National Anthem

The 4th graders learned about the Star Spangled Banner in September. Each year at the end of the unit, we sing the anthem at a home volleyball or basketball game. This year we sang for a packed house at the final home volleyball game. 45 students took part! Way to go!!

Waiting to sing!! 

Star Spangled Banner

The 4th graders did a fabulous job singing the Star Spangled Banner at the last home volleyball game. This is something I do every year after we finish our unit studying and memorizing the song. It has become a very popular tradition that the students all look forward to. Here is this year's performance.

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! :)

Concert Season!!

Here are some pictures from all of the wonderful concerts we have had this December. I'm always so proud of the kids and this year I had 100% attendance at all of my concerts!! Not a single kid missed! All 43 kids at the choir concert, all 46 at the 3rd grade musical, and all 38 at the 4th grade musical...that's 127 kids!! WOW!!!

5th and 6th Grade Choir Concert

Singing "Carol of the Elves" by Janet Gardner

42 kids!! The biggest choir I've ever had!

3rd Grade Musical- "The Grumps of Ring-a-Ding Town"

Hear the merry bells ring!

Being "Grumpy"

We're ornery and crabby!

Mrs. Gault's Class

Mrs. Schepp's Class

4th Grade Musical-"The Grumps of Ring-a-Ding Town"

We all do better when we work together!

Snowmageddon! HELP!!

Mrs. Foster's Class

Mrs. Grochow's Class

They wanted to do a grumpy picture, too!!

Tempo Centers

I created another new center this fall. This one is for tempos. The words we were working on were: Largo, Lento, Andante, Moderato, Allegretto, Allegro, Allegro con brio, Presto, Ritardando, and Accelerando. I used this with 4th grade.
Here are the centers I had:

1: Fishbowl: I found some fishbowl bulletin board decorations on Amazon to make this center. I simply wrote the definition in the bowl and the term on the fish. The students had to match the correct term and definition.

2: Listening Lab: I have always wanted to incorporate some kind of a listening lab into my centers, but was never really sure how. This year, I got a new portable Bose speaker that will play music from my iTunes using Bluetooth. I let the students have my school iPod, which is full of over 800 songs that are completely clean and school appropriate. The goal was for the group to select a song to listen to and then guess what the tempo of that song was. Once they had made a guess, they used a metronome to check their answer. One of my metronomes allows you to tap the beat and will then register the tempo you are tapping. They used a sheet I created with approximate BPM of each tempo marking. Once they learned how to use the metronome and iPod, the kids seemed to really like this center, and the music was soft enough that it wasn't distracting to the other groups. 

In case you are wondering, it was Minion Day at school on this day!

3: Cup Stacking: I know that I always use this one, but the kids like it and it's easy to make. I wrote the tempo terms on the bottom of each cup, and in order to use the cup to make a tower, the student must correctly define the term. 

4: Metronome Masters: I think that teaching the kids what a metronome is and how it works is a big part of learning about tempo. At this station, each student had a job. Student 1 created a tempo pattern using ta and ti-ti flashcards. Student 2 selected a tempo marking. Student 3 set the metronome to play at a beat somewhere within that tempo's range. Student 4 performed the rhythm on rhythm sticks at the appropriate tempo. 

*Note: This one was a bit hard because the students really struggled to play each flashcard at different tempos and didn't know whether or not they were correct. It was especially hard because everyone wanted to use the fastest tempos! I"m not sure how well this center worked, but at least it exposed them to the difficulty of playing at very fast and very slow tempos and taught them how to use a metronome. I guess that's something!

5: Tempo Showdown!: Showdown is a game that I got from the idea of Kagan structures. To briefly explain, Kagan structures are different methods/activities that help students practice information in small groups. 

Here is how Showdown works: Every student has a marker board and a marker (or a piece of paper would work if you don't have marker boards). I created a set of cards using notecards that contained the tempo definition on one side. The students placed the cards face down in the middle of the circle. One student flips a card over for everyone to see. Each student writes the correct answer on his/her marker board. When everyone is done, one person yells, "Showdown!" The groups shows their answer at the same time. If everyone is correct, they give each other a high five/fist bump. If someone is wrong, they help find the mistake. 

Here are the centers directions I posted on each file folder, the Tempo sheets that are included in each folder, and the Listening lab sheet to fill out. 

Star Spangled Banner

The 4th graders sang the National Anthem at one of our home volleyball games after completing their unit on the "Star Spangled Banner". They did a great job!

What can you do with 100 solo cups?!

Make a giant cup tower, of course!!

Recorders

4th graders are so excited! This week, we are starting recorders! I always like to start off the unit by showing the kids how a recorder is made. I love the Discovery Channel "How It's Made" videos. Here is the one I show the kids. How It's Made-Recorder

After showing the video, I show the kids 4 different sizes of wooden recorders. I have no idea where they came from, but I was pleasantly surprised to find them in a box one year when I was cleaning my classroom! I always start by showing them the smallest one first, and then work my way up to the biggest one. I wish I had a camera to show you their faces when they see it! I play "Hot Cross Buns" on each one so they can hear the difference in pitch between the sizes.

