A Peek at My Week

I'm linking up to a new party this week! I love seeing what others are up to each week and thank goodness, I'm not the only insanely busy one. This week, I am joining Mrs. Laffin's "A Peek at My Week" linky party for my last week of school! Hurray! It has been a tough year, but one full of so many fun musical moments and memories.

Mrs. Laffin's Linky Party - A Peek at My Week

Monday
  This is a pretty normal day. My kindergarteners will be doing some moving and music making with Beethoven. Third grade will have their end of the year reward in the lab. They get free choice of any of the music activities on my Symbaloo. Feel free to access it here:

Mrs. Skog's Music Symbaloo

Tuesday

  Tuesday is so busy! It is the 5th grade Awards Ceremony, so my chorus students will be singing in the afternoon. The whole grade is gone in the morning for touring the middle school and then back for music. We have been learning about The Music Man for the last week, as it is set in Iowa - woot woot! The students will be in split into 2 groups to come in and watch some clips from the show. Musicals are fun to learn about and sing, but you can't teach about musicals without the students watching it! 

Wednesday

  This day is a little more low-key. I will be seeing my kindergarteners again. We'll be finishing up the year with reviewing pre-rhythms. The students have been working hard on one and two sounds to get ready for ta and titi next year. I'll be using this fun resource from My Musical Menagerie all about S'mores!

S'mores Early Rhythm and Composition Activity

  My third graders will be at the zoo all day, so I will be using the afternoon to start packing up my room and finishing all of the "end of year" paperwork for administration. I'll probably pop into a few classrooms, too, to see if anyone needs help. I love seeing other teachers in action!

Thursday

  Thursday is somewhat normal like Monday. This will be the last day I'll see 1st grade, so we will be reviewing and having fun for music class. We'll be using the original song and file "Bluebird" from Emily F on TeachersPayTeachers. It is great for reviewing so-mi and has the students use boomwhackers. We'll end class with everyone's favorite: freeze dance!

Bluebird

Friday

 Last day of school! Our school just started coming together with the parents for a PTO group. They have been so helpful and positive this year! For the last day, they are putting on an adventure day for the primary students. The intermediate students usually come down and clean my room, too, so it will just be a day of packing up and saying goodbye. 

Thanks for reading! I am blessed that we didn't have to go past Memorial Day this year. I'm excited for the summer, but I'm already planning for next year. I will be attending a workshop in Branson this June with Artie Almeida and Denise Gagne. I cannot wait! More about that later :)

Five Favorite Pins of March

I'm linking up again to Mrs. Miracle's Music Room! I pin so many awesome things that I often forget what I really have. Five Favorite Pins is a great way to review some pins that might have fallen by the way side in a pinning frenzy! hahaha

http://www.mrsmiraclesmusicroom.com/2014/03/five-favorite-pins-of-march.html

1. SOL and MI Print & GO

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Sol-And-Mi-Print-Go-1170585

                My first graders are finishing up their programs in the next few weeks. I can't wait to get back into Sol & Mi practice. Lindsay Jervis just whipped up these quick worksheets to use. Great for review or a sub day!

2. Musical Form Bulletin Board

http://www.pinterest.com/pin/110338259595479754/

I am working really hard to introduce more form activities into our music classes. I would love to use this at the beginning of next year to review form with the older students. So cute and relatable!

3. Singing at Home

      

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Singing-at-Home-interactive-singing-homework-for-elementary-music-1157761

I'm not a fan of "homework," but I want to get more parents involved in their child's musical education. I've also started following "The Yellow Brick Road" and love these ideas I'm seeing. I hope to use this at the end of the year or beginning of next school year to spark some family discussion of music. Love, love love!

4. Activate! Magazine

                  It's my third year teaching and I've finally gone through my whole classroom. I've sorted and organized everything to make it more accessible to me. In doing so, I found a great resource called "Activate! Magazine." I grabbed one quick last week and found a great dance by Phyllis Weikart. I also found this video on Youtube of her teaching it to some students. My kids K-5 loved it for a St. Patty's Day dance.

                                     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvYThquxwQU

5. Stretchy Band

http://musicalchildren.wordpress.com/2013/08/01/games-and-movement-band/

       I was just recently at a workshop that used a stretchy band. I want one of these things! However, they are pricey and I don't have much of "carefree" budget. However, I came across this pin that shows how to make your own, no matter what the size or color. AND, you can change it quick whenever! AAAAAHHH - I hope to get to the craft store sometime to start on this project - it says it only takes 5 minutes!

Five Favorite Pins of October!

I love Linky Parties! This is my second time participating and it's so great to see more resources to use in the classroom. I'm linking to Mrs. Miracle's Music Room about my favorite pins of October.

http://www.mrsmiraclesmusicroom.com/2013/10/five-favorite-pins-of-october-linky.html

1. Monster Melody Madness

            It is Halloween and fall time, but I love activities that can be used throughout the year. My 2nd graders are just starting to learn about "do" and this set is a great way for them to review their skills soon. It's from Amy Abbott on TeachersPayTeachers.

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Monster-Melody-Madness-a-collection-of-activities-for-teaching-do-914219

2. Primary Listening Sheet

          I'm trying to focus more on listening this year, through various activities. It's hard for my younger students to do this because our district is really working on writing and communication/negotiation. I love this gem I found for primary students to start communicating how they feel and why about certain types of music.

