Jedi Music

Children's Literature for Music Ed: "We're Going on a Lion Hunt"

2012-03-02T08:00:00.001-05:00

Here is another variation on "We're Going on a Bear Hunt"; this time we are hunting lions! "We're Going on a Lion Hunt" by David Axtell is a great book for students to invent their own creative movements to reflect the story.

"In this charming rendition of a well-known children's chant, two sisters are looking not for a bear but for a lion- a lion that lives on the African savanna, where the girls go through swishy swashy long grass, a splishy slpashy lake, and a Big Dark Cave. When they finally meet their lion, they have to run, run, run through it all again to get back home."

Introduce the book and instruct students that they are to echo you on each sentence of the story.

Students will incorporate creative movements in each part of the story that describe actions, such as "swish-swash" (stepping through long grass), "splish-splash" (walking through a lake), "squish-squash" (wading through a swamp) and "tiptoe-tiptoe" (traveling through the lion's cave).

There can be one picture of a lion that you can hide somewhere in the room to show the students as you read that part of the story. Here is a simple lion image to use:

For a great extension activity: Give each of the students their own copy of the lion picture to color at home (or during indoor recess period, if you are in a climate where the weather is inclement right now!) and have them return the colored lions to you to include on a "No LION...We Love Music!" bulletin board.

"The Music Man" Marian the Librarian

2012-02-01T21:18:00.001-05:00

"The Music Man" Iowa Stubborn

2012-02-01T21:15:00.000-05:00

"The Music Man" Ya Got Trouble

2012-02-01T21:12:00.002-05:00

"The Music Man" 76 Trombones

2012-02-01T21:05:00.002-05:00

What??!!

2012-01-30T08:00:00.002-05:00

postsecret.com

This postcard appeared last week (1/22/2012) on postsecret.com, and my reaction to it is the same as any other time I hear of any kind of innappropriate relationships between students and teachers. WHAT WERE THEY (THE ADULTS) THINKING!!!!????

A simple google search will turn up loads of evidence of both male and female teachers who carried on sexual relationships with their current students. If these teachers cannot find a date in any of the usual ways available and legal in 2012, and choose to resort to their own students as a pool of available candidates for a date, could they do all of us a favor and PLEASE FIND A NEW PROFESSION?

"The Music Man" barbershop quartet: "Lida Rose"

2012-01-27T20:55:00.001-05:00

"The Music Man" barbershop quartet: "It's You"

2012-01-27T20:51:00.000-05:00

"Ice Cream/Sincere" barbershop quartet from "The Music Man"

2012-01-27T20:33:00.002-05:00

Would Abby Lee Make It As a Public School Teacher?

2012-01-25T22:00:00.001-05:00

I've been hearing about "Dance Moms" for months now, and finally caught an episode last night. For those who haven't heard, Abby Lee Miller is a dance teacher and her drama-filled studio* is the subject of the Lifetime network series "Dance Moms". As a teacher, I loathe the teaching methods Abby uses with her students; in the episode I saw last night she taught mainly by screaming directions and berating/belittling her students. She doesn't have any better behavior reserved for the moms who pay tuition for their daughters to learn from her; she treats them just as poorly as the girls. (Not that the behavior of the moms is exemplary...)

As much as teachers are given a bad image in the media and beyond, I can't help but wonder how Ms. Miller would be received as a public school teacher. Personally, I have to think that the same parents who tolerate such atrocious teaching methods while paying dance school tuition (not to mention the expense of the competitions!) would probably be the same parents who would be demanding such a teacher be removed immediately from their child's school classroom. With all of the awareness on bullying, can you not spot that the bully is the teacher in this dance school?

Dance education is important to me; my five-year-old is in her second year of dance, and her three-year-old sister can't wait to begin dancing school. However, my daughter attends a school where students are gently and kindly guided in their instruction, and if they were ever placed in a class with a teacher such as Abby, we IMMEDIATELY would find a new dance school. Why do you think that Abby Lee's behavior is acceptable in the world of dance education? How long would she last as a public school teacher? (I'm thinking in terms of days, if not hours...in these days of cyber-baiting, she could be on youtube by 10:00am and suspended by lunch!)

* I do realize that most of the "drama" is probably generated for the benefit of the TV production. Still, I don't imagine that Abby's teaching style is very different when the cameras aren't rolling.

Make Your Own: "Ribbon Wands"

2012-01-21T17:26:00.001-05:00

There are terrific products out there for teaching music...but who can afford them all? Sometimes I devise ways to make my own for much less money.

Some time ago I bought rainbow ribbon wands at musicinmotion.com. My students and I love using them for performances, showing phrases in music, creative movement, and many other activities. But $26.00 (plus shipping) for only 6 makes the cost too prohibitive to have enough wands to involve an entire class of students in an activity.

Luckily, a student who was into fishing told me that the swiveling hook holding each ribbon to the wand looked just like a snap swivel hook he used for fishing. Once I found these at a local store (very inexpensive!), the rest of the items I needed to assemble these were very easy to find!

Luckily, I have a woodworker father who not only had the dowel rods available, but he also cut them to the proper lengths (9 inches) needed for each wand. He attached a hook to the end of each dowel securely with glue, and I then attached the snap swivel hook and tied a 12 foot ribbon (tie in the center so that the total length of the hanging ribbon is 6 foot) onto each snap swivel hook. For younger students (preschool through third grade), use a smaller length of ribbon, so they don't get tangled up!

Audition Help (always wanted!)

2012-01-18T08:00:00.001-05:00

Back on January 1, I shared that an important lesson I've learned is to never be afraid to ask for (and in that particular case, pay for) help. As this past week I auditioned my elementary chorus students for solo singing and speaking parts in our musical revue, "The Lion King", I realized that I've been asking for help for years when it comes to our elementary school auditions.

Collaborating with my colleagues is something that I really enjoy, and when I started producing musicals at the elementary level, I valued their opinions and input when casting the students. So, I sent out an email asking for help to all staff at both of my buildings, and together with my volunteers, we listen to each student sing, read, and then worked on the cast list together. Often, the other teachers on the audition team serve as extra eyes and ears and may catch something that I missed.

Not every music director likes to work in this way, but I appreciate the extra insight that my fellow teachers can provide. For example, before entrusting a large role to a student, I consult their classroom teacher on how reliable they are in the classroom. This is often a valuable indicator of how well the student will memorize lines and songs.

Happy Birthday, Dr. King!

2012-01-16T08:00:00.001-05:00

photo credit: time.com

Did you know that singer Stevie Wonder was instrumental in making Martin Luther King's birthday a national holiday? Stevie's "Happy Birthday" song is really referring to MLK!

This is worth sharing with your students, and for the younger crew, here are simple songs to learn some facts about Martin Luther King, Jr.

Introducing...This Year's Chorus Shirt!

2012-01-13T08:00:00.001-05:00

In "Spotlight on Music: Ways to Promote Your Music Program", I mentioned t-shirts as a great way to promote your music program. While it is an extra effort in a busy teacher's schedule to collect money and orders for t-shirts, I feel it is well worth the effort. The students love the colorful shirts they chose this year and wear them often.

Here is the process I use to obtain t-shirts for the chorus:

Contact the t-shirt business and ask them to develop three samples of designs for the students to choose from.
The students vote on their favorite shirt design and also vote on a color. (This year multi-color tie dye won the vote!)
Distribute order forms listing choice of sizes and cost of the shirt, and also listing a deadline for the return of the order forms and money.
Collect order forms and money.
When orders are complete, and money is collected, submit order and payment to the t-shirt business.
When shirts arrive, distribute to the excited students!
Enjoy spotting our chorus t-shirts in class, in the halls of the school, and out in the community...and, of course, don't forget wearing them for performances!

Be ready for these issues:

Many students will miss the deadline, lose their order forms and need multiple copies of the order form, and will need many reminders about turning in their order forms and money.
Learn the return/remake policy of the t-shirt business, in case of shirts not fitting properly, or if students order the wrong size.

Some student's families may be in financial crisis and cannot afford the cost of the shirt.
Ask your parent-teacher group if they will assist in covering the cost of the t-shirt for students in need. If they cannot do this, ask permission of your principal to have a small easy fund raiser, such as a jean day for the staff to raise money to cover these shirts.

Marvelous Music Makers: "Jim Gill Sings The Sneezing Song and Other Contagious Tunes"

2012-01-11T19:00:00.000-05:00

A CD that has been enjoyed by my students is "Jim Gill Sings The Sneezing Song and Other Contagious Tunes". I love that many of the songs focus on following directions (a vital skill!) and are still very fun. Many musical skills and objectives for young students and special needs students are addressed in this CD as well.

Here are some of our favorite songs from this collection:

The Sneezing Song incorporates the vocal exploration of "sneezing" and the listening skills to "sneeze" at the right places in the song.
Hands Are For Clapping is great practice for keeping a steady beat by clapping, snapping, slapping knees and even brushing teeth!

I Took A Bath In A Washing Machine is great for making rhythm patterns of clapping, patting, and stomping and including the creative movement of the "washing machine".

Alabama, Mississippi is a "get up and dance" song in my classes. It has great practice for steady beat clapping, differentiating dynamics, and shaking out some excess energy in my students!

Poison Ivy is another following directions reinforcer. This time students need to scratch wherever the poison ivy strikes: knees, arms, etc.

The Hi Dee Ho Man is a terrific song to practice echoing and steady beat.

Silly Dance Contest is a lot like playing "Freeze Dance", but Jim gives the students a little more direction, such as dancing fast, dancing slow, hopping up and down, and shrinking down low to the ground.

Step Back Sally is one that I use for my life skills student's practice in walking backwards to the beat of the music. Simple, but they really enjoy it!

Simone's Song (The Parrot Song) is a natural for practicing echoing, and my students make up their own motions to go with the parrot's phrases.

Spaghetti Legs is another fun song for creative movement, this time we pretend that our bodies, part by part, are turned to spaghetti. Wiggly!

The Banana Song is fun because of the fast tempo and repetition of "banana, banana, banana". We play maracas or shakers for this one.

Leaky Umbrella is great for direction following and keeping the beat of the song on all of the body parts mentioned.

May There Always Be Sunshine is one of my "winding down" songs for the end of class. I like to utilize scarves or ribbons to accentuate the creative movements of the students for this song.

Vocal Timbre Practice with the Three Bears

2012-01-09T08:00:00.003-05:00

My kindergarten language support students love a good snuggle with a stuffed animal, as witnessed in a recent music class. We had three visitors: Papa, Mama, and Baby Bear, right out of the story "Goldilocks and the Three Bears". Using stuffed animals in the lesson helped some of my shy students gain more courage to try out their low, medium, and high voices.

A special purchase of three stuffed bears was not necessary. As most moms will attest, stuffed animals seem to mysteriously MULTIPLY in a home with children. The kids seem to receive them as gifts, win them at church picnics, and before you know it, you have a house overrun with stuffed critters! For the bears used for this lesson, I just searched through the collection and found three of different sizes, and off to school they went. If you don't have children of your own, try asking a mom you know...she'll probably be glad to donate some bears for you to use!

