Symbol Stations

The 5th and 6th graders each just completed their unit on music symbols. I have a great rug that has 24 different music symbols on it, and I created 5 stations for the students to rotate through learning the names and definitions of each symbol. I added Symbol Stack Attack this year. Using those small Dixie cups you can buy at the grocery store, I put a symbol on the bottom of each cup. Students must correctly name the symbol before they can use it in their stack. I let them work together to create one giant tower, or individually to see who can make the biggest tower. Here are some pictures of the students working on their stations.
(I posted more details about the stations last year if you want to look back and find out more info.)

 

Music Symbol Bingo

Symbol Sorry

Cup Stack Attack

Bingo

Symbol Race

Swat the Symbol

Happy 200th Birthday to the Star Spangled Banner!

Every year, the 4th graders spend the month of September studying the Star Spangled Banner. We rotate through 10 stations, learning about the history of the poem, Francis Scott Key, and the meaning of the lyrics (you can buy the station packet from www.musicbulletinboards.net). When they are finished, they take a test on the station information and also have a singing test. Normally my students aren't excited about singing tests, but this one is different for some reason. Parents tell me about their kids singing it at home, I hear it in the hallways, and they even ask me if they can sing it for me in class!

This year, I surprised the 4th graders by arranging for them to sing the anthem at a home volleyball game after their test (which also happened to be the same week as the anthem's 200th birthday AND we sang on 9/11!). It was awesome! However, I forgot to bring my camera to take a picture. :( 

As I said earlier, this year was the 200th anniversary of the Star Spangled Banner, so I spent a day with all of my classes discussing the history of it and doing different activities. For one activity, I put the students in groups with song strips containing the lyrics of the song that they had to put in order. Once they finished, each group had to sing the anthem for me. Other groups watched and listened to different versions of the Star Spangled Banner being performed and compared and contrasted them. Anthem was also my Word of the Week.

As you can tell, we were very busy in September! It's so fun to go to volleyball games and football games and catch one of my students singing along with the anthem.

Students completing the Star Spangled Banner song strips activity

Welcome Back!!

Another year has started! I can't believe this is going to be my 5th year of teaching! I know how much I love looking at pictures of other people's classrooms, so I thought I'd post some pictures of my room this year.



It's hard to see, but my "Welcome" sign is made out of CD's (I get tons of free ones in the  mail with music samples on them). And of course, I had to pay tribute to my wonderful college, NDSU! Go Bison!

Our school is really focusing on Common Core and creating "I Can" statements. My goal this year is to post my "I Can" statements for each class at the beginning of the day/week.

Our school finally got air conditioning this summer (yay!) and while they were replacing the old heaters, they also painted one wall in every classroom. As you can see, I got orange. It really brightens up the room. Below my bulletin board you can see my instrument and manipulative storage shelves. I'm trying to get everything labeled.

Another new thing I've been wanting to try is a word wall. My plan is to have one music term each week that I teach every class. Then, we'll try to use it throughout the week. Any new vocab words we learn in class will also go up there.

Merry Christmas to me!! I finally got up the nerve to ask my school to purchase flipForms for my room and I got them! I have only used them a little bit, but I think I'm going to LOVE having them instead of having kids sit in chairs and on the floor.




 Well, that's all for now! Hope everyone has a great year!!

Classroom Rules

Welcome to a new school year! Due to some renovations being done at my school (we finally have AC!!!), we are all a little late getting into our classrooms to decorate this year. I just quickly wanted to post a copy of my classroom rules for those of you who may be interested. (I attached the last slide to give credit to the TPT user that created the slide backgrounds.) More back to school updates to come!