Culture Day

Wow - the school year has gotten away from me! Sorry for my lack of blogging. I will definitely get back on track!
Today, I want to share with you one of the traditions are my new school district this year: Culture Day! 

This day is actually a weeklong celebration of countries around the world and their unique cultures. Each class picks a different country (usually the teacher picks the same one every year) and studies about it throughout the week. They create flags, masks, and do other activities that relate to their country. The hallways are lined with flags, the kids eat unique foods and there are even guest speakers! It really is a fun week - plus, it helps the students understand that we are all unique but share similarities throughout the world. 
On the final day, each class chooses representatives to share their country in the grand march in the afternoon. The kids line the gym and applaud as each country is called. They circle the gym twice dressed up and holding their flag. I also play music from each country so the kids can listen and jam along. Here's India:

So, what connects the world better than anything else? MUSIC!

I don't choose a country during this week - I share as many cultures as I can during this special week. Each class gets a day to just talk about their country and head instruments, styles and famous musicians. The next class, we do various activities from some other parts of the world. Here are some of the things we did this year in music class for Culture Day:

My primary students are junior kindergarteners, kindergarteners and first graders. We did several short activities each class period. Some examples are:

• ribbon creative movement to world music (love Putumayo World Music series)
• song stories like Creepy Crawly Calypso (Barefoot Books) & Kookaburra (Cantata Learning)
• Zumba from GoNoodle

Zumba was one of my favorite activities all week! Our guidance counselor previously taught classes and had these fun jingle scarves for the kids to use. Some tied them around their waist while others tied them across their chest. She even had some small ones to put on your wrists. We used Zumba Kids videos from GoNoodle, specifically Indian Moonlight and Bouje. The kids didn't want to take them off - they loved that jingling sound as they danced. I'm definitely doing this again next year!

My intermediate students are second and third graders, but these activities would work well for older kids, too. Here's what we did:

• World Instrument BINGO by Cheryl Lavender
• Music Express Magazine/John Jacobson - the kids loved singing and learning about the music from Moana! We also sang Wavin' Flag from the 2010 FIFA World Cup. John Jacobson's "It's a Musical World" is a great song set with information, dancing and translation for several world songs. I also use it for programs every now and then.
• Games (Se Se Se & Throw Catch) - both of these games are so fun and can take 5 minutes to a whole class period if the kids want to keep playing

Se, Se, Se is the Japanese version of Rock, Paper, Scissors. If you click the picture above, you can download the directions, game and accessory pieces for free! My students loved it so much that they had rematches at recess.

Throw Catch is a Zulu game. You can find some kids playing it on Dana Herro's (a music teacher) Twitter page.

 

My Severe & Profound students are kids with various special needs. They come to a separate music class just for them in addition to their regular music class. We do a lot of repetition of activities and try to meet their learning needs in addition to personal ones.

• "Hola" from Music K8 - I love this song! It is simple, repetitive and great for the kids to identify another language. We also add maracas to it and practice taking turns. Songs with multiple purposes are great for these kids!
• free movement (freeze dance, scarves, stretchy band) to cultural music
• "Waka Waka" with body percussion

As the year has gone by, I've noticed that my Severe & Profound students aren't affected much by noise. This isn't normally the case, but for the kids this year, they are fine with noise. One student doesn't speak much but does like to communicate with her body through sound. I had one of those lightbulb moments - we should do body percussion! The kids love it! However, there isn't much out there for basic body percussion, as these students' goals aren't to read 4 beat rhythmic patterns and such. Their goals are to follow directions, understand personal space, keep a steady beat, body awareness, etc. 

This led me to create several products in my TeachersPayTeachers.com store that appeal to other classes similar to mine. They feature only the picture of what should be done. The teacher can lead a steady beat, let the kids freely do the movement, create an echo or other things. It's up to the teacher to choose what works best for their kids. To celebrate Culture Day with my kids, I created a body percussion activity to "Waka Waka" - a song written for South Africa. It also features a Columbian singer named Shakira. It works well for little ones too if you're not ready for rhythms.

For all of my classes, I recommend this story written by Margaret Wise Brown (Goodnight Moon). I use it as a way to talk about respect, understanding and appreciation. They listen to me read the story, including the different languages and pointing out historic landmarks. We finish with listening to Rachel Rumbaugh (a music therapist) singing the story in a gentle way. It's a nice, calming activity to end class. My Severe & Profound students always need a calming activity, but this is great for all of the kids. As they listen, I ask them to think about being mindful during the week, but also when they leave school. You can sing the story yourself to the tune of "The Farmer in the Dell" if you prefer.