Start this lesson on different vocal timbres by discussing each stuffed bear and their unique vocal timbre. Of course, big Papa bear has the low voice, medium-sized Mama has a middle-range voice, and little Baby Bear has the high squeaky voice. We try out each of the voices as I introduce the Bears to the class.

Next, I give each of the three bears to three students to hold while I begin reading the story. There are many versions of this well-known story. Three books pictured here are authored by Caralyn Buehner, Jan Brett, and James Marshall. Each time the bears say their phrases ("Who's been sitting in my chair?", "Who's been eating my porridge?", etc), I give the child who is holding the bear a chance to speak in each bear's vocal timbre. After speaking in their low, medium, and high voices, the students pass their bear on to another student to have a turn.

For an extension activity, students can color the three bears (Squidoo.com has a terrific selection of different Goldilocks and the Three Bears coloring pages) and label them with the words low, medium, and high. If your students have difficulty with printing, you can pre-print their pages with these labels. When they are finished, make them a part of a student-created bulletin board!

Squidoo.com

References for "The Music Man"

2012-01-06T08:00:00.001-05:00

Our all-school musical this year is the old favorite, "The Music Man". Like the majority of musicals available and acceptable for performance by school groups, the show is set in the past. It is filled with references to things unknown to the high school student of today, and also many references were unknown to me as well.
Did you know that a "noggin" is another name for a cup? Is it good or bad for a man to be referred to as a "masher"?
I set out to collect information on the references by looking for each in an online dictionary, and then copying and pasting definitions for a information sheet to post at rehearsals. Luckily, after filling two pages tediously in this way, I found "De-FUN-itions for The Music Man"!!! The site even has the references divided into each act and scene...what a terrific tool!

Spaghetti Conducting

2012-01-04T08:00:00.001-05:00

As an elementary music student, and truthfully all the way up to about 10th grade, I felt that conducting patterns were pretty mysterious. No music teacher covered learning or practicing conducting patterns, and when I played flute in elementary and junior high school band, I always wondered what the director was waving around up there.

In my music classes, I introduce conducting patterns for 2/4, 3/4, and 4/4 time signatures beginning in fourth grade and continuing review until sixth grade. Students this age like taking the part of the leader of a group, and we practice conducting as a class to recorded music for each time signature.

To add to the fun of conducting, I give the students their own conducting "batons" made of

...spaghetti!

Why spaghetti? Here are some benefits:

The breakable nature of spaghetti makes the students pay extra careful attention to their movements and reminds them not to be haphazard. I challenge the students to be "spaghetti survivors" and to have their entire length of spaghetti intact by the end of the activity.
Cheap materials!! There are probably thousands of spaghetti strands in a package... I've been using the same package for years.
The spaghetti helps the students to focus on the beat of the music, more than just conducting with their hands.

Have special needs students with fine motor difficulties? No problem, just try...

The pretzel rods are much tastier to eat when the activity is over...although there is always a handful of students who insist on eating their raw spaghetti!

If you are an instrumental teacher, clue your students in on exactly what you are doing when you conduct. When they get comfortable, allow a deserving student to be your "guest conductor" for a rehearsal, or maybe just for a certain piece of music.

Check out startachoir or this pdf file, for more information on conducting patterns.

Happy New Year! (Resolutions included)

2012-01-01T20:52:00.001-05:00

If you know me, you know that every time we have a holiday or summer break from school, that usually means that some home improvement project is being done. This Christmas vacation has been no different...one bedroom, one bathroom and my kitchen all were painted this past week, and I couldn't be happier with the results!! Because of the painting, we were able to switch the boy's and the girls' rooms, which has been a goal for a while.

One thing that was different about the latest project was that I hired some help, on the recommendation of a colleague, and it made everything go so much smoother. As mom to three children, it is impossible to get a job done without many (MANY) disruptions. By turning the jobs over to a painter, he could devote the uninterrupted time to the work, and I could assist him with whatever was needed. It really was fantastic to get the jobs done with much less frustration than usual, and I admire the results that were done in record (for me!) time; I know that it was money well spent.

Lesson learned: Never be afraid to ask for (and/or pay for) help.

And now...on with the obligatory resolutions (errrr, I mean habits):

1. Develop new systems that work to stay more organized at both home and school. Especially when I was cleaning out the nooks and crannies of the children's bedrooms this past week, the need for more effective organization in my home is apparent as a screaming need at this point. Our days are so busy that we all as a family are constantly shoving things aside to deal with later, and it all piles up. We need to address this daily instead of allowing it to become a problem of such proportions that we need an entire free week to deal with it all.

On the school front, have you seen my desk lately?? Yeah, me either. Time to put this plan into action on the first day back, and then don't deviate from the plan! Organization systems are needed badly at work as well. Habits need to change, and this year will be our time to develop some better organizational habits.

2. Limit online time. This resolution is really in support of the first one. As one of my bad habits I'd like to eliminate, I waste waaaaaaay too much time online (Book of the Face? I need to quit you!) Of course, I'm going to be spending time online, but in a much more productive way. I'm setting a timer, and I'm sticking to it. Time saved is going to be used for the organizational projects that desperately need attention (see item 1).

Reading the fantastic outlook of Leo Babauta at zenhabits, zenfamilyhabits, and mnmlist gives me a lot inspiration, and now it is time to put it all into action! I'll be updating on each first of the month with my progress on my new habits.

Merry Christmas!

2011-12-25T08:00:00.002-05:00

May you have the Merriest Christmas enjoying your loved ones!

Children's Literature for Music Ed: "Christmas Mice!"

2011-12-23T08:00:00.003-05:00

Just as "Halloween Mice!" was a great book for a creative movement activity, so is the equally fun "Christmas Mice!" also by Bethany Roberts and illustrated by Doug Cushman.

"The holiday mice are back! It’s Christmas time and the four cheerful mice merrily hang stockings, string popcorn, wrap presents, and sing carols. The little mice are so caught up in their joyful preparations that they almost forget to look out for their old enemy, the cat. Happily, their Christmas spirit is so infectious that even the cat is not immune. Simple, lively verse and colorful, action-filled illustrations convey the all anticipation and goodwill that come with the Yuletide season in this delightful read-aloud." -from amazon.com

Here are my ideas for using this book in music class:

Be sure that your students have plenty of room to move with this book, and that you review your rules for traveling safely in space around the room.

Be sure that your special needs students have support from paraprofessionals to participate in the story movements, if necessary.

Instruct the students that they are going to pretend to be the mice in the story. They will move like mice as you read the story.

Here are some of the movements they will pretend to do in the story:

pound (as in pound a nail to hold a Christmas wreath)
wrap presents
decorate the tree
string popcorn
mop the floor (after baking cookies)
peeking at gifts
sing (choose a well-konwn carol to sing when the mice go caroling in the book)
ring bells (these can be real, if you wish)
spotting Santa up in the sky
eating cheese
unwrapping a gift

Songs You Already Know: "In the Stable"

2011-12-21T08:00:00.002-05:00

calvarywilliamsport.com/christian_coloring_pages.html

My son (currently age 8), when he was in preschool, learned this cute song for a Christmas program. It was such a favorite that he taught it to me, and we still enjoy singing it around the house during the Christmas season. I have not been able to find the resource where this cute song can be found.

Here are coloring pages to go with each verse; it would be a great idea to print the words of each verse along with the coloring page picture. For your students who love to color (My five year old daughter is one of those!) they will be delighted to have a picture to color while learning the song. For those students who do not enjoy coloring (such as my son!), they will still have a good visual representation of each verse to help them learn the words.

All around the sky that night,

The angel light was beaming.
Every shepherd said to himself
"Hey, I must be dreaming!"

The Angel said,

"Do not be afraid, you are not in any danger
Jesus Christ the Savior's been born;
Go see him in the manger."
Every shepherd hurried to town

As fast as they were able
They found God's Son asleep on the hay
Where? In the stable!

Song You Already Know: "Pop Goes the Weasel"

All around the sky that night,
The angel light was beaming.
Every shepherd said to himself
"Hey, I must be dreaming!"

sermons4kids.com

The Angel said,
"Do not be afraid, you are not in any danger
Jesus Christ the Savior's been born;
Go see him in the manger."

http://www.kids-fun-and-games.com/

Every shepherd hurried to town
As fast as they were able
They found God's Son asleep on the hay
Where? In the stable!

http://www.dailycoloringpages.com/

More Christmas Music Books

2011-12-19T08:00:00.003-05:00

Included in my Caroling post were two books I use as resources for Christmas music: The Usbourne Book of Christmas Carols and Wee Sing for Christmas. In addition to these two books, here are three more beautiful and useful books for Christmas carols from my collection. I've had these for so long that they are really inexpensive to buy used at this point, and you know the music is going to be back in style each December!

Sing Noel by Jane Yolen, with musical arrangements by Adam Stemple and illustrations by Nancy Sippel Carpenter is a book filled with Christmas music both familiar and unfamiliar. The book contains music scored for piano with guitar chords, a little background information about each song, and stunningly beautiful artwork on each page.

Songs included:

1. Hark! the Herald Angels Sing
2. Jingle Bells
3. Masters in This Hall
4. The Friendly Beasts
5. Angels We Have Heard on High
6. Away in a Manger
7. The Boar's Head Carol
8. Born is Jesus, the Infant King
9. Pat-a-Pan
10. Christmas is Coming
11. O Come, O Come, Emmanuel
12. Deck the Halls
13. Carol of the Bells
14. Carol of the Birds
15. It Came Upon a Midnight Clear
16. O Christmas Tree
17. O Little Town of Bethlehem
18. Ding, Dong! Merrily on High
19. The First Noel
20. Here We Come A-Wassailing
21. God Rest You Merry, Gentlemen
22. We Wish You a Merry Christmas
23. Angels from the Realms of Glory
24. The Seven Joys of Mary
25. The Coventry Carol (Lully, Lullay)
26. Good King Wenceslas
27. Joy to the World
28. O Come, All Ye Faithful
29. Lo, How a Rose E'er Blooming
30. The Cherry Tree Carol
31. I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day
32. We Three Kings of Orient Are
33. Bring a Torch, Jeannette Isabella
34. Rise Up, Shepherd and Follow
35. Silent Night

Sacred Songs of Christmas: A Family Treasury with illustrations by Andrea Eberbach, Paine Proffitt, and Nicole Wong is a collection of not only religious Christmas music, but also Scripture readings, poems, recipes, reflections, and stories, accompanied by beautful artwork. A CD of all of the 19 songs is also included in this book.

Songs included:

The Angel Gabriel
Angels We Have heard on high
From Heaven Above to Earth I Come
Welcome to Earth, O Noble Guest
O little Town of Bethlehem
Oh, Come, Little Children
Oh, Come, All ye Faithful
He Whom Shepherds Once Came Praising
Away in a Manger
In a Little Stable
Infant Holy, Infant Lowly
Now Sings We, Now Rejoice
Silent Night, Holy Night
Once in Royal David's City
Little Children, Can You Tell?
Joy to the World
As with Gladness Men of Old
What Child is This?
Songs of Thankfulness and Praise

Christmas Carols, a board book illustrated by Holly Russell is a wonderful Christmas resource for the youngest children.

