So, Mi, La centers

The 2nd graders have been working on So, Mi, and La sight reading this month. In the past, I've done a lot of flashcards, whole group practice at the board, and echo singing, but I've always felt this falls short when it comes to actually applying the skill of reading notes on the staff. I've always loved centers and think they are a great way for student to work independently on skills. I put together 5 centers for the kids to rotate through that would allow them to read the solfege and then actually play it on an instrument and hear what it sounds like. Some of the centers required them to sing the pitches as well. We rotated through all 5 stations and spent about 6 minutes at each station. 

Station 1: Catch the Ladybug- I created several ladybug cards with SML notation on them and then a KEY card. One student sings a pattern from the key and the others have to find the lady bug with the matching notation. Cards were numbered so that students could easily check their answers with the numbered examples on the key. 

 Station 2: Hand Sign coloring page-Since it's close to Thanksgiving, I thought this Color By Hand Sign page would be a good fit. I found this worksheet on the Internet, but to be honest, I can't find it again to tell you where it came from!

Station 3: Composition-Each student has a bell stand with E,G, and A as well as a heart beat strip and the letters S, M, and L (these are Music-Go-Round manipulatives). They can put one or two pitches in each heart (Quarter notes or two-eighths) and then they play it on the bells. Having the bells on the raised bell stand helps them visually see the step and skip difference between the pitches as well as higher and lower.  

 Station 4: Barrel O' Monkeys-I used bulletin board cut-outs for this activity. On the barrel I wrote SML patterns on the staff (just like the lady bug center) and on the monkeys I wrote the letter notation (ex: SS LL S M). Students matched the correct monkey and barrel. They are numbered on the back so students can check their answers.

Station 5: Instruments-I set out 2-3 xylophones/metallophones and a stack of SML flashcards. The students took turns reading the flashcards and then playing the pattern on their instrument.

The Nutcracker Museum

Each year in 2nd grade we study "The Nutcracker". I read them the story and then we listen to the eight pieces in the suite. We follow along with several listening maps and do lots of creative movement activities. We also create a Nutcracker Museum. Any student who has a nutcracker at home can bring it to school to be displayed until Christmas. This year is the most I have ever had!

Autumn Winds

The 2nd Graders created this awesome Orff arrangement in music class. All of the instrumentation and movement was created by them (with guidance, of course!).  I used a poem called "Autumn Winds" and we created instrument and movement parts to match the text. The form this class selected was:
A) Poem: Say, Play, and Move
B) Improvised instrument parts using a selected rhythm
A') Poem: Say
B) "                                                                                  "
A")Poem: Solo movement
B) "                                                                                  "
A'") Poem: Play and Move.

And of course we have one leaf that just doesn't want to fall! ;)

Solfeg Games

Here are two games I use for practicing our solfeg patterns for So-Mi and So-Mi-Do.


The S-M game uses a pack of ice cream bulletin board cut outs I bought from Amazon. On the ice cream I drew three lines and then drew different S-M patterns on them. They had to match them to the cone that had the matching pattern.

The So-Mi-Do game was very similar, only I used a picture of a fly that I found and I wrote different SMD patterns on those. Then I made copies of my SMD flashcards, shrunk them, and printed them off on colored paper. Working with a partner, the students had to flip over a flashcard and swat the fly that matched the flashcard with a fly swatter. This was a lot of fun!

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!

The Nutcracker

In 2nd grade we study The Nutcracker and I encourage kids to bring in any nutcrackers that they have at home to show the class. This year, one student and her grandpa made a homemade nutcracker just for music class! How cool is that?!

Music Math Centers

2nd graders are working on music and math and completed a rotation of Music Math Centers to help them. The main goal of this unit is to help students understand the amount of beats that each note receives. Through 6th grade I will still have students tell me that a pair of eighth notes is 2 beats and a quarter rest is 0 beats! Ugh! So we spend a little time each year really drilling note values. Here are the Music Math Stations that I use.

Station 1: Pot O' Gold
I found this game Pot of Gold Game on Pinterest. Students answer a music math flashcard, and the number of your answer is how many coins (Bingo chips in my case) you get to place in your pot of gold. The first student to fill his/her pot wins. I found free, printable flashcards online one year that have worked great. Sorry, I don't remember exactly where they came from though!