Next year, I hope to do more folk dancing and bring out my ukulele (I'm just learning to play and no one wants to hear that! lol). You can bring world music into your classroom at anytime, but this week is truly a unique and special experience for our kiddos. Take care!

Celebrating 100 Days!

So, apparently the 100th day of school is a BIG DEAL! This was something that no one ever told me about in student teaching or even my first year or two in the classroom. I've finally started to understand that for lower elementary, the 100th day of school is awesome!
The kids start the day by breaking through a big banner. How cool is that? The rest of the day is spent counting, moving, and creating with 100. As a music teacher, I've always wanted to be a part of the celebration, but couldn't figure out what to do.
This year I've come up with a few ideas of things to do tomorrow (our 100th day) and I want to share them with you!

Sing

Music K8 has some great songs for the 100th day of school. Some are easier and some a little harder. I usually like to project the lyrics through Powerpoint so the kids can see them nice and big. Here's a few suggestions:

• One Hundred Days! (22/3)
• The 100th Day of School (9/3)
• One Hundred Days of School (3/3)
• Happy 100 to Us! (3/3)
• See How Much We've Learned (27/3)

You can also find free songs on Pinterest that take a traditional tune (Oh Christmas Tree, I've Been Working on the Railroad, etc.) and give it different words to celebrate the 100th day.

Movement

If you haven't heard of GoNoodle, you need to check it out ASAP! They have dances, yoga, brain breaks, and more stuff for kids. A lot of our teachers use the "Indoor Recess" mixes to give the kids some activity when they can't go outside. I love using the Kidz Bop guided dance videos or the calming ones at the end of a lesson. 

They've created two fun videos for the 100th day! You can choose Skip Count to 100 or Count to 100. Both look great for a quick mention of the 100th day if you have other things planned. Share with your classroom or PE teachers, too - they will thank you for it!

Instruments

The final suggestion is the activity I'm going to be using with my students this year. I love "The Peas" series by Keith Baker. I've mentioned in a past blog post about using his other story "Little Green" for vocal exploration. He's a wonderful author. His "Peas" series includes books about the alphabet, seasons, and counting. It just so happens that his counting book goes from 1-100 in ones and tens - perfect for the 100th day!

I like to use books with drumming, but you can use any percussion instrument in your classroom. First, I read the story to the class. Then, I introduce and place the drums in different groups (i.e. bongos station, gathering drum, lollipop drums). From here, I read the story and have the students echo the text on their drums. Example: One pea searching (tap tap tap tap); I find that it's easier to project the Kindle version (Amazon) up on the whiteboard as I read so I can walk around and help the kids. Once we've read & played through the story, the kids move to the next station and we do it again. 

The story gets tedious by the last class of the day, but the kids love it! It also helps them work on hearing a steady beat, playing with others and working on sounds. You can always branch out into what rhythms would represent the text or have the kids create their own ideas for the 100th day. Then, have them write it and play it on a nonpitched percussion instrument. 

Best of luck on your 100th day! Make it great!

Workshop Wonders

Sorry it's been awhile! These past few months have been full of stuff. 

Anyways, I'm sharing some ideas that came from the workshop I attended today. It was great to get together as a small group of elementary music teachers. We all have neat ideas and experiences to share with others from our classrooms.

Here's a great photo of "Heel and Toe Polka" by my friend and former classmate Lydia! She shared the scaffolding for this fun day with music by New England Dancing Masters.

I also learned a neat trick for teaching different partners - BEADS! I don't know how I didn't think of this before. You can have partners wear two different colored bead necklaces or have one partner wear one and the other not. It helps them look for their next partner and doesn't create chaos. So fun! You can buy them in bulk from Oriental Trading. It would even be fun to get these in our school colors!

 

I also learned some fun body percussion for the song "Oats, Peas, Beans." To begin, have the students pat the beat or march in place. Next, sing the song with something on "oats" (maybe snaps?). Do it again and add something for peas (clap). Finish with something for beans (pat). Then, add them all together and sing the song. See if the kids can sing the whole song while they are marching and doing the body percussion pieces. Next class period, add unpitched percussion in place of the body percussion. Cool!