The artwork throughout is pictures of sewn felt Christmas decorations, and the sturdy board book pages are textured so that you can feel each "stitch". It is a perfect book to enjoy with your own children while listening to the included CD and singing along together...it could become a treasured tradition in your home! It would also be very suitable for use in a preschool or first grade classroom or religious education program.

The only drawback to this book is that there is no music notation included if you want to play the music on piano or other instrument. Notation for most of the songs (but not all) is easy to find in the other resources I've listed.

Songs included:

Away in a Manger
Silent Night
We Wish You a Merry Christmas
Deck the Halls
Jingle Bells
Good King Wenceslas
Hark! The Herald Angels Sing
O Little Town of Bethlehem
The Holly and the Ivy
I Saw Three Ships
Once in Royal David's City
The First Noel
O Christmas Tree
We Three Kings of Orient Are
In the Bleak Midwinter

Caroling (outside of the school setting)

2011-12-16T08:00:00.006-05:00

Sometimes, when you are a music teacher, you are asked to help out with musical tasks in other venues. Sunday Schools, Cub Scouts, Boy Scouts, Brownies, Girl Scouts, and church youth groups are some organizations that you may be part of, and they also enjoy Christmas caroling at this time of year!

In the public school setting, we focus on the most secular of Christmas tunes for caroling. On the other hand, caroling with groups outside of the school setting gives us a chance to broaden the repetoire of music to include the beautiful sacred songs of the season. If you are caroling to residents of nursing homes or elderly neighbors, the sacred songs are the ones that they enjoy the most. I love to see when the people we are visiting sing right along with us!

Lots of songs for caroling come from my handy binder of old stuff, odds and ends, and left-behinds. Here are another couple of handy books for Christmas music:

When preparing for Christmas caroling, I use the Usbourne Book of Christmas Carols.

I use the Wee Sing for Christmas Book for younger kids.

And because learning happens everywhere, read up on some facts you may not know about our favorite Christmas songs so you can share with your singing groups. Here we come a-caroling! ...and afterward, don't forget the hot chocolate!

Hot, hot, hot...Hot Chocolate!

2011-12-14T08:00:00.005-05:00

On Monday, I wrote about our caroling plans for school...and what Christmas caroling experience is complete without the hot chocolate? My students bring the cookies, but I provide hot chocolate, with the help of many crock pots!

Both of these recipes are from the Fix-It and Forget-It Big Cookbook by Phyllis Pellman Good. I've adapted them to fit into a busy teacher's schedule.

Be sure that any students who are medically restricted from drinking hot chocolate have an alternative. Also, make sure that it is not "too" hot for safety reasons.

This is what I've done before:

Caroler's Hot Chocolate

10 cups milk
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup cocoa
1/2 tsp salt
2 cups hot water

Night before:

Mix together sugar, salt, and cocoa in pan. Add hot water. Stir and boil 3 minutes, stirring often.

Take off the heat, add milk, and I put into gallon jugs to take to school.

That morning:

Put into crock pots, heat until ready.

Based on reviews from the students in years past, I think that this is a little strong, so it could be watered down some. The recipe says that this makes 12-14 1-cup servings, but in the Styrofoam cups I usually use, it's more like a 1/2 cup serving.

Here's a new recipe that I'm considering trying this year, to save myself the cost of all that milk...

Hot Chocolate
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 cups boiling water
3 1/2 cups nonfat dry milk powder
6 cups water
1 tsp. vanilla

Night Before:

1. Combine sugar and cocoa powder in slow cooker. Add 2 cups boiling water. Stir well to dissolve.

2. Add dry milk powder, 6 cups water, and vanilla. Stir well to dissolve. Refrigerate it for the night.

That morning:

3. Cook on high 1-1.5 hours.

4. Haha, next it says to "Before serving, beat with rotary beater to make frothy". I love my students, but sorry, this is NOT Starbucks...

Caroling (in the school setting)

2011-12-12T18:00:00.003-05:00

The Christmas season is in full swing, and it's no longer "too early" to be hearing the old familiar Christmas tunes everywhere!

One of my "fun activities" for my chorus students is caroling. Many schools may not have the budget available for busing to go caroling at a nursing home, but that doesn't have to keep you from spreading holiday cheer through caroling right in your school.

On the last day of school before the holiday vacation, (Don't you love that day?!) I ask the students to come to school early so that we are in place outside ready to sing when the buses are dropping students off at our school for the morning. Seeing the kids faces light up as they hear familiar carols sung to them as they get off the bus is really priceless. Our caroling gets the whole day off to a festive start.

Carolling doesn't take up a lot of rehearsal time either. I print out the songs in booklets for the students, and we sing familiar favorites that everyone knows, such as "Twelve Days of Christmas", "Rudolph", "Jingle Bells", "We Wish You a Merry Christmas", etc. We sing through them once or twice before the caroling day, and then we are good to go. Caroling is a time when we focus on the fun of singing.

After the last bus has arrived, we head back into the school for cookies and hot chocolate! I provide the hot chocolate, and the students bring cookies to share. It's a great way to kick off that final day before the long-awaited holiday vacation!

Stretching My Boundaries

2011-12-09T08:00:00.000-05:00

Always, I've considered myself an elementary teacher, and never desired to expand my teaching horizons further than sixth grade. Especially in the music teaching realm, I like that I get to be the fun special class, and that I don't have overwhelming pressure to have the perfect concert. Enjoying the process of making music is more important to me than picking and choosing who the best musicians are at this age. My goal is to allow everyone to enjoy music and expand their own musical knowledge.

However, at the end of the summer, when I was offered a supplemental activity that would include grades 7-12, I was excited at the new prospect. Soon, my days are going to get even busier than usual, because I am the new vocal director for our high school musical! As someone who grew up performing in musical theater, (actually I would love to still be doing community theater if I wasn't so busy with teaching and family) this was an offer and opportunity that would have been very difficult to pass by.

It will be a transition for me...I'll have to collaborate on decisions that will put some students in the musical, and leave some students out. Vividly, I can remember the heart-pounding look at a freshly-posted casting sheet, searching desperately for my name. Sometimes it was there, and some other times it wasn't, so I've been on both sides of the in/out fence. It's going to be strange being one helping to make the decisions.

I'm glad that my main job is in the elementary level, where every student can continue to be included in our musical groups. On the other hand, I'm grateful for the opportunity to experience a little of the world of secondary teaching and also incorporating one of the loves of my life: musical theater!

The Journey to the Concert Destination

2011-12-07T08:00:00.001-05:00

Focus on the journey, not the destination.

Joy is found not in finishing an activity, but in doing it.

-Greg Anderson

It is better to travel well than to arrive.

-Buddha

To a music educator at this time of year, these quotes take on a new meaning in the context of CONCERT SEASON!! Many music teachers are either expected to, or contractually obligated to produce both a holiday concert and spring concert. For many the past months have been the "journey" portion of the music process; the practicing done alone, in small groups, and in large group situations. The "destination" portion of the music process begins now in the holiday season, with the holiday concert.

Some music educators are totally wrapped up in the final product...that the sound (and look) of their group be as close to perfect as possible. Some teachers are more focused on the rehearsal process, figuring that if the practice was done correctly, the concert will follow naturally. As with most of my perspectives on music education, I take a balanced approach. Here are my thoughts on concert season.

1. Practice as much as possible. I schedule my rehearsals on days that we rarely have a vacation day (Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays). In my climate, as we move into the winter season, that gets a little difficult because we will have snow days and snow delays, both of which cancel chorus rehearsals.

2. Make rehearsals fun...incorporate movements, fun warm-ups, and extra activities.

3. Practice a lot of different music in a rehearsal. Attention spans in elementary school are short. We've been rehearsing our spring concert music right along with our holiday concert music since our very first rehearsal, just so I can change it up and not burn them out with the same few songs.

4. In a concert situation, mistakes will happen. Prepare the kids for this fact so that they will not be taken by surprise and laugh or point at a peer. Remind them that we must be actors/actresses and pretend that a mistake never happened, and just carry on as usual. If we do not make a big deal out of small mistakes, they are soon forgotten.

5. Some audiences are tougher than others. We generally perform for two groups: the student body and faculty of our school, and parents/grandparents/other family. Performing for peers is always more difficult than performing for your family, because the family loves you no matter what happens! My advice for both audiences is the same: "Have fun, and they will have fun listening and watching you." Of course, my students need to be reminded about what concert-appropriate fun looks like/sounds like, but most of the time this helps them to loosen up and enjoy the experience more.

6. Take extra time and care to be sure that your special needs students know what to expect. A concert situation can be an overwhelming experience for some students on the autism spectrum, as well as other special need students you may include in your group. Walk and talk your student through the process several times so they are sure of what to expect. Place them in close proximity to you as you are directing, if possible. Plan ahead with a fellow staff member in the audience an "escape plan" for the student if the concert becomes becomes too much for them to handle.

Evaluation systems discourage student teachers??

2011-12-05T08:00:00.001-05:00

Sigh. Here's one more thing that makes a career in teaching unappealing...some states adopting tough teacher evaluation systems as law are actually discouraging schools from allowing student teachers to get their experience.

Of course teachers need to be evaluated, but so many states' lawmakers are pushing evaluation systems through quickly without thought to how effective they will really be. Is the system effective if it relies on student test scores? Teachers can only control what goes on in their classroom during school hours...home life makes a huge difference in the success of the student. And what about us in the special subject areas? We do not administer standardized tests in our subject area, and in my district, my students do not receive a grade for music. How does that translate into a teacher evaluation?

Teacher evaluation systems should not discourage districts from allowing student teachers to teach in the schools. My principals have always welcomed the extra help in the classrooms, and everyone sees student teaching as a positive asset to our schools. We should be using the evaluation system as a tool to identify the most effective teachers, who should be the ones mentoring the student teachers.

The Responsive Classroom

2011-12-04T22:48:00.001-05:00

This past week's mentoring meeting focused on The Responsive Classroom. While the focus is on use in the classroom teaching realm, I find so many elements that can be reinforced or adopted into the music class every time I learn more about Responsive Classroom. So much of the material is very applicable to music education.

"Responsive Classroom is a widely used, research-backed approach to elementary education that increases academic achievement, decreases problem behaviors, improves social skills, and leads to more high-quality instruction."

Here are the seven basic tenets of Responsive Classroom:

The social curriculum is as important as the academic curriculum.
How children learn is as important as what children learn.
The greatest cognitive growth occurs through social interaction.
There is a set of social skills that children need to learn and practice in order to be succesful. They form the acronym CARES-cooperation, assertion, responsibility, empathy, self-control.
We must know our children individually, culturally, and developmentally.
Knowing the families of the children we teach is as important as knowing the children.
Teachers and administrators must model the social and academic skills that they wish to teach their students.

Anytime you get a chance to learn more about Responsive Classroom, check it out. There is a lot of ways that you can incorporate the tenets into music class to make your teaching more effective.

