Krazy Kazoos!

The 2nd graders created their very own kazoos this month out of toilet paper rolls, waxed paper, and a rubber band. We then used our kazoos to play along with "Old King Cole/Hey Diddle Diddle" from "Gettin' Down With Mamma Goose". The kids had a great time decorating their kazoos and playing them.

 

Our Masterpiece

I've received lots of compliments on my fall bulletin board and wanted to share it with you. It says, "Each individual is like a single note. Together, we create a masterpiece."

Every student in the school got to sign a note to put on the board. That means I cut out 271 notes this summer! What was I thinking?! But I love the way it  turned out and it led to a great discussion about how each student is special and important. Very cool!

Freddy the Frog and the Mysterious Wahooo!

The 1st graders just finished reading "Freddy the Frog and the Mysterious Wahoo!". In this book, the birds and monkeys are playing a rhythm game with sticks. We re-created that game using popsicle sticks, pipecleaners, and pom-poms. The popsicle sticks were our rhythms, the pipe cleaners our barlines, and the pom-poms were repeat dots. Then we created a rhythmic ostinato and played along with the tempo tracks at the end of the book. The 1st graders had a great time changing from Largo, to Andante, to Allegro, to Presto!

Repeat signs

Repeat signs



Adding our popsicle stick rhythms

 

Ta, Ta, Ti-Ti-, Shh

Oh Say Can You "Sing" the National Anthem?

Welcome back to another year! I started off this year with a huge multi-class unit on the Star Spangled Banner (in my 3 years of teaching, I have somehow never gotten around to teaching this! Oops!). The 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders all completed a two-week study of our National Anthem using the Star Spangled Banner centers I purchased from www.musicbulletinboards.net. These are an excellent resource and the students really enjoyed working on each center (there are 10 in all). The anthem was written on September 13th, 1814, right in the middle of our unit, so we celebrated it's 198th anniversary. At the end of the unit, the students in each class were able to sing the entire anthem for me from memory! Here are some pictures of us working on our centers in class.

Francis Scott Key

Sing in the Blanks

Star Spangled Treble Clef

Sticky Note Singing

Star Spangled Word Find

 

Definitions

Write On

Here are a few poems that were written at the Poetry center. Students were to write a poem about America. We were covering this unit on September 11th, and some of the poems written that day were very heart-felt. (I've copied these as they were written.)

9-11

*by a 5th grader

 

Today was the day 9-11 came

With bombs they thought this was a game.

Lives were lost, tears were cryed.

Barly evan survived.

One day I beileve that justis will rain agin

I belive and hope everyday that they will never come agin.

 

American Eagle

*by a 4th grader

 

The fight was bloody, but we got

justice for the American Eagle. We

have freedom, and our nations flag still

stands, and the stars and stripes still blow.

 

American Eagle

*by a 4th grader

 

Stars and stripes are so pretty at night.

Just be glad to be an American Eagle.

So we don't have to fight.