answer the question, “How can we all play different parts, but still play together?”. I am looking forward to seeing how the students figure this out! Until next time!

Bears and Bass Bars Tweaked

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Today my kindergarteners and I had a lot of fun with the Three Bears! Last class we associated each bear with a particular bass bar. For this class, I wanted to say the words “someone’s been eating my porridge” (etc.….) in a specific rhythm, as detailed in last week’s newsletter (Click HERE for lesson and rhythms). Instead of just reading the story again and having them play this rhythm, we took it out for a spin, as they say. We tapped it on our thighs, we moved to it, and we played it on sand blocks. I then added the question, “What word has two long sounds?”. I had them close their eyes and just listen. They all called out “PORRIDGE!”. To be honest, I didn’t know if they were going to catch that, as it was 2 long sounds on one word, but they did …. yet another example of how we underestimate our students!

Earlier in the year, I brought out Note Knacks so that we could investigate long and short sounds, as explained in Phase 1 of our Lesson Plans. Today, I wanted to explore long and short sounds further within the context of our story rhythm:

  • First, I took out our Note Knacks and we reviewed our long and short sounds.
  • After we identified that there were 2 long sounds on the word por-ridge, I then tried something crazy to see what would happen: I said the rhythm but said the last 2 long sounds as I dragged my finger across the gray (twice, one for each note). I asked the kids if this sounded correct, they said no.
  • Then I did the same thing with the blue tiles. One class said the blue was too long and the other group said it was just right…. which makes me think it is in how I said it…. but intriguing, none the less! The cool thing was they could hear when the word sounded rushed or not.
  • I had written the notes on the board for my own reference, but the kids commented that I had written music notes. I told them it was indeed written music and it gave me information on how to say the words in a special way.
  • For the class that chose the blues as the correct note, I did ask if the symbol on the blue tile was the same or different then on the board ~ of course it was!
    • NOTE: at this point, we are simply looking at pictures that are the same or different, my intention was not for them to be able to identify a half note
  • We moved on and I asked them, “How can we show a long sound with our body?”, each student couldn’t wait to show me their idea! Kids moved their arms, legs, waists, etc.…. it was a hoot to watch!
  • We patted the rhythm on our thighs as we walked around. When we came to the long sounds, we froze and moved one part of our bodies showing those long sounds. I encouraged the kids to move anyway they chose ~ either as they had shown me earlier or to find a new way. We did it several times to give everyone a chance to try out as many body movements as possible!
  • I wanted the kids to experience long sounds on an instrument, so we took out the sand blocks! We played around with them a bit, then played our 3 bears rhythm~ showing length by slowly moving the blocks.

It is exciting to see that they are beginning to understand the meaning of long and short sounds and better yet, what those sound like in the context of a longer rhythm. I love playing around with lessons and concepts! I always enjoy asking that one question that is just beyond their supposed understanding to see if anyone catches the answer. Sometimes they do, and I am delighted….and sometimes they don’t, and I hear crickets, so I move on knowing I had pushed it just a bit too far. I let kids know early on that there are times I do ask questions I do not expect them to know, I just want to see if they can figure it out. If they can, great! If not, no worries! …. for it is in these moments that I enjoy teaching the most!

Bears and Bass Bars

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Like many schools, we are on Spring Break this week, but of course in the back of my mind, I am thinking about what lessons I will do with my students next week. The week before break I started a lesson with the story of Goldilocks and The Three Bears that I want to build on. It started off as an exploration activity and will end as a beautiful composition!

After the Fossils lesson, I was inspired to take out more instruments, so I put out all of our bass bars. We have six ~ 2 sub-contra C’s, 2 sub-contra E’s and 2 contra G’s. I gave each kid a mallet and let them have at it! They enjoyed moving around and listening to the sounds each made. We then sat down and spoke a little about what they saw and heard. Do all of these instruments look the same? How are they different? Do they look like the xylophones that we looked at last time? …. or the metallophones? Were the sounds the same? Different? How? Etc.…
After the exploration, we decided that the sounds we heard were low, medium and high. …..what pops into my head? Why, the story of Goldilocks and The Three Bears, of course!! Here is what we did:

  1. I had the book on hand, just in case, but I asked the kids to retell the story. If they didn’t know it, as some of the three’s and four’s did not, I read the book.
  2. I asked the kids if we could assign an instrument to each bear. They assigned the lowest bass bars to the papa bear, the middle bars to the mama bear and the highest to the baby bear.
  3. We then went through the story again, but this time, I assigned kids to each bar and had them play ONLY when their bear was mentioned. When the bear spoke, that particular bar played. …. Goldilocks was a tambourine. For whatever reason, it seemed to make sense to me 😊

This took up the entire class time.

LESSON EXTENSION:

I am excited to build on this next week!! For Kinders and First, I want to add rhythm to the following lines:

  • Some-one’s been eat-ing my | por-ridge | ~ M I M I | d d |
    • And ate it all | up ~ I I I I | I Z Z Z|
  • Some-one’s been sit-ting in | my chair | ~ M I M I | d d |
    • And broke it to | pieces | ~ I I I I | d d |
  • Some-one’s been sleep-ing in | my bed | ~ M I M I | d d |
    • And is still sleep-ing | here | ~ M I I I | I Z Z Z |

 

KIDS: When their bear speaks these lines (of course I changed them a bit to make the rhythm easy), instead of just playing randomly, as they did before, this time they will play the rhythm. After having lots of practice with this, the first graders and I will work out the lines in Note Knacks.

LESSON EXTENSION 2:

From there, we can take it even further!! We can use these 12 measures as an A section and create a B section. Hand out NK to small groups and let them take it from there!! I’ll let you know how it turns out!