What are we doing today?

2011-11-25T08:00:00.002-05:00

My students ask me this question often, and these magnets I made help me keep it all organized:

I used heavy cardboard, large die-cut numbers, smaller die-cut letters, glued, laminated, cut out, and added magnets on the back. Very durable, and well worth the time investment...these still look great in their seventh year of use (just a little dusty from chalk, that's all!)

Teacher Attitudes: THANKFULNESS

2011-11-24T08:00:00.002-05:00

As a music teacher, I am thankful for...

1. My job
2. Finding newfound inspiration in blogging that makes my job a joy
3. Terrific co-workers
4. Reliable babysitters
5. My children who are happy to let me bounce new ideas off them, and give me their honest opinions
6. My students who are always willing to try something new
7. The online music education community who helps out when my own ideas are running dry
8. Thanksgiving vacation! Enjoy!

More Differentiated Instruction for "There was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Pie"

2011-11-23T08:00:00.002-05:00

Check out this Old Lady!

A colleague allowed me to borrow her "Old Lady" story apron, and was it ever a big hit!

The apron is made by Lakeshore Learning Materials. Unfortunately, I did not find this item on their current website...I believe it is an older item from that company.

Here are the items that the children happily stuffed into the Lady's ever-willing mouth:

This time, I tried a new version of the holiday flip book; I used the binding combs instead of the binder rings. Here are the "Flip Book" booklets for the song:

There was an old lady who swallowed a pie,
A Thanksgiving pie, that was really too dry...

Here are the "Story Song" accordion-style fold-outs to follow along:

Here are the pictures for the board for a student volunteer to point to as we sing the song:

For extra fun, one of my students was happy to dress up as the "Old Lady":

She collected cards from the students showing pie, cider, roll, turkey, etc. as we sang each verse.

Seasonal Bulletin Boards

2011-11-22T21:29:00.000-05:00

I'm trying something new this year: student-created Seasonal Bulletin Boards. In the past, I found that it was very time consuming to devise bulletin boards for each month, by the time I completed one, it was time to start over on the next month! Next, I switched to bulletin boards that could stay up months at a time, but I really missed the changes and was tired of looking at the same things all the time.

For November's bulletin board, I took a Thanksgiving song that we learned, and added some turkeys to color. I gave copies to my kindergarten students to color if they chose to during their indoor recess time, and the ones that they returned to me were stapled on my fabric-covered bulletin board. Easy and fast!

Spotlight on Special Subjects

2011-11-21T08:00:00.001-05:00

Our school district hosted "Parent's Visitation Day" as a part of American Education Week last week, and my classes were involved in a news broadcast of the school's TV station on that special day. It was a fun time, and this activity really helped put a focus on the special subjects in a positive light.

The broadcast started with our physical education teacher leading his class in the gym (and parents, teachers, and students in classrooms all over the building via TV) in an afternoon stretch workout. Immediately after the stretches, the cameras came into music class to catch the lesson for first graders on "There was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly".

Beforehand, I had enlisted the willing help of a third grade class to serve as my co-teachers for the lesson. One of the third graders was happy to dress up in the "Old Lady Costume" and other third grade students led small groups of first graders to "feed" the Old Lady all of the items we sang about in the song. Other third grade students helped by holding books for the students to follow, and by pointing to pictures of each item to help the students stay on task.The help of the older students really helped to move the lesson to a "camera-ready" pace and both groups of kids really enjoyed the interaction and their moment in the spotlight.

If your school is lucky enough to have its own television broadcast, by all means brainstorm some ways to have your music featured on a broadcast. Even if you are in a school with simple loudspeaker announcements, you can find ways to feature music for the school to enjoy. "Mystery Singer" could easily become "Mystery Instrumentalist"...then you could have the student body guessing both the instrument played and the person playing it!

5 Songs for 7 Continents

2011-11-18T08:00:00.003-05:00

Recently, a third grade teacher colleague asked me for any ideas on musical activities to reinforce her student's learning the seven continents. Always, I tell my students that being smart isn't necessarily knowing everything, it's knowing where to find it. Easily, I found these useful possibilities on teachers.net, emailed them to her, and felt like a hero...I heart the information age!

THE CONTINENT SONG
(Take Me Out to the Ball Game)

Let's name all of the continents.

There are 7 on earth.

There's Europe and

Asia and Australia,

North and South America.

Now don't forget about Africa

And Antarctica, too.

For there's 1...2...3,4,5,6,7 continents!

CONTINENTS
(Pop Goes the Weasel)

Asia, Africa, Antarctica

Australia, Europe, too

North America

South America

Seven continents for you!

CONTINENTS & OCEANS
(Love and Marriage)

North America, South America (clap)

Europe, Asia, and Africa,

Don't forget Antarctica,

Or way down under in Australia.

Pacific Ocean, Atlantic Ocean

Indian, Arctic they're all oceans.

North Pole, South Pole, Equator

I know all about maps and globes.

SEVEN CONTINENTS
(Row, Row, Row Your Boat)

To learn the seven continents

Think of the letter A,

And when you're down to only one

An E will save the day.

There's Africa, Antarctica,

Australia, Asia, too;

The oceans run between them

With their waters deep and blue.

There are also two Americas--

North and South, you see.

Now we're coming to the end.

Europe starts with E!

CONTINENTS
(Three Blind Mice)

Continents, continents,

There are seven.

There are seven.

North America, South America,

Antarctica and Australia,

Asia and Africa,

And Europe too.

That's all seven,

That's all seven.

Children's Literature for Music Ed: "I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Pie" with Differentiated Instruction Ideas

2011-11-16T08:00:00.005-05:00

Of all of the "Old Lady" book adaptations, this one is my personal favorite...probably because she is finally eating some delicious and edible goodies (except for when she devours the pot used for cooking!), and she reminds me of our own gluttony on the holiday of Thanksgiving! (Although, now that I am the one preparing the food for the feast, I find that I eat a less at dinner...wonder why? Must be sampling too much as I'm cooking!)

Here are some differentiated ideas on including "I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Pie" in your music instruction:

A fun new way to help your students follow the sequence of this cumulative song is to create this story stick idea from makinglearningfun.com. I like that when you print the sheet from this site, there are picture icons included for the original version of "I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly" as well. So, when you take the time to make these, they can get double duty!

You can make an old lady from a paper plate as pictured here from the Dr. Jean site.

For even more differentiated instruction for "Old Lady" click here.

For American Education Week Festivities this week, I'll have some extra eyes, ears, and hopefully VOICES when we are singing this song: It's Parent Visitation Day both on Tuesday and Thursday at each of my schools!

At one of my schools, we have a student-led television studio, and they will be broadcasting this lesson to the school as a wrap-up to their news broadcast special feature for Parent Visitation Day. I've recruited some of my third graders to act as co-teachers and assist the first grade students learn this song. I'll be updating on how this activity goes!

Calm? Check. Thoughtful? Check. Caring? Check....

2011-11-14T08:00:00.002-05:00

Recently, I was attending one of our district's mentoring meetings on the topic of Parent-Teacher Relations. The speaker referenced the book, How to Deal with Parents who are Angry, Troubled, Afraid, and Just Plain Crazy by Elaine K. McEwan-Adkins. There were many useful solutions and suggestions just in the presentation, I'd like to delve into this book myself in the near future. However, I'd like to share this quote from the presentation that struck me as particularly appropriate to my Jedi-Teacher theme:

"As professionals, it is our responsibility to be calm, thoughtful, caring, intelligent, articulate, direct and honest at all times and in all situations."

Aren't your own most memorable teachers the ones who fit this description? And how about your co-workers...don't you enjoy these qualities in your colleagues as well? I think I'm going to make myself a check-list and assess myself on these seven characteristics as I'm walking out to my car after each school day..

Today, was I...

calm?
thoughtful?
caring?
intelligent?
articulate?
direct?
honest?

If I can't honestly place a check beside each of these, I need to return ready to improve for the next day!

Veteran's Day

2011-11-11T11:11:00.001-05:00

Happy Veteran's Day...and a huge thank you for all who have served and sacrificed. My very favorite Veteran's Day memory was when my grandfather was honored in the Veteran's Day parade in our town, along with his 6 brothers. All seven of the brothers had served in World War II, and each one made it home safely. I can still see him marching down Main Street, shoulder to shoulder with his brothers. Their only regret was that at the time (mid-1980s) they could no longer fit into their service uniforms!

Veteran's Day is a perfect time to introduce your students to the music of the branches of our Armed Forces. In my days playing in the middle school band, our director would choose a medley of Armed Forces songs, and invite veterans of each branch to stand when the band played their song. I'd always be peeking out of the corner of my eye to see my Grandpa stand proudly when we played the Air Force's "Off we go, into the wild blue yonder...".

Children's Literature for Music Ed: "Thank You, Thanksgiving"

2011-11-09T08:00:00.009-05:00

When we encourage our young students to sing, a pattern often introduced first is the sol-mi pattern, soon to be followed by the sol-sol-mi-la-sol-mi pattern. "Thank You, Thanksgiving" by David Milgrim is a great book to reinforce singing in these important patterns that form a strong foundation for our young singers.

This is a simple story of a young girl sent out on an important errand on Thanksgiving Day. The family has just finished their dinner, and the young daughter is sent off on a job. As she travels along, she sees many elements that she is thankful for and she says a simple thank-you to each of them, from the clouds, to her warm boots, to animals she sees on her journey, and including the store where she buys a forgotten item for Thanksgiving desert. When she returns home after her journey, what is her family grateful for? They are thankful that she went out and bought the forgotten whipped cream for their pumpkin pie!

Each page contains a simple thank you from a child's perspective, and this is what I sing to the students and they echo the melodic pattern back to me.

For example, page 5 is "Thank you for sending me, Mom."

Teacher sings: "Thank you for sending me, Mom" (sol-sol-mi-la-sol-sol-sol-mi)
Students echo: "Thank you for sending me, Mom" (sol-sol-mi-la-sol-sol-sol-mi)

Page 7 is "Thank you, music."

Teacher sings: "Thank you, music." (sol-mi-sol-mi)
Students echo: "Thank you, music." (sol-mi-sol-mi)

I like to use this activity at the end of the class, for a nice and calming wrap-up to our lesson.

Sometimes students are motivated to sing a solo echo pattern, so if time permits, I allow student volunteers to be my "echo buddy" and echo me on their own.

If you have students who are brave enough to sing a solo for their classmates, be sure that their classmates recognize their efforts with a round of applause! Simple moments like that will encourage others to give it a try for the next time!

My Privilege

2011-11-07T08:00:00.004-05:00

Most days, we teachers leave the light sabers at home...

"Teaching is a privilege. It's part of a Jedi's responsibility to help train the next generation."
--Obi-Wan Kenobi

This quote is from the back of my son's "Clone Wars" book, and I love it. For not being a true fan, I really do find a lot of teaching inspiration in the many variations of Star Wars! As teachers, we should all aim for this should be our daily mantra. Do we approach our work in this way each day? It is certainly a challenge, but the attitude that we carry day to day leaves a lasting impression on everyone we come into contact with each day. Please allow me to tell you a little story about some workers in another job with a terrific attitude...