Station 2: Mad Minute
I have 3 different levels of worksheets all taken from www.makingmusicfun.net. Students select a worksheet that fits their ability level and then race to complete the sheet with the fewest mistakes. I laminated each of the worksheets so that students could erase and try again to beat their previous scores. It also cut down on a lot of wasted paper.

Station 3: Cup Stack Attack!
I know, almost all of my centers have this game, but the kids absolutely love it! On the bottom of each cup is a math problem and inside of the cup is the correct answer. Students must correctly answer a cup before it can be used in the tower.

Station 4: Noodle Notes
This station was a new one for me this year, and was a bit confusing for the students at first. I cut pool noodles into 3 different sizes (quarter notes or pairs of eighth notes, half notes, and whole notes). Students had to work to create 4 measures in 2/4, 3/4, and 4/4 time. Each measure had to be different. They put the noodles on jump ropes to create a long strand. They then had to write their answers on the included worksheet. This was a great way for me to check that they understood the project.

A strand in 2/4 time

Station 5: Dueling Dice

This was a game I found at www.notablemusicstudio.com. Each member gets a "Dueling Dice" card. Before beginning, they role the dice to get numbers for their first four boxes. Then, they race to come up with notes that equal the number in the box.


Each station has a folder to keep all of the worksheets and directions in it. I also included a cheat sheet on the inside cover of each folder that tells how many beats each note and rest receives. Everything is laminated. Here are the directions that go on the outside cover of each folder.

Eggcellent Melodies

1st graders are spending a lot of time working on so-mi-la right now and the 2nd graders have been studying la-so-mi-do patterns. The week of Easter, I labeled a bunch of plastic eggs with letters to represent these pitches. The students worked in groups of two to create melodies using their eggs. Once they had created a melody, they played it on the glockenspiels. After a few times, I had them combine with another group to make longer melodies.

*This is a modified lesson idea from the book, Kids Can Compose. The book's lesson is focusing on rhythm, but I found it was easy to switch to pitch practice.

*Note: one of my students doesn't celebrate Easter, so I used colored circles instead.

Autumn Leaves

The 2nd graders have just learned about tied notes. We are practicing composing rhythms with tied notes using some leaves I cut out and laminated. A piece of string was used to tie two notes together. This activity is preparing us for half note later on, so we were able to tie together quarter notes and quarter rests.

So-Mi-La Songs

2nd graders have been spending a lot of time reviewing So, Mi, La this year. We spent the last two weeks composing a SML song. First, we created an 8-beat rhythm pattern using tas and ti-tis. Then we added pitches to those rhythms. Finally, we notated those onto a staff. We drew a treble clef and discovered that our piece was in 2/4 time. We also had to learn about bar lines, so this was a great review project for lots of things!

This was our first real practice putting notes onto a staff, so it took a bit of time for some of the kids to grasp drawing notes on lines and spaces (something I realized I need to spend more time on in 1st grade when we learn about lines and spaces). After they had notated their song onto the staff, I gave each student a glockenspiel to practice their piece. Once everyone was done, they performed their piece on the xylophone for the class. The students loved showing off what they had written!

On a side note, if I could do one thing differently, I think I would have had the staff notation on a separate page. That way, when the students played it on the instruments, they were reading from the staff notation and not the rhythmic notation they had on top.

Squirm!

March 4th was our 1st and 2nd grade musical, "Squirm!" This is an adorable program by John Jacobson and John Higgins about all the creatures that make you wiggle and giggle and squirm! Our stage was filled with snakes, spiders, worms, bats, and more! This was one of my favorite programs so far! One of our 1st grade teachers took some pictures for us. Enjoy!!

A King Cobra! So creative!!

Mrs. Raymond's Critters

Mrs. Thiel's Critters

A cute caterpillar and a worm

Earthworms, a flatworm, a hookworm, and a bristle worm! Yuck!

The spiders spinning one cool web!

Here come the bats!

Little Miss Muffet

The Itsy Bitsy Spider crawling up the water spout

A Daddy Long Legs, Black Widow, and Brown Recluse

ABA Form

Our 2nd graders have been studying form. To help reinforce the concept, we used Zoo Pals and flashcards to compose a piece in ABA form. The first day they performed their rhythms with body percussion. The second day, they had to compose their own 4-beat rhythm patterns for each section and then performed them on instruments in front of the class.