How to Create A Spontaneous Exploration

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Today my school had its Spring Share. Every student from the little toddlers to the big 3rd graders presented what we have been working on in music. It was very relaxed ~ I started teaching at this school in January and we were out a lot due to snow (in GA, crazy, right?); but the kids did a great job!! …and the parents loved it! First graders performed my “Where the Wild Things Are” rumpus composition lesson and the second graders performed my “Little Pig, Little Pig” composition lesson. They were both a big hit! (Always nice to have lessons in your back pocket for when you need one that can transform into a performance!!)

After the morning program, I still had a few classes I needed to teach. I wasn’t sure exactly what I wanted to do, but I knew this was the perfect opportunity to do some exploration. It was last minute, because to be quite frank, I hadn’t really planned for the day, as my mind was wrapped up in the day’s concert. I remembered the spontaneous exploration activity I did with the 3-year olds the week before and thought it would be perfect for the Kindergarteners now.

Spontaneous Exploration ~ to decide in the moment that this is the perfect time for children to investigate, tinker with, study and analyze a concept that they are inquiring about.

Last week I had the threes and they were asking questions about the xylophones and metallophones. They noticed that some of the instruments had metal keys while others had wooden keys. I took a few of the keys off the different sizes of both the xylophones and the metallophones and we compared them. Do they sound differently? Are they at all the same? What shape are these keys? Why is there an arch in the middle? Etc.… I asked all kinds of questions and let them observe and/ or hear the answers. We ran out of time, so I was unable to give them a chance to play the instruments themselves, but I look forward to seeing what they will do during the next class!

Then suddenly, I got all excited because I remembered that we had been listening to some of the pieces in the Carnival of The Animals by Camille Saint-Saëns and alas there is THE perfect piece that highlights the xylophone: Fossiles (Fossils). We listened to it and spoke a bit about what we were hearing. Class was over, but I was so excited that we were able to take some time to do this spontaneous exploration with such little effort. We were even able to discuss sound waves…a bit, as they are still young!!

As we have spoken about getting as much in a class as possible in less time, this occurrence reminded me that we are still teaching living thinking beings with their own questions and their own ideas about the world they encounter. It is important to follow where the kids take us, from time to time! It not only is key to them understanding various concepts that they will need to know, but, more importantly, it helps build the relationship between you and ALL of your students ~ especially those who can be a challenge.

Back to Kindergarten. Here’s the formula for when you want to either “plan” a spontaneous exploration, as I did, or if one just happens to arise on its own!

QUESTION: What was your favorite part of the concert today? (I knew someone would mention the xylophones, so I could easily use it as a segue to where I wanted to take them!!) I pulled out the xylophones, as we didn’t use metallophones today.

INQUIRY: What do you notice about these instruments? Do they all look the same? Do you suppose the largest one will sound differently then the smallest one? Let’s see! I then pulled off the keys and we discussed them. Why do you think they have this arch? Let’s compare the arch of the largest key to the smallest one (I pulled out the smallest key of the smallest glock I had to show them just how small an arch can get!) …. And so on.

Hands-On Time: Each child had a turn playing the instrument they wanted. Next class I will put them out for kids to play and explore without me, but with some sort of provocation…..stay tuned!

I hope this inspires you to have a spontaneous exploration in your classroom! It is a lot of fun and you get a little insight as to what goes through your students’ minds!!!

Please let us know how you create exploration in your classroom in the comments below!!

Reading Notes and Pitches At The Same Time

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Thank you so much for your responses to the survey we sent out a couple of weeks ago. It came as no big surprise that our number 1 issue was time ~ we all face it on a daily basis! Unfortunately, we can’t change our schedules, but there are ways we can make our classes more efficient. Click HERE and HERE to revisit ideas from past newsletters!
Other issues that popped up were reading pitches and rhythms at the same time, tracking notes, melodic dictation and assessment. Today’s blog will focus on reading pitches and rhythms at the same time and to a certain extent, tracking notes.

As a violinist, when I encounter a passage in a piece of music that is difficult to play, I always tackle the rhythm first. Once I have mastered that, I will tackle the pitches. Then and only then can I begin to put them together slowly. With kids, I follow roughly the same process. First, we look at rhythms and figure them out in Note Knacks. We have lots of practice at this! Then from there we start to add pitches. (Kids will also need a great deal of practice singing sol and mi with a variety of rhythms.)

Here is an excerpt from the new lesson plans that will be coming out next month:
1. Take a 4/4 composition and have students say it rhythmically.

2. Refer to Example 1 in the photo above. Draw 2 lines on your board. Then set up the Note Knacks magnets on the top line and ask students “Are the Note Knacks on the high line or the low one?” (Answer: high). Great! So let’s sing all of the notes on sol”. You can choose to sing sol, sol, sol, sol, sol OR to sing each color on a sol note.

3. Refer to Example 2 in the photo above. Next drop down the 2nd and 4th beats. Say “What do you think happens when I do this?”

(While pointing to the two dropped reds) “That’s right! These two reds are lower than the other notes, so we sing them on a lower pitch. It sounds like this.” Demonstrate for them first and then have them sing it with you. Hopefully they will recognize the pattern from previous lessons.

4. Have kids experiment with placing notes on sol or mi and singing what they create. It helps for kids to play on glocks or xylophones to help them sing the correct pitches.

Simplifying this concept to this point makes it obvious to children that a note possesses both a rhythmic AND pitch aspect to it. The difference between the first example and the second, shows kids that the rhythm doesn’t change. In fact, it is a great question to ask them, “Did the rhythm change from example 1 to the other?”. You could also do the opposite using only 1 pitch. Create a rhythm on sol and then change only the rhythm. Ask kids, “now what changed?”. Students will have fun exploring and discovering new ideas they can incorporate in their future compositions!
Please let us know what you do with your students in the comments below!