Do you ever eat at Chic-fil-A? Don't you just love their customer service? I've never met a Chic-fil-A employee who didn't seem 100% content and happy at their workplace...their mantra is "My pleasure!" Really, they say it all of the time...Listen to one of my experiences at that establishment:

After enjoying the meal and excellent customer service, (it was their pleasure!) with my three children, we went into the indoor play area, which is always one of their favorite elements in the Chic-fil-A experience. While in the play area, one of my children just happened to VOMIT on the play floor, which is made of a porous material that is soft for safety, but incredibly difficult to clean vomit out of! Because I couldn't just make a discreet swipe at the mess with a pile of napkins very successfully, I shamefully had to point out the problem to an employee, who responded with "My pleasure!" While I'm sure that phrase wasn't the first thought that popped into her mind, her quick response did make me feel like a little less of an imposition on her day.

After rounding up the two healthy children (who were none too pleased to have to leave earlier than expected) and carrying the ill child out of the play area, I began a futile search for my car keys. Coat pocket? No. Overflowing purse? Shyeah, right. Diaper bag? No. Uhhh, the tray that I had hurriedly dumped into the trash??? The very trash that I'd just seen a Chic-fil-A employee emptying (His Pleasure!)????!!

Crap.

I explained my second crisis in roughly 1.5 minutes to a manager, who promptly volunteered to go dumpster-diving where the trash had just been disposed. HER PLEASURE!! Seriously, these people have no limits!! What must their training sessions consist of that makes them so happily handle all of the problems that their customers can muster up to throw at them??

Even though she assured me that it was, of course, her pleasure, I was feeling awful that we put these supremely-nice people through such an ordeal. As she headed out the back of the restaurant, I sank into a booth with my kids, who were digging around in my purse to locate their newest treasures from the kid's meal bag. They didn't manage to find their toys, but one of them did end up pulling out MY KEYS!! From the depths of my overflowing purse!! I was the "girl who cried 'dumped-my-keys-in-the-trash'" and some nice Chic-fil-A manager was probably chest-high in muck all because of my own irresponsibility!!

And, of course, after her co-workers helped her out of the dumpster, they all waved good-bye to us with a heartfelt...

"Our Pleasure!"

True story. Sometimes I find inspiration in the strangest places, but while I always knew that Chic-fil-A provided great service with terrific attitude, I never knew how far they could be pushed until that day. When I'm having a day where I'm feeling pushed to my limit, I remember the Chic-fil-A philosophy, and combine it with my quote from Obi-Wan, and respond, "My Privilege!"

The Gift of Sleep

2011-11-06T08:00:00.000-05:00

Like all hard-working teachers, moms, and teacher/moms out there, I say THANK YOU for the extra hour of sleep last night!! If only we could get that every weekend...

"Noodles"

2011-11-04T08:00:00.003-04:00

"Five small noodles, on my noodle plate..."

"Noodles" is an interactive new activity I started with my language support and kindergarten life skills students. This finger play is from the Dr. Jean site, which I have sucessfully utilized for quite a while, ever since my first "Tooty Ta" as a kindergarten classroom teacher back in 2003-2005!

To prepare, I cut five holes in foam plates for the entire class. Be sure to measure the placement with one of your student's actual hands, because if you go by your own adult-sized hand, they may not fit the children's small hands!

With my language support and life skills students, who need extra speech practice, this is an echo rhyme that they repeat back to me:

One small noodle on my noodle plate.
(Poke one finger up through the plate. Point to it with your other pointer finger.)

Salt and pepper, tastes just great.
(Pretend to shake salt and pepper above the plate.)

Mom’s going to the store.

Mom, mom, get some more!

Two…Three…Four…
(Add the fingers to the plate one at a time.)

Five small noodles on my noodle plate.

Salt and pepper, tastes just great.

Mom, mom, I am stuffed.

I think that I have had enough!

Children's Literature for Music Ed: "Slowly, Slowly, Slowly," said the Sloth

2011-11-02T08:00:00.000-04:00

Most early elementary students have a favorite tempo, and that would be FAST! Oftentimes we need to remind our young students to slow down and take it easy, and not just in the context of the music! As a fan of the art of Eric Carle, I collected many of his books for my own children's collection, but "'Slowly, Slowly, Slowly,' said the Sloth" has been overlooked at our house until now. In the day of the sloth, he hangs out on a branch, eats, naps, and wakes up....what a lazy day! After being pestered by some other animals, the sloth gives his defense: he just likes to do things slowly, slowly, slowly.

Rachel Rambach has written a song to reinforce the need to go slowly called "Slow and In Control". Listening to this song would be a great way to introduce the concept of the slow tempo, and to lead into this book.

Here are my ideas for using this book in music class:

By nature, this is a great activity for the end of the class, when you want your students to be winding down from activities.
It is especially appropriate at the end of a lesson on tempo.
Present the students a challenge to play a tone bell or xylophone scale as S-L-O-W-L-Y as possible.
As you read each page of the story of the sloth, invite a new student to play an ascending or descending scale as slowly as they can.
For all students, but especially special needs students, playing slowly gives them more practice (and more success!) hitting each note of the scale squarely in the middle, and not skipping any in between.

Marvelous Music Makers for Music Ed: "Disney Halloween Songs & Sounds"

2011-10-31T08:00:00.022-04:00

Happy Halloween!! This album has been with me for many Halloweens...and my very youngest students really enjoy the music! Some of the musical concepts that are reinforced by this resource are steady beat, group choreography, creative movement, identifying verse and refrain, vocal timbres, and vocal exploration

Some of my favorites include:

The Werewolf Song
Shake Your Bones
Which Witch is Which?
They Don't Scare Me

Here are the activities we use for these songs:

The Werewolf Song incorporates group choreography, identifying verse and refrain, and vocal exploration.

Group Choreography for The Werewolf Song: (refrain)

"Here's the deal" Right hand out, palm up
"Now here's the scoop" Left hand out, palm up
"Come and join our werewolf group" Both hands beckoning towards self
"Brush your fangs" Brush teeth
"And comb your face" Pretend to comb your fur on your face!
"We're gonna bark and howl all over the place!" Bounce in place as you pat the rhythm of the words on your lap, and then let loose your best werewolf howl!

Shake Your Bones incorporates creative movement and identification of verse and refrain.

Students pretend that they are skeletons in hiding on the verses.
On the refrain ("Shake your bones" is the key phrase), students come out of hiding and dance like skeletons with creative movements.
Students go back into hiding for the verse, and wait again to dance on the refrain.

Which Witch is Which? incorporates steady beat practice, vocal timbres, and vocal exploration.

We identify the timbres of the witches' voices and imitate them.
We tiptoe to the steady beat of the song.

They Don't Scare Me incorporates steady beat practice, vocal timbres, and vocal exploration.

The solo singers in the song are Disney characters such as Mickey and Goofy. Students identify the vocal timbres of each character.
Students practice moving to the steady beat in the song.

Holiday "Flip" books

2011-10-28T08:00:00.007-04:00

Incorporating visual aids is very important for our young students success, and sometimes students need a hands-on visual aid. For this reason, I developed the "Flip Book". These simple creations help more students follow the sequence of a song, assist in developing reading skills, and lead to more excitement and interest in the activity.

For emerging readers, include a one word summary and corresponding picture of the verse to be sung. For example, "The ghost in the house says Boo, Boo, Boo" becomes the word "Boo!" with a ghost picture.

Develop word/picture cards for each verse to be sung, copy, and laminate. These examples are from "The Haunted House".

"The ghost in the house says Boo, Boo, Boo!..."

"The stairs in the house go creak, creak, creak..."

"The cat in the house says Meow, Meow, Meow!..."

"The mouse in the house says squeak, squeak, squeak!..."

"The trick-or-treaters say Eeek! Eeek! Eeek!..."

Using binder rings, assemble the word/picture cards in the order of the song.

Include as many songs as you plan to cover in a particular holiday season. Each of the different songs is on a different color page. My students love to look forward in their books to the songs planned for the upcoming weeks; it really builds their excitement, and they can't wait until the next time they get to use the Flip Books!

Children's Literature for Music Ed: "Halloween Mice!"

2011-10-26T08:00:00.002-04:00

Oh, those Preschoolers, Kindergartners and First Graders, always on the move! They are naturally always in-motion and on the go, and we need to include plenty of movement activities in our music classes. We also always need to be mindful that their attention span just about equals their age in minutes...so the four-year-old can pay attention for four minutes, the five-year-old for five minutes, and so on. (Personal aside: Why does this only pertain to school, and not so much to video games??)

So, for the music teacher, this means that you need to be changing up your activities in the lessons you plan quite often! It is challenging to plan all of the necessary activities, but well worth having your young students engaged, learning, and happy in their musical activities! To that end, "Halloween Mice!" by Bethany Roberts is a great book to use as a creative movement activity as a part of your class during this month of October.

"Costumed mice frisk, whisk, whirl, and twirl through the moonlight to party in the pumpkin patch. Rustle, rustle, swish, swish, the Halloween cat prepares to pounce. After a quick huddle, the clever rodents use their flashlight to create a monstrous shadow to frighten the cat away. Home again, the tired little creatures tumble into bed, except for the littlest, who creates his own monster. Full-page watercolors are appropriate for the holiday while not too scary for the intended audience. The simple text is packed with words to delight the ear." -Virginia Opocensky, formerly at Lincoln City Libraries, NE Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Be sure that your students have plenty of room to move with this book, and that you review your rules for traveling safely in space around the room.

Instruct the students that they are going to pretend to be the mice in the story. They will move like mice as you read the story.

Here are some of the locomotor movements they will use in the story:

tiptoe
hurry scurry
skitter
scamper
whirl, twirl, swirl
dancing
huddle
scramble
make shadows
tumble

You may wish to turn the lights off and use a flashlight for making shadows.

Children's Literature for Music Ed: "The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything"

2011-10-24T08:00:00.003-04:00

Our first grade curriculum focuses on "voice choice" and discriminating between singing, speaking, whispering, and shouting voices. A terrific reinforcement for this concept is found in "The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything" by Linda Williams, and it is seasonally appropriate for October!

"The Little Old Lady. . . is a clever reworking of the classic story of a ghostly body that appears bit by bit (see ``What's the Matter'' in Maria Leach's Whistle in the Graveyard Viking, 1974 ). The humor of the little old lady's fearless attitude and her clever solution as to what to do with the lively shoes, pants, shirt, pumpkin head, etc., that are chasing her, will enchant young audiences. The catchy refrain never falters, and the rhythmic repeated sounds made by each of the woman's pursuers are sure to appeal to children. Lloyd's brilliantly-colored, detailed folk art-style illustrations are a perfect complement to the text." -Alice Cronin, Belleville Public Library, N.J. Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Here are my ideas for including this book in early-elementary music class:

We begin our lesson on exploring voice choices with a song from our text "Sing, Speak, Whisper, Shout". Children share specific places where each choice of voice is appropriate.