My contribution was about children's literature and music lessons. I shared a fun movement activity with the book "My Many Colored Days" by Dr. Seuss. It's wonderful to talk about feelings or do a collaborate lesson with the guidance counselor and art teacher. You can find it in my movement and literature bundle here: 

  

I didn't get a chance to present this book, but it's really fun for those wiggle days. You can read the story and add egg shakers on the "scratch Shaggy Dog's back" or split the group up and have one group do the "scratch Shaggy Dog's back" and the other do "the itch came back!" The kids love egg shakers and they fit perfectly into their little hands.

If you aren't able to meet with other elementary music teachers at least once a year, you should think about creating a professional development day. It's wonderful to connect with others and share ideas!

Back to the Future

It's Wednesday - only a few more days till the weekend! Why not celebrate with a sale?

So, a group of dear friends and I were chatting and realized we all had a mutual love for all things Back to the Future!  Did you know that Marty did his travels on October 21, 2015?  Where are my flying cars and hoverboards?   We had such a chuckle talking about the differences in the BTF world and ours that we decided to come together to offer you 3 gift cards to TpT!  In addition, we have marked one item down to $1.21!  (for 1.21 gigawatts - go watch the movie!).  

#tptmusic #musictpt #elmused #btfmusic #tptmusictribe

Are you drooling with excitement yet? Here's what you have to do:

1. Start here at my friend Pitch Publications for the first letter. Make sure you write them all down because you will need them to answer the rafflecopter at the end!

2.  Then click the green "follow" button at each store while you are there.  Take a minute or two to check out some of the great products in each store! 

3.  Now click  on the letter to go to the next store and get the letter, etc...There should be 19 letters total. Don't forget me (they saved the best for last)!

4.  Once you have the secret code, come back here and to put in the final code and enter!
5.  Check back later this week to see who won!!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

I'll be putting this fun product on sale! In this file, there are five fun lessons for children's books with movement. Some involve props or movement materials, while others have actions. Each movement activity is a great starting point for learning more musical concepts, too. I also leave them occasionally for nonmusical subs, as many of them work well as an individual lesson.

Don't forget to click HERE to check out all the $1.21 deals!

Wish and Dish!

It's here! It's here! It's here!

I am so excited for the Teachers Pay Teachers "Back to School" sale! It's a great time to stock up on resources for fall, especially that stuff on your wish list. If you need some suggestions, check out the linky party I'm participating in. Each teacher is sharing a resource of theirs and a few things on their wishlists. You can't go wrong!

First, I thought I'd share a product I'm super excited about from my classroom. 

Vocal Explorations with Children's Literature BUNDLE

I love using children's literature in my classroom. My students know that they will be read to at least once every six day cycle. I have many products in my store for using children's books with instruments, writing, singing games, etc. This bundle is particularly meant to use with vocal explorations. 

The three stories in this bundle (also available separately) are How To Speak Moo, The Squiggle, and Little Green. Each of the files includes directions on how to use the stories with the product (the stories aren't included but are available at most book stores) and different ways to use it in your classroom. 

First, the explorations are already created: 

Some are straight, some loop, curve or are jagged. There's a great variety of high and low!

Next, there are blank slides for students to create their own pathways on the file (via smartboard) or demonstrate in front of the class:

The picture changes spots around the screen for some change in pitch.

Last, there are worksheets for students to create their own pathway to use for partner sharing, small group collaboration or assessment:

Each has their own pathways, pictures and worksheets to fit the story. My students love them and they are a great way to warm-up voices, create and assess!

Now, I'll share with you a few things from my wishlist!

Educlips Pirate Clip Art Bundle
I'm hoping to do more with Gilbert & Sullivan in my classroom this year. One of my favorites is "The Pirates of Penzance." These little pirate buddies will be great to create an overview, worksheets, etc.

The Silent Instrument Game

I have been eyeing this game from Allison Cabello for months! It's a great game to introduce, review or have QUIET fun with instruments. It's also nice for subs or early out days.

Speaking of Allison, she posted a wonderful image to refresh everyone on leaving feedback. Did you know you can get money towards future purchases, just by leaving feedback? It's also a helpful way for teacher authors to get a feel for what is working for buyers. PLEASE leave feedback - it's a win, win! If you're unsure, here's Allison's graphic to help you out:

Dollar Finds

If you read my posts regularly, you know that I love Half Price Books. Well, I went back for another dig and found a great deal. Apparently, it was the day for deals, though, because Target had a great find, too. Here's what I found: Dollar Deal #1

The Fabulous Feud of Gilbet & Sullivan by Winter & Egielski This book was in the clearance section for $1 - what a find! I haven't ventured into opera with my students, but the reviews for this book are wonderful. The colors are vivid and the story is humorous. Plus, I accompanied a performance of "The Mikado" in college. Hopefully I can come up with some way to incorporate this into my lessons in the coming year. If not, it's a great read to leave in my sub tub. Dollar Deal #2

Finger Pointer - Target

Okay, these are hilarious...especially when my husband tried to pick his nose with them. Anyway, these are great for leading vocal explorations! I grabbed two in different colors (there were other colors, too). I don't have a smart board so the students usually draw in the air with their finger. These are so cute and the kids will LOVE them. I can't wait to use these! I wonder what other things I could them for.....