I know some people joke about the awfulness or recorders, but it is one of my favorite parts of the year! It's great to see kids get so excited about playing an instrument and it is the one thing we do that combines all of the stuff we have learned in music up to this point. For some, it is the only instrument they will ever play.

Rondo!

After introducing rondo form to my 4th graders on Tuesday, on Wednesday one of my students showed up wearing this! How cool is that?!?!

Valentine's Day Fun!

I am a little behind this month, but here is my massive post of all of the fun Valentine's Day activities we did last month. It was a little crazy because I also had my 1st and 2nd grade musical and a music contest in February, but we did manage to get some Valentine-themed lessons covered.

"A Song for My Sweetart"
This is a lesson idea from the book "Kids Can Compose". I always have one of those giant bags of mixed candy on hand for Bingo prizes and such, and luckily the last bag I bought was FULL of Sweetart candies. The Sweetarts came in packets similar to Smarties, so it was easy to distribute them to each of my groups. Everyone simply got one packet to share.

The 4th graders are just starting the treble clef, so we used this lesson simply to practice the space notes. I would call out a note and they had to put their Sweetart candy on the correct space. I wanted them to also practice putting notes on the staff from left to right so that when we start reading music for recorders they are used to that. I found that several of the kids were just squishing them together in one spot or stacking them vertically, so I had them divide their staff into 4 sections. Then I would say, "notate an A in box 1, a C in box 2", etc. This made things much easier for everyone. After a while, I let them partner up and quiz their partners. The students who already knew the note names were partnered together and allowed to do lines and spaces or use ledger lines.

In 5th grade, each student was partnered up and given a glockenspiel and a cup of Sweetarts. They then had to compose a 4-8 note melody and play it on their instrument. Each group had to perform their melody for me before they could eat their candy.

Giant Beat Strips
This is an idea I got off of Pinterest from www.abbottmusic.blogspot.com . Kindergarten just learned about ta and ti-ti, but we were still reviewing how a ta is one sound and a ti-ti is two. To reinforce this concept and tie in Valentine's Day a little bit, I used giant beat strips with large hearts on them and split the class into 4 groups. Everyone took their shoes off and put them in the middle of the room (this part can get a bit wild!). I then clapped a rhythm pattern and they had to race to made the rhythm on the hearts. A ta was notated with one shoe and a ti-ti with two. It took a while for some of the kids to catch on, but once they did, we were able to cruise through the entire class. Although it was just a tad crazy (and stinky!), it was a LOT of fun!

Racing Heart Rhythm Race (or something catchy like that-I couldn't think of  a good name!!)
Last year I cut out a bunch of paper hearts with the intent of using them for a lesson and never did. So this year, I took those hearts and wrote a whole bunch of 4-beat rhythm patterns on them. I designed this to be used with 3rd-5th grade, so the rhythms contained mostly 16th note rhythms (which 3rd grade is working on now) and dotted quarter note rhythms (which 5th grade is working on). There were 2 of each rhythm. I scattered the hearts all over my floor and split the class into 4 teams. I would call out a rhythm and one person from each team had to race to find the correct heart. Since there were 2 of each, two teams could score or one team could get 2 points. The first team to 6 points won. (Side note, I would recommend laminating the hearts. The students tend to get a bit grabby when they get over-excited!). This was a great game and you could make it even harder by only clapping the rhythms and not saying them out loud. I often did that as a tie breaker or for extra points.

 

 

Valentine Post Office

I posted about this game last year. It is a game I downloaded from Teachers Pay Teachers and it works great with K and 1st. I grouped my classes into groups of 2 and gave them each a Valentine bag with rhythm cards inside. They take out the cards and I clap or play a rhythm and they have to find it and put it in their bags.

Animals Galore

Each year after studying, "The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra", by Benjamin Britten, I take the 4th graders to see a live orchestra perform. We are fortunate enough to have a symphony nearby that puts on a free children's performance every January. This year, the performance was titled "Animals Galore". Selections included "The Firebird" by Stravinsky, "Spring" by Vivaldi, a piece featuring a high school violinist, the theme from "Jurassic Park", and "The Carnival of the Animals" by Camille Saint-Saëns.

This is one of the most memorable experiences my students and I have each year. I love watching the reactions the children have when they see a double bass for the first time or when they giggle at the crazy conductor bouncing around on his podium. Some of them get so excited after a piece they want to stand up and cheer (but we've talked about concert etiquette, so they don't!).  For most of my students, this is the only experience they will ever have with a live fine-arts performance of any kind.

All of the excited 4th graders ready for the show to begin!

The orchestra tuning before the concert