Read "The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything" to the children. This is a very active read aloud, so be sure that the children spread out and have plenty of room. Each item that begins to follow the old lady adds another movement for the children.

"Two shoes go CLOMP,CLOMP": stomp both feet

"One pair of pants go WIGGLE, WIGGLE": wiggle both legs

"One shirt go SHAKE, SHAKE": shake out both arms

"Two gloves go CLAP, CLAP": clap hands

"One hat go NOD, NOD": nod head twice

"One scary pumpkin head go BOO, BOO!: the BOOs that you model for your class to repeat should be drawn out vocal slides from high to low.

The story is naturally building suspense from beginning to end, and the children love that! To add to the suspense, each time the old lady repeats, "I'm not afraid of you!", I use a different tone of voice and have the students identify the voice choice.

As the character's confidence wanes, I descend the intensity of the voices, she begins shouting, then sings, then speaks, and then finally whispers. As she gains confidence in the story, I reverse the order: from whispering to shouting. Each time the old lady speaks, I ask the students to identify how she used her voice.

For a closing activity, I made a deck of cards with picture/words for sing, speak, whisper, shout. Each student volunteer gets a chance to choose a card, and without showing the class their card, perform the line from the book, ("I'm not afraid of you!") as directed on the card. The other students then identify how the student used their voice.

Differentiated Instruction for "There was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Bat"

2011-10-21T08:00:00.002-04:00

When I originally presented ideas for utilizing "There was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Bat", there was pretty much one activity for the class: learn to follow the sequence of the song by using some visual aids to help them. For use in a regular education class, that plan has been very sufficient.

Now, I'd like to share some more ideas for the very same lesson, this time to address differing needs in a special needs classroom. Differentiating the instruction can help more students of different abilities to achieve the objective of the lesson: learning to follow the sequence of a cumulative song so that they can more easily sing along!

Class Magnetic Visual Aids: Here is the set-up of the visual aids at use in a regular education class previously. Now that I have divised visual aids for differentiated instruction, I'll begin using them in the mainstream setting as well.

Flip Books: For your students who are more physically coordinated, but still need something "hands-on to help them, these books are a great way for them to follow along with the story song. Each page that they turn to has an element from the song.

These are 5.5 inches by 4.25 inches:
a great size for little hands.

"There was an old lady who swallowed a ghost..."

Story Song Mats: Some students lack the coordination for the small flip books. They would need a paraprofessional (teacher's aid) to help them locate and stay on the correct page. For these students, I developed the Story Song Mat. This helps them to see the entire sequence of the story song on one 12 by 18 inch contruction paper mat, and more easily participate in music class independently.

Front view

Rear View

"There was an old lady who swallowed a bat..."

"There was an old lady who swallowed an owl..."

Title page!

Big Finish: Turn it over..."Trick or Treat!"

I'm so lucky with my daughters being the ages that they are right now (just turned 3 and almost 5) because they LOVE trying out any activities that I'm working on for school at home, (and getting to be my models in the process!) It was very interesting to observe them as two typically developing children at two different ages. My three year old struggled mightily with the Flip Book, and I switched her over to the Story Song Mat and she was instantly successful. My almost 5 year old handled the flip book very well, but also enjoyed using the Story Song Mat.
Having three different strategies (Class Magnetic Visual Aids, Flip Books, and Story Song Mats) at work for the achievement of the same goal just makes sense, although creating the visual aids is quite time consuming! The end result is worth the effort, when your participation levels are right where you want them: at 100%. Also, if you use one of the Teacher's Best Friends: The Laminator your work can be used over and over for many years to come!

Differentiated Instruction in Music Education

2011-10-19T08:00:00.001-04:00

Differentiate!!

"Effective teachers have been differentiating instruction for as long as teaching has been a profession. It has to do with being sensitive to the needs of your students and finding ways to help students make the necessary connections for learning to occur in the best possible way." teach-nology.com

"Differentiated Instruction makes it possible to maximize learning for ALL students. It is a professional and responsive mind-set where the teacher is proactively planning for the needs of diverse learners.
Most teachers naturally differentiate to some degree. The more differentiated a classroom, the more its students feel successful and motivated, resulting in higher student achievement." differentiatedinstruction.com

For the past decade, much has been written on differentiated instruction. For even longer than that, teachers have known that their students have vastly different abilities and progressive teachers have adjusted their instruction to suit the specific needs of their students. Are music teachers among that "progressive" group? Or, are we still serving up our instruction in a "one-size-fits-all" model? How are we adapting differentiated instruction in the music realm?

In the coming weeks and months, I'm going to be including different real-world examples of how I'm differentiating instruction in lessons in my music class, and especially with my special needs students. It takes more planning and preparation, but my goal is to help more students (with many different learning styles) make meaningful connections to their music learning.

Songs You Already Know: "The Haunted House"

2011-10-18T08:00:00.004-04:00

(Almost) everyone loves to get into the Halloween spirit when you work in an elementary school! By using new words with songs that we already know, we have an activity that reinforces reading skills and singing skills.

Tune: (the song you already know): "The Wheels on the Bus"

Holiday Song: "The Haunted House"

The pictures shown are from our Holiday Flip Book.

The ghost in the house says "Boo, Boo, Boo!"

"Boo, Boo, Boo!"
"Boo, Boo, Boo!"

The ghost in the house says "Eeek, eek, eek!"

All night long.

The stairs in the house go "Creak, Creak, Creak!"

Creak, Creak, Creak!
Creak, Creak, Creak!

The stairs in the house go "Creak, Creak, Creak!"

All night long.

The cat in the house says "Meow, Meow, Meow!"

Meow, Meow, Meow!"

Meow, Meow, Meow!"

The cat in the house says "Meow, Meow, Meow!"

All night long.

The mouse in the house says "Squeak, Squeak, Squeak!"

Squeak, Squeak, Squeak!"

Squeak, Squeak, Squeak!"

The mouse in the house says "Squeak, Squeak, Squeak!"

All night long.

The Trick-or-Treaters say "Eek, Eek, Eek!"

Eek, Eek, Eek!
Eek, Eek, Eek!

The Trick-or-Treaters say "Eek, Eek, Eek!"

All night long.

To differentiate instruction for this song, include a poster size of visual aids for each verse, and a 8.5 by 11 inch copy for those students who would struggle with a Flip Book.

Here are the elements of the song that make it an almost instant success every time:

familiar tune
repetitive lyrics
easy to follow visuals
Halloween is a subject that most children really look forward to!
Everyone has fun imitating the different vocal timbres of the ghost, cat, stairs, mouse, and trick-or-treaters!

Children's Literature for Music Ed: "Five Spooky Ghosts Playing Tricks at School"

2011-10-17T08:00:00.002-04:00

Using the melody of "Six Little Ducks", Steve Metzger has written "Five Spooky Ghosts Playing Tricks at School". Illustrations are by Marilee Harrald-Pilz. This book is a great addition to your sing-along seasonal collection. The pattern of the book will also remind you of "Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed".

The five naughty ghosts are up to no good at school, and one by one the teacher sends them home. Finding herself alone and lonely at school, the teacher calls the parents and says "Let those ghosts go back to school!" (A likely story...!)

Here are some ideas for using this book in music class:

Find a good image of a ghost and make five copies. I attach yarn to each ghost picture and five students wear the bats with yarn aroung their necks.

Echo sing the song with the children until they are secure with the melody.

As you sing each verse, be sure to have the children leave the ghost group one by one. Be sure to demonstrate the subtraction that is taking place, such as 5-1=4, 4-1=3, etc.

Six more students can play the part of the teacher, mommy ghost, daddy ghost, grandma ghost, grandpa ghost, and doctor. Give the "teacher" a phone and make sure that the others are ready to give the directions!

Some good (not too scary) examples of ghost images:

Happy Haunting!

Children's Literature for Music Ed: "Skeleton Hiccups"

2011-10-14T08:00:00.001-04:00

Do your 5 and 6-year-old students have a difficult time with the concept of "rest" in music? Of course, with an age group that is usually very active, "rest"ing is a difficult skill! Try using "Skeleton Hiccups" by Margery Cuyler as an extension at the end of a lesson on quarter rests. In the story, Skeleton has a pesky case of the hiccups, which he finally "scares" away. Can you guess how?

He looks in the mirror and sees himself...soooo scary! (and perfect for the Halloween season!)

Review your classroom rules for using rhythm sticks safely.

Before reading the story, have the students learn the simple rhythm of the Skeleton's hiccups. They will play this rhythm on their rhythm sticks.

Depending on the size of your class, and the behavior you can usually expect from your group, you may want to divide the students into small groups for playing the rhythm, instead of having all students play.

Once the students are secure in playing the rhythm, they will play it after each page that you read. You should speak the "hic" with each click of the rhythm sticks.

Worthy Websites for Music Ed: "VoiceAcademy.org"

2011-10-12T08:00:00.003-04:00

shirt by zazzle.com

This site was recommended by a colleague and it's not what I initially expected at all...but that's not necessarily a bad thing! I was anticipating a site dedicated to vocal training for young singers, but Voice Academy's focus is on the vocal health of TEACHERS and site is described as a "no cost self-directed virtual school built for the vocal health of US teachers"!

Ironically, I was recently reading an article about teachers who battle severe career-ending vocal problems such as polyps or nodes. The goal of the Voice Academy is to "develop an outreach for the hard-working voices of schoolteachers...based on compelling research showing a high incidence of voice problems in the profession."

It is believed that 7.5 million people have diseases or disorders of the voice. Teachers are a whopping 32 times more likely to report voice difficulties than people in other professions. This is according to a recent study. Isn't this unfortunate in a profession where communication between you and your students is absolutely key?

One of the first features of the site is the interactive quiz entitled "Are you in the vocal danger zone?" Luckily, after answering questions about my vocal habits on and off the job, water/caffeine intake, and alcohol/tobacco use, I received this personal assessment:

"You are one of those lucky people with a "robust larynx" that is naturally well-suited to meet the high vocal demands of teaching. Your lifestyle habits also keep your voice in tiptop shape."

Yeah!
Also informative and enjoyable on this site is the virtual tour of the "school" where you can be introduced to such vocal pitfalls as thin pane windows, lack of drapes to deaden sounds, hard surfaces creating echoes, concrete block walls and hard surfaced floors bouncing sounds around teh room, and the deadliest enemy of the teacher's voice: the open pod design classroom!

There is also a plan for either a 50 (or 5!) minute in-service on teacher's vocal health, usable to educate either yourself or your entire staff.

Another great element to this site is that it is FREE, purely informational, and they are not trying to sell you a thing! The site is maintained by The National Center for Voice and Speech and supported by the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders at the University of Iowa.

Even if you are not experiencing vocal difficulties, this is a terrific resource for educating yourself on maintaining a healthy voice for teaching and singing.

