Music Inspires!

The theme for Music In Our Schools Month (MIOSM) this year was "Music Inspires". So how do we inspire our students? I feel like this is a constant question in the education world! I'm not sure that I really came up with the answer, but here's what I did to get my students more excited about music.


1) The first week I had all of my students color a MIOSM pennant created by the wonderful Mrs. Tracy King that I downloaded from Teacherspayteachers. I strung them all together and hung them in the hallway by my classroom. I'm on the same floor as the 3rd-6th graders so we don't get as many art projects decorating our hallway as the lower elementary, so it was nice to see a little extra color on the walls.

2) The 2nd week I gave all of the teachers a Staff Survey that I also downloaded from TPT. It surveyed the teachers on their musical interests and backgrounds. I wanted to inspire the students to get involved in music, even if they don't want to grow up to be a music teacher. I hung the surveys all over the school with the name of the teacher covered up so they had to guess. Would you believe that our 6th grade teacher was once in a punk rock band in California?! Or that our 4th grade teacher has been in 14 musicals?!


3) Every month this year I have featured a Composer of the Month on my main bulletin board. My March composer was John Williams, because I figured he was probably the most inspiring composer ever in the eyes of a student. Kids were constantly asking me if we could listen to more of his music! One of the activities we did was a Musical Masterpiece project. Each of the students started out with a piece of paper and were told to draw a picture to represent the John Williams piece that we were listening to.  (Ex: If we were listening to "Jaws" they could draw a shark). After listening for a few minutes, everyone rotated to the left and began coloring on their neighbor's picture while we listened to a new piece (Ex: "Harry Potter"). We continued to do this for "Jurassic Park", "E.T." and "Star Wars". By the end, the picture would be made up of 5 different scenes drawn by 5 different people. It was really fun!

Giant class rotation.

John Williams Continued: I went to the Dollar Store for milk and came home with 12 pool noodles that I made into 24 light sabers (again, idea courtesy of Tracy King!). We used these on the last week of the month to keep the steady beat in the form of a light  saber battle while listening to "Imperial March". I think you could say the kids enjoyed it!

4) Each week I had a Music Trivia question with MIOSM stickers and pencils I ordered from NAfME.org as prizes. I ordered 150 pencils and ran out because I had so many kids get the answers! Here are the questions I used:

Week 1: What was the first song performed in outer space? (Happy Birthday)

Week 2: What instrument was once known as a sackbut? (Trombone)

Week 3: How many keys are there on a piano? (88)

Week 4: In which key do most toilets flush? (Eb Major)







5) I re-created the logo for this year's theme on the wall outside of my room and placed inspirational music quotes on the leaves. We had Parent-Teacher conferences at the end of the month, so I'm hoping that my numerous decorations around the building caught their attention and provided a little music advocacy!



Bee, Bee Bumblebee

Bee, bee, bumblebee

Stung a man upon his knee

Stung a pig upon his snout

I declare that you are out!

We learned this song in Kindergarten at the beginning of the year because it is a great chant for steady beat and rhythm. We recently learned ta and ti-ti (replacing long and short-short) so I brought the poem back to discover the rhythm again. I found these great bee sticks at Oriental Trading this year so I marked them with Tas and Ti-tis (quarter notes and eighth note pairs). After discovering the rhythm of "Bee, Bee" I split the kids into groups and had them compose different rhythm patterns. Then, I let them come up with their own patterns to challenge their partners.

Recorders

The 4th graders started recorder this month. As always, I spent a day showing them the different sizes of recorders. We talk about soprano, alto, tenor, and bass and how they all sound higher or lower. I always save the bass recorder for last and the kids get so excited when they see how big it is! Then, I take a picture of my smallest 4th grader holding the recorder so we can see how big it really is. :)

A recorder consort!

So sad! :)

Eggcellent Rhythms

The 5th graders have been learning about 6/8 time and I found a great Easter activity in my Kids Can Compose book. Using an egg carton and a bunch of eggs labeled with different rhythms, we had a giant egg hunt. Each group had to find 6 eggs, then using their 6 eggs, they had to compose as many measures as possible in 6/8 time. Then I passed out the worksheet from the book and they had to compose 2 different measures using only the rhythms on their eggs. Once they finished that, they joined another group to create a 4-measure pattern that they practiced and presented to the class.


I really liked this lesson because the egg cartons have 6 slots in each row which makes them perfect for doing 6/8 time. One slot=one beat which was a great visual for the kids. I've done this lesson with younger kids in 4/4 time and they are always confused by the extra two spaces. It is also really good for critical thinking and problem solving because they have to come up with several ways to use the same 6 eggs in different ways.

Looking for eggs!

Two groups combined performing their 4-measure composition.

An example of a finished sheet.

Music Festival

In February I took my 5th and 6th grade choir to the area music festival. I had 14 different groups performing, including solos, duets, and quartets. The full choir also performed. As always, I was extremely proud of and impressed by everyone! Standing in front of a judge still makes me nervous, so I know how much courage it takes for them to do it as 5th and 6th graders.

Everyone bright eyed and bushy tailed on the bus at 8 a.m.!!

Don't we look good in our choir t-shirts?!

 

 

Pajama Party!

In March, the 1st and 2nd graders had their program. This year we did "Pajama Party" by Cristi Cary Miller and Jay Michael Ferguson. I have to say this is one of my favorite programs so far! Here are some pics of the kids backstage in their pjs!