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Music-Listening-Activity-Worksheet-805853

3. Every Little Thing

           I LOVE singable story books, especially ones that have a great message and are relevant songs to people in every day life. I stumbled upon Cedella Marley as an author through the blog "Treble in the Classroom." I can't wait to order this book and her other story One Love.

http://trebleintheclassroom.blogspot.com/2013/08/every-little-thing-song-picture-book.html

4. Beat Buddies

            I saw this on Mrs. King's music room and knew I had to incorporate it immediately. I'm having some struggles with a couple of my kinder classes concerning behavior. Beat buddies are perfect for keeping the beat and learning, but also a behavior incentive for them. If they aren't following directions, their beat buddy is taken away. My 4th graders even wanted to use them for our program practice! If they were showing program posture and doing their best at singing and listening, they could sing with a beat buddy. Wow - love!

http://mrskingrocks.blogspot.com/2013/09/beat-buddies-help-keep-steady-beat.html

5. Emergency Sub Plans

          Whenever I am gone (planned or unplanned), rarely do I have a music sub or an actual scheduled sub. They are few and far between in our district, so I usually have an associate or someone in the building who is free to cover my class. I hate always showing a movie if it's not relevant to our current topics, but it's the easiest for whoever ends up teaching music. However, I found this great idea that will get the students learning about things we can't cover, as well as talk with one another.

http://musicelementary.blogspot.ca/2012/01/emergency-sub-plan.html?m=1

Can't wait to see the other great ideas that others post. Enjoy!

Bounce High, Bounce Low

I love the song "Bounce High, Bounce Low." It has so many things in it for the students to learn! I am using it with 2nd graders for concepts, but I hope to glue it to the 1st grade curriculum by the end of this year.

To start, we play a singing game. The students are in a circle, with one person holding the ball. We all sing "Bounce high, bounce low. Bounce the ball to Shi-loh," but replace "Shi-loh" with a student's name. The ball is bounced to that student and we keep going. Granted, it is not the most exciting game ever but the students like it and it is awesome for helping with names at the beginning of the year.

Next, we take it apart. I got this wonderful powerpoint collection of Penguin Songs from Emily F. at http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Penguin-Songs-a-Mi-So-La-activity-486960

The students review steady beat, as well as "ta" and "titi." Then, I introduce our new solfege hand sign "la." The students have already heard of "La" through the book series "So-Me" by Stuart Manins. I highly recommend you purchase these books. They are great! The kids love singing So-Me's name and remember it forever. They are pricey, but they introduce rhythm, melody, different sounds and high vs. low. They are also awesome for a sick voice day because the author reads the stories on his CD that comes with the books.
           http://www.westmusic.com/p/so-me-storybooks-set-of-12.htm

Anyways, we learned about "La-Me" who is So-Me's older brother. They now get to see where La is! We use the powerpoint to see the picture relationships, sing the song, show the handsign and see it on the staff.

Finally, we add instruments! The students love the boomwhackers and they are a great way to reinforce our district goal of student-centered classrooms. I divide the students, explain to them about boomwhacker notation and we get started! They are given 10 minutes to work together before performing in front of the class. It's also a nice way to introduce and reinforce audience etiquette. The students listen to one another, clap, and encourage each person's playing. I love it! They are so brave to get up in front of their classmates and play - I couldn't even do that until middle school! It really helps them out as we prepare for our program in December.

What other ideas do you have for Bounce high, bounce low? I love songs that teach so many different things :)

Classroom tour - part 1

My blog today is just a quick preview of my classroom. I am constantly changing things up and moving stuff around. I find things I really like each year, but then there is always something that irks me. However, I'm really liking most of the placement and design of things this year.

This is my big bulletin board. It sits right outside the music room and is always a pain. The students love touching things and it's so big - I can never fill the whole space! I started off with an iPod design that said "Tune into a new year!" I just changed it today to the Despicable Me Minions in solfege formation. I think it's so cute and relevant to the kids. Found this great idea on Pinterest, of course!

This is my bookshelf. The last few years it has been horribly cluttered. Then, I discovered fabric bins. I am in love with them! I was able to separate my books into categories and use mini dry erase tags to label them. The bottom shelf is for media resources and the top shelves hold curriculum and staff development resources. The bins are in our school colors :)

I love this behavior chart! I hope it really motivates the kids to do their best, but also monitor each other. I have one for Primary and one for Intermediate. Each class has their own guitar pick clip, color coded by grade. They move up or down depending on their behavior. Here's the site I found the idea and template from:

http://theinspiredapple.blogspot.com/2011/07/me-laminator-love.html

This is the big shelving unit in the back of the room. It has a lot of great storage for mallet sets, old book series and other random odds & ends. However, the kids want to touch and see EVERYTHING! My mom is creating a curtain for this year that can be pushed aside, but is mainly in place to keep the kids from touching and messing with stuff. You can also see my other colored fabric bins. These are labeled and go along with the color coded schedule, behavior chart, and concert calendar for each grade. I store all of their activities and curriculum ideas in this bins. 

Hopefully I can get the rest of the photos up in the next week or so. What do you think? I always love hearing new ideas on room organization.