How are my grades? (Update 5)

2011-10-11T16:00:00.003-04:00

I am continuing to allow my new students to Grade the Teacher. At the beginning of the class, I give one student the job of tallying my mistakes (and I've been making plenty!) and writing my score on the board. This generates a lot of interest on the part of the students! Here are my grades:

Monday, October 10: (My helps this week: I could ask the students for the first letter of their name for a hint as needed.)

6th grade, section 3: 20/23=87%

5th grade, section 2: 15/20=75%

6th grade, section 2: 19/20=95%

3rd grade, section 3: 14/17=82%

2nd grade, section 1: 16/22=73%

3rd grade, section 2: 10/17=59%

1st grade, section 3: 18/20=90%

2nd grade, section 3:17/21=81%

Children's Literature for Music Ed: "Five Little Bats Flying in the Night"

2011-10-10T08:00:00.002-04:00

Here is another re-write of "Six Little Ducks" just in time for Halloween! Steve Metzger is the author and Laura Bryant is the illustrator of "Five Little Bats Flying in the Night", a cute book to sing with your early childhood students. In the story, "rambunctious bats get into all sorts of trouble as their mother tries to protect them from one mishap after another. An inventive approach to counting and rhymes, Metzger and Bryant show that, despite life's risks, mother has to "let those little bats fly, fly, fly!"

Here are my ideas for use in music class:

Find a good image of a bat and make five copies. I attach yarn to each bat picture and five students wear the bats with yarn aroung their necks.

Echo sing the song with the children until they are secure with the melody.

As you sing each verse, be sure to have the children "fly away" one by one. Be sure to demonstrate the subtraction that is taking place, such as 5-1=4, 4-1=3, etc.

Two more students can play the part of the mother bat and the doctor. Give the "mother" a phone and make sure that the doctor is ready to give the directions!

Some good examples of bat images:

If you have a particularly large class, and feel that singling out just seven students to be the bats isn't going to suit their needs, you could place the five bat images on the board with magnets, and have students take them away as you sing about them.

October Music Education Blog Carnival!!

2011-10-08T08:00:00.001-04:00

Dr. Joseph Pisano of MusTech.net is hosting the Music Education Blog Carnival for the month of October... and one of my more "mysterious" posts is included!!!

Dr. Pisano presents a variety of terrific resources for music education, private music teachers, Recreational Music Making (RMM), music technology, music advocacy, professional music networks, and music composition. Please check out the carnival!

Children's Literature for Music Ed: "There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Bat"

2011-10-07T08:00:00.006-04:00

That little old lady sure does like to eat, doesn't she? If you are a fan, you may want to introduce the original song "I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly" before delving into the many seasonal "old lady" books.

For the spooky season, Lucille Colandro has written "There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Bat!" This is a good reinforcement of sequence and cumulative songs. Most kids just love Halloween and everything associated with the holiday, so this song and book will make them very excited!

Here are my ideas for using this book in your music class:

Print out pictures of each of the items that the old lady swallows:

1. bat

2. owl

3. cat

4. ghost

5. goblin

6. bones

7. wizard

Attach magnets to the back of each picture so that you can hang them on your board to help students with the order of the song.

Students will take turns being the leader and pointing to the items as we sing about them. Previously, I used a yardstick for my pointer, but my son found these much superior pointers at a Scholastic book fair. The are much safer than the yardstick for my youngest students!

For those who don't like to use the lyric, "Perhaps she'll die", this book substitutes "Imagine that!"

Some years ago, I bought this old lady puppet who could "eat" all of the items in the original song. If you could find small objects of each of the creatures that she eats in this book, students would really enjoy feeding the creepy creatures to the old lady puppet.
Check out my ideas for differentiated instruction strategies for this book!

How are my grades? (Update 4)

2011-10-06T16:00:00.001-04:00

In my new school, I am continuing to allow my students to Grade the Teacher.

At the beginning of the class, I give one student the job of tallying my mistakes (if any) and writing my score on the board. This generates a lot of interest on the part of the students! Here are my grades:

Thursday, October 6, 2011:

6th grade, section 3: 22/22=100%
5th grade, section 2: 22/22=100%
5th grade, section 1: 20/23=87%
1st grade, section 1: 18/19=95%
3rd grade, section 3: 13/15=87%
1st grade, section 2: 19/21=90%

2nd grade, section 1: 17/20=85%

Slow, but steady improvement...

Quiet!

2011-10-05T08:00:00.014-04:00

Every teacher needs to develop a "quiet signal" for those times (and they happen often...) when their students are too loud. Elementary students of all ages can get carried away by an activity, excited for any reason, and sometimes just want to visit with their friends. For these times, a quiet signal is necessary.

3, ...2, ...1
The one that I use the most is counting down from 3. I remind the students, "When I get to one, you're done" (talking, that is!) For situations when they are too loud and would not hear my counting, then I use the "turn off the lights" approach.

Another good one, especially in music, is having the students echo-clap a rhythm pattern that you begin. Also, I really like the chimes idea, especially in the music setting, my only problem with this idea in action is that I never have the chimes just where I want them when I need them!

Every teacher needs to experiment with and develop the quiet signals that work best for them. For more ideas, check out proteacher, teachertips/training, and teachercreated (good visual aids are also included on this site).

How are my grades? (Update 3)

2011-10-04T08:00:00.010-04:00

I am continuing to allow my new students to Grade the Teacher.

At the beginning of the class, I give one student the job of tallying my mistakes (if any) and writing my score on the board. This generates a lot of interest on the part of the students! Here are my grades:

Monday, October 3: (My helps this week: I could ask the students for the first letter of their name for a hint as needed, and I could use my class roster list.)

6th grade, section 3: 20/22=91%

5th grade, section 2: 13/18=72%

6th grade, section 2: 18/20=90%

3rd grade, section 3: 13/14=91%

2nd grade, section 1: 20/22=91%

3rd grade, section 2: 12/15=80%

1st grade, section 3: 16/20=80%

2nd grade, section 3:14/19=74%

Worthy Websites for Music Ed: "Metronome Online"

2011-10-03T08:00:00.006-04:00

Every music teacher, whether they teach privately or in a school setting, knows the importance of a metronome to help their students keep a steady beat and tempo. A metronome is a practice tool that produces a steady pulse (or beat) to help musicians play rhythms accurately. The pulses are measured in beats-per-minute (BPM). Most metronomes are capable of playing beats from 35 to 250 BPM. Common uses of the metronome are helping you to maintain an established tempo while practicing, and learning difficult passages.

Remember the "tick-tock" pendulum type of metronome? Those are a bit pricey! As an elementary school flute student, I had a little electronic metronome about the size of a credit card that would beep away on my music stand (if I could locate it in my messy room!)

These types of metronomes can become a thing of the past if you check out metronomeonline.com, an online metronome ideal for quick and easy use while practicing music! This music tool helps with your rhythm, as well as tempo selections, and it is always available for free to all students of music. Just think, it's FREE, and your students can't lose it...it's as close as the nearest computer!

This site also offers a free trial of a metronome for your cell phone...probably worth checking out if you think it would help your "cell-dependent" students practice more.

How are my grades? (Update 2)

2011-10-02T08:00:00.003-04:00

Even though my current student teacher has now taken over the day-to-day lesson planning and instruction, I still allow my students in my new school to Grade the Teacher (me, that is) on how well I am learning their names.

At the beginning of the class, I give one student the job of tallying my mistakes (if any) and writing my score on the board. This generates a lot of interest on the part of the students! It also helps me to review, and assists my student teacher in learning the student's names as well. Here are my grades so far:

Thursday, September 29: (My helps this week: none! I was working from memory alone.)

6th grade, section 3: 20/21=95%

5th grade, section 2: 21/22=95%

5th grade, section 1: 21/22=95%

1st grade, section 1: 19/20=95%

3rd grade, section 3: 15/16=94%

1st grade, section 2: 17/20=85%

2nd grade, section 1: 13/18=72%

(So as you can see, by the end of the day, I was slipping up! Gotta keep working at it...)

Children's Literature for Music Ed: "The Runaway Pumpkin"

2011-10-01T08:00:00.005-04:00

'Round and 'round
across the ground
makin' a thumpin'
bumpin' sound
came that
thumpety
bumpety
thumpin'
bumpin'
round and roll-y
RUNAWAY PUMPKIN!

You can tell by this rhythmic recurring theme in "The Runaway Pumpkin" by Kevin Lewis that this is a story very well-suited for music!

Here is a melody I wrote for the recurring theme of the book:

To simplify, you could make the theme a rhythmic chant instead of a melody.

Add arm motions for the theme:

"Round and round" Arms circle each other in front of the body, such as in "The Wheels on the Bus"

"Across the ground" With both hands outstretched, palms down, "draw in the air" the landscape of the ground from left to right.

"Making a thumpin'" Hands pat on lap

"Bumpin' sound" Forming fists, pound one fist on top of the other, such as the "Hand Jive"

"came that thumpety" Hands pat on lap

"Bumpety" Fists pound on top of the other, such as the "Hand Jive"

"Thumpin'" Hands pat on lap

"Bumpin'" Fists pound on top of each other

"Round and roll-y" Arms circle each other in front of the body, such as in "The Wheels on the Bus"

"Runaway Pumpkin" Form a large circle with arms with hands clasped above head

Students will sing and perform the motions each time the theme is repeated in the story. Remind them that the pumpkin needs to begin rolling slowly, but get faster (accelerando) throughout the song.

Because they will get excited, they will need reminders not to let their tempo get too fast and out of control!

Children's Literature for Music Ed: "There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly"

2011-09-30T08:00:00.006-04:00

There are many book versions of "There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly" out there; I included this one illustrated by Pam Adams just because it's the one I own. It is a nice big size to share in class and includes die-cut holes in the pages to see each animal swallowed.

This is a great book and song to include early in the school year, because there is a variety of different "Old Lady" holiday variations to include throughout the year.

Here are my ideas for incorporating "There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly" in your music class:

Print out pictures of each of the items that the old lady swallows:

1. fly

2. spider

3. cat

4. dog

5. cow

6. horse

Attach magnets to the back of each picture so that you can hang them on your board to help students with the order of the song.

Students will take turns being the leader and pointing to the items as we sing about them. Previously, I used a yardstick for my pointer, but my son found these much superior pointers at a Scholastic book fair. The are much safer than the yardstick for my youngest students!

Some find the lyric, "Perhaps she'll die" too harsh for their early elementary students. Dr. Jean substitutes "I wonder why?" in place of that lyric, which can be an option if the original bothers you or your students.

I bought this puppet years ago from one of the "Books Are Fun" vendors. The students enjoy placing the animals in her mouth as she "eats" them!

Marvelous Music Makers for Music Ed: "The Hill Brothers"

2011-09-28T08:00:00.003-04:00

As the first of my "Marvelous Music Makers", I'd like to introduce..."The Hill Brothers" (and Hill sister, Suzie)! At the beginning of each new school year, I use their "3R's: Respect, Responsibility, and Reading" CD for the first five weeks of school with my first graders. As one of our veteran paraprofessionals recently said to a new staff member, "You'll hear it until your ears bleed!"