Love deals? Check out some of these posts from Jennifer from The Yellow Brick Road. She has found some great dollar deals and even offers giveaways occasionally.

Dollar Pin Crafting & Giveaway

Rhythm with Stickers

Target Finds & a Giveaway

Have you found any dollar deals? Please comment below and share your glory!

It's a SALE!

Have you checked out the freebies yet? If not, there's still time to stock up before all the products go back to regular price.

Tomorrow, certain products will be available for $4! Check out my Listening Glyphs for Musicals Bundle - it's normally $4 for each set, but tomorrow you can get both for the price of one! These are great for unit on musicals or as a sub activity. I like to use them at the end of the year with different grades.

Finally, my store (and many others) will be on sale this weekend. Get 20% off all of the products in my store through Sunday. Don't miss out!

Summer Shop Hop Giveaway

Are you interested in winning a $50 gift card? Come on, who doesn't want some free cash to Teachers Pay Teachers??

Check out this Summer Shop Hop Giveaway that several music teachers (including myself) are putting on for you this week! There are two gift cards up for grabs. Just start at Pitch Publications, follow the store (if you haven't already!) and collect the letters. They will spell out something at the end! Make sure you keep them because at the end, come back here and enter the code to earn your entry into the giveaway!
Stop 1 - Pitch Publications

As you're hopping, check out all of the awesome products that these music sellers have to offer! You might find a gem to start off the school year in a few months :) This giveaway will run from June 25th through June 27th. Be sure to check back for the winners on June 28th!


a Rafflecopter giveaway

Five Favorite Music Freebies!

Two blog posts in one week? Wheww, I'm on a roll!

Today, I'm linking up with Noteworthy By Jen to talk about freebies. Teachers Pay Teachers is full of freebies, as every seller has to post them. It gives you fun activities, guidelines, and/or samples of work from the seller to see if you'd like to purchase more things from their store. There are so many to choose from - it was hard to only pick five! Each picture is linked to the TPT site where you can grab the freebie!

1. Garage Band Rap Project Lyrics Sheet and Final Grading Rubric
   
   I am so excited to be the recipient of a grant for iPads next year (more on this in a future blog post)! Now, I’ll need more things to utilize the apps, including GarageBand. This project freebie looks great for my older students to express their creativity!

2. FREE Create Your Own Mystery Song
   
   I love Cori Bloom’s mystery activities! This free blank template allows you to create your own mystery song to use with your students. There are two choices for you to use depending on what you want your students to discuss.

3. American Composers Flipbook Freebie
   
   American composers are sometimes left out because we focus so much on Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, etc. This flipbook allows students to learn and collect important information about American composers, including a new favorite, John Williams. There are more from different eras if you like what you see!

4. This Year Rocked! End of the Year Memory Book FREEBIE
   
   What a fun activity for the end of the year! My students love going over their favorites and sharing with their friends. It’s a great memory keeper and reminder of a whole year of learning in music.

5. FREE - A Soup Opera (Children's Lit & Music Mini Lesson)
   Now, for some shameless promotion! This is my new freebie in my store and it’s so fun! The   lesson is great for music teachers, but also works well for substitutes or those who aren't musically inclined. The story is "A Soup Opera" and features a CD attached with the book. It's a great lesson to talk about voice types, plot, and opera, while allowing students to brainstorm, write and share their ideas. Check it out!

Make sure to click on the linky party picture to be directed back to the main site - you can see everyone else's top music freebies!

Spring Shopping Spree....and a GIVEAWAY!

It's almost the end of the year, but there's still one big push until summer. In preparation for this, I am so blessed to team up with a great group of TPT teachers and authors to hold a giveaway! The two winners of this giveaway will each receive a $50 gift certificate to TeachersPayTeachers.com.

How awesome is that? I'm jealous that I can't win!

So...what would I do if I had a $50 TPT gift certificate? Here are three things that I would definitely be in my cart:

1. Dabber Activities for Music Class - Instruments

I love Tracy King's dabber activities! I used her ideas for centers last month and the dabber station was a hit. Her rhythm set worked for all ages, too. I'm definitely getting her instrument set to review with my students at the end of the year.

 2. Identify Form in Pop Music - Part Three

Mr. Litt's form activities have my kids excited! They love listening to their favorite songs AND learning about how it works. It's great to do in small groups, partners or as an assessment tool. This is his newest version with songs by Taylor Swift, Maroon 5 and more. Definitely a way to end the school year!

3. United States Doodles

My next project will be to work on some patriotic music activities for Memorial Day, the 4th of July and Veterans Day. This clip art will get me started on Fifty Nifty United States - my students love this song!

Looking for a fun way to introduce musicals before the end of the school year? Visit my store and purchase my new listening glyphs! They feature selections from Annie, The Wizard of Oz, The Sound of Music, Mary Poppins and The Lion King.  More are on the way this week with several different musicals and listening questions. Be on the look out for them!

Don't forget to enter the giveaway below. It will start at midnight on April 29th and close on May 1st. Good luck and happy shopping!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Symbaloo

If you've read my blog posts before, you know that our district is 1:1 with a huge emphasis on technology. All students have laptops in the classroom, as well as 2 computer labs in the building and several mobile iPad carts. Here is my previous post on some ways I incorporated technology in the classroom this spring: 

Long time - no see! Let's talk technology.

Today, I'm going to dive in a little more to the world of Symbaloo. It is available on it's own, but our district uses the Symbaloo EDU platform. It's free - which rocks - but you can also upgrade to premium for a cost. Symbaloo is basically a board with all of your bookmarks on it. Our kids use this all the time, so they are very comfortable with it. Each grade has their own board, which is then divided by teacher. Our technology integrationist updates the webmixes and can quickly add, delete, or copy tiles. I like to have control of my own (since I do a lot of switching and adding), so she has my own webmixes linked to my picture. Here is a screen shot of how the boards look from our district:

Each grade has their tile (specials is the bottom right blue tile) and then the rest of the board is filled with quick resources for the students to use in class. 

Here is the Specials webmix. Our tech person has uploaded our school picture as the launch for our pages. The art teacher links tiles below, while mine are launched from clicking on my face. The students do enjoy seeing my school picture each year - ha!

And here's my landing page! As you can see, I have tiles that lead to other boards of the same nature. This helps the students know where categories are. You can attach pictures as well to your tiles. Those that are already linked up with Symbaloo have pictures available. If not, you can save and add a picture of your own to the tiles. 

Now, I'm going to go through how I create, organize, and code tiles. 

Once you've created your account, go to the top right corner and click on the black/white "plus size" - this is used to add a webmix or "category."

Choose your name for the webmix, like Composers, Orchestra, Christmas, etc. From there, it leaves you with a screen full of grey tile space. Click on a space to add your tile. 

Here, you can add the website, source, etc. that you want on the tile. Name your tile, click "show text" so that you know what the tile is and choose a color. If the site already has a picture, it will pop up - otherwise, you can save and upload your own. Click "save" and it will pop up. You can move it around wherever you'd like. 

As you create more webmixes with tiles, your top bar will start having tabs. Anytime you want to save or update, go to the top middle bar and click on the circling arrow. This will update and save your webmix on the tabs above with a lock picture. You can also share or delete with the middle bar. You can only edit if a webmix if does not have the lock on it. This way, you don't lose all of your information if you make a change. 

From there, have fun organizing, arranging, and linking. Here is my "composing" tab and it's arrangement. The tabs for my intermediate students are on the far right. The top line of tabs are for primary and the others are organized by different composing aspects. 

From there, click on the top middle's bar "greater than" picture to share your webmix. You can write it on the board, email it to all of your students, link to your teacher's page for at home music learning - the possibilities are endless! The students click on the link and are instantly taken to your Symbaloo. If they click on a picture, it will take them there immediately - no typing in, searching, going to wrong sites or stuff like that. Wonderful! The whole process doesn't take that long to set up and get going, trust me! My main webmix is called "Elementary Music." Click here to check it out:

http://edu.symbaloo.com/mix/elementarymusic2

I also use this to link to GoogleDocs. You can make the tile the link to a Google form, presentation or something else for a quick assessment. I've also linked it to Padlet and webquests for students to share their learning and ideas with each other. So many possibilities!!

There are many more features and playing around that you can do. If you have questions about Symabloo, creating webmixes or finding fun, appropriate music sites, let me know! Hope you've enjoyed my tech tip for today :)