The group is based out of upstate New York, but they have traveled down to our school in Western Pennsylvania twice in the past six years. The Hill Brothers give an excellent live show; they involve the audience, and leave behind infectious tunes remembered for months to come.

Not to torture my fellow staff members, but the reason the songs from the "Three Rs" album get so much play in the months of August/September is that they reinforce so many of the expectations that I have for my students! The song titles, and the weeks that I use them in are:

Come On In (Week 1)
You Respect Me, I’ll Respect You (Week 2)
That’s Responsible (Week 3)
Homework Excuses Song (Week 4)
The Respect Twist (Week 5)

Incorporating specific hand movements, I use the songs for first grade, and also for my life skills students up to age 13. These songs would also be great in a Kindergarten classroom or Kindergarten music class.

Great Expectations

2011-09-26T08:00:00.011-04:00

As a student, I always hated "THE RULES". Of course, without rules life would be chaos, but there was always a part of me that resented being told what to do! Even as a teacher, I resist saying "Follow the rules". Instead, I ask my students to "Fulfill my expectations".

My expectations for my students are really still rules and guidelines for their behavior, but they are stated in a positive way and they provide consistency in discipline. They are consistent because they never change from grades K-6. They are positive because they are stated in a way that describes the behavior that I expect from them when they are in my room.

We will:

Try our best always.
Respect others by listening and taking turns.
Keep our hands and feet to ourselves.

Privilege the students earn by fulfilling my expectations: They are allowed to choose their own seats.

Consequence of the students not fulfilling my expectations: I choose their seat for them, which will undoubtedly be closer to me and further away from their friends.

If need be, the entire class could lose their privilege of choosing seats, and I would make a class seating chart for the rest of the school year. At that point, the consequence for not fulfilling my expectations would be an office referral.

How are my grades? (Update 1)

2011-09-24T08:00:00.008-04:00

This year, I am teaching in a new school, along with another school I've had for some time. In order to learn the students' names, I allow the students to Grade the Teacher.

At the beginning of the class, I give one student the job of tallying my mistakes (if any) and writing my score on the board. This generates a lot of interest on the part of the students! Here are my grades so far:

Thursday, September 15 (My helps this week: I could ask the students for the first letter of their name for a hint as needed, and I could use my class roster list.)

6th grade, section 3: 20/22=91%
5th grade, section 2: 20/21=95%
5th grade, section 1: 17/22=77%
3rd grade, section 3: 14/17=82%
(I didn't have the Grades 1 and 2 students grade me yet.)

Thursday, September 22 (My helps this week: I could NOT ask the students for the first letter of their name for a hint as needed, but I could still use my class roster list.)

6th grade, section 3: 19/19=100%
5th grade, section 2: 17/20=85%
5th grade, section 1: 20/21=95%
3rd grade, section 3: 14/18=78%
2nd grade, section 2: 15/20=75%
(I didn't have the Grade 1 students grade me yet.)

I haven't included any Monday classes yet, because I was on jury duty last Monday! Also, another teacher teaches the fourth grade classes in this building.

Children's Literature for Music Ed: "We're Going on a Leaf Hunt"

2011-09-23T08:00:00.004-04:00

Happy first day of fall! While I'm personally not looking forward to raking all of the leaves that will soon be falling at my house, I don't mind an autumn-themed music lesson centered around a fun book for my early childhood students. Patterned after "We're Going on a Bear Hunt", this book by Steve Metzger is a great introduction to the fall season for your youngest students. "We're Going on a Leaf Hunt" lends itself well to many musical extensions.

Do you have access to an Ellison die-cutter? If so, you can use it to cut out the various colored leaves you will need for this lesson. If not, you can develop your own leaf pattern; I recommend using google image.

To prepare, cut out a set of each of these leaves for your students:

Maple: orange (Write the note name "A"on this one.)
Birch: yellow (Write the note name "G" on this one.)
Hickory: brown (Write the note name "E" on this one.)
Red Oak: red (Write the "quarter rest sign" on this one.)

(OK, tree lovers, I did a little online research to see if these are really the fall colors of these types of trees, and I admit they are not "exactly" accurate. In the interest of color recognition practice for my students, we can live with that, right? )

Scatter the class set of leaves on the floor of the classroom. There should be enough so that each student can pick up one of each color.

As students arrive, remind them not to pick up or move the leaves until the "leaf hunt" begins. Students begin the class in a standing position, scattered around the room.

Introduce the book and instruct students that they are to echo you on each sentence of the story.

Students will incorporate creative movements in each part of the story that describe actions, such as "climb/huff-puff", "step/squish", "slip-slide/splish-splash", and "row/plip-plop".

Students will pick up the leaf color of the trees as they are mentioned in the story.

There can be one picture of a skunk that you can hide somewhere in the room to show the students as you read that part of the story. Here is a simple skunk image to use:

After the reading of the story is finished, students will arrange their four leaves into a pattern of three notes and a quarter rest.

Students will take turns playing the four-beat patterns composed by the students on tone bells or xylophones.

Worthy Website for Music Ed: Creating Music

2011-09-21T08:00:00.005-04:00

Wouldn't I love to be a teacher who has access to class computers for music??!! There are so many great ways to reinforce your lessons with Morton Subotnick 's Creating Music site! Because I don't have access to computers for our music class, I recommend this site for students and parents to explore on their own time at home, and include it on a list on my edline page. The goal of the Creating Music website is to "provide an environment for children to experience creative play in the creation of music, with the same ease they have been able to enjoy with toys, drawing tools, building blocks, puppets, etc." I recommend this site for students in grades K-3.

Some of the highlights of this site are:

Sketch Pad and Rhythm Band
Here one can ‘draw’ at the level of finger painting and get musical feedback. The participant can choose instrumental color and edit as a composer might, by changing pitches, making things go forward or backward, or inverting and duplicating.
Sketch Pad: Students can compose music for four different instruments.
Rhythm Band: Students can compose music for five different percussion instruments

Hearing Music

The puzzles are melodies broken into four phrases. The participant will learn to recognize (by ear) the ordering of these phrases. Rhythm, melodic intervals and harmonic progressions are learned since the phrases are differentiated by subtle harmonic, melodic or rhythmic differences.
Comparing Game: Student discriminates between same or different melodies. Suitable for grades 1, 2, 3.
Pitch Game: On this game you must remember three pitches in order. Suitable for grades 1, 2, 3
Rhythm Game: Student creates a rhythm, then is quizzed to see if they remember the rhythm. Suitable for grades 1, 2, 3.

Playing with Music

These activities are designed to allow the participant to ‘play’ with two of the basic qualities in music: tempo and dynamics. Two of the three activities also introduce notation.
Playing with Beethoven: Using the keyboard, students can play Beethoven's "Sonate Op. 31, No. 3" in their own tempo.
Playing with Scales: Using the keyboard, students can play C major, C natural minor and C harmonic minor scales on clarinet, oboe, and marimba.

Children's Literature for Music Ed: "Rock it, Sock it, Number Line"

2011-09-19T08:00:00.006-04:00

"Rock it, Sock it,
Number Line!
Numbers and Veggies-
Party Time!"

"Rock it, Sock it, Number Line" by Bill Martin, Jr. and Michael Sampson has been on my son's book shelf since it was lovingly given to him by his preschool teacher back in 2007. This is a very silly book about veggies partying in the garden until they are finally made into vegetable soup.

My very youngest group of special needs students work hard learning to count to ten. To help with this skill, we use a song called "The Numbers Jump" (on a very old CD that I cannot find a link for online), and also Rachel Rambach's song "Counting Time", which we use constantly and adapt for the seasons and holidays. "Rock it, Sock it, Number Line" is the newest "weapon" in my "arsenal" of supplements to help my students master counting to ten! I recently adapted it for music class with great sucess! Here is what I did:

First, review counting to ten, with the "Numbers Jump" and a version of "Counting Time".

Introduce the rhythm of the repeating rhyme for the story. Clap the rhythm first while chanting the rhyme, because if you give them the rhythm sticks first, they will be too excited to learn the rhyme!

Distribute rhythm sticks to all of the children and model correct handling of the sticks for safety.

Also, practice and incorporate signals for putting the sticks down (rest time), picking them up to play (ready time), and tapping them together safely (playing time). If available, match up any paraprofessionals or aides with students who are going to struggle with safety and signals.

The children will put their sticks down for the beginning of the story. Every time the numbers appear in the story, we will pick up our rhythm sticks and count aloud while tapping the sticks for that number.

Every time our repeating rhyme appears in the story, we will chant the rhyme and tap the sticks in rhythm.

Each time that a number appears in the story (which is often) we use our rhythm sticks to count up to that number.

This is also a good activity for regular education students in grades K-1. As the teacher, you know your students best, and can adapt the book and activity to their needs. Some students will not need the level of assistance that I have described.

September Education Buzz

2011-09-17T08:00:00.003-04:00

Ahhh...the weekend! It's here after our first five-day week of the year, and it's a great time do check out the Meet the Teacher Edition of the Education Buzz–Life's a Carnival, hosted by Richie at Bellringers! I'll be taking some of my busy weekend time (between going to a workshop for cooperating teachers at SRU on Saturday and hosting my youngest child's third birthday party on Sunday, with soccer, dance, and church thrown in the middle!) to read all of these terrific entries!

...and here's the birthday girl!

Children's Literature for Christian Music Ed: "One More River"

2011-09-16T08:00:00.006-04:00

Joan Paley has adapted and beautifully illustrated the spiritual "One More River" in this book suitable for use in a Christian early childhood setting or Sunday school.

With our young students, this lengthy song going to be too challenging to sing all the way through. Approach it as a call-and-response song, with the teacher as leader singing the verses (call) and the students always singing "There's one more river to cross." (response)

It will be useful to play a recording of "One More River" as the children are coming to class, or perhaps during their playtime. As a teacher in a Christian school, or Sunday school, collect CDs of Bible songs, hymns, and children's Christian music for use in your classroom. Hearing the music often will help them get the tune in their ear even before you introduce the song. And since there are so many great hymns out there, the children will be exposed to the music even if you don't get a chance to teach it directly.

With each verse, the animals are counting to ten in Paley's adaptation. It will be helpful for your students to have each of the animals highlighted on the board with their picture. The verses are:

1. The animals went in one by one/The elephant chewing a honey bun.
2. The animals went in two by two/"Let's hop right in," said the kangaroo.
3. The animals went in three by three/Baby bear said, "Please wait for me!"
4. The animals went in four by four/ The bulls stomped in, Noah waved for more.
5. The animals went in five by five/ Five fluffy llamas did arrive.
6. The animals went in seven by seven/The flamingos' necks reached up to heaven.
8. The animals went in eight by eight/The aardvark said, "Are we too late?"
9. The animals went in nine by nine/The turtles came in slow green lines.
10. The animals went in ten by ten/"We're the last ones in!" said the big fat hen.
11. So then the voyage did begin/Old Noah pulled the gangplank in.
12. For forty days and nights they sat/Till they finally landed on Ararat.

When my son saw this book in my pile to write about, he reminded me that he used to choose this often for me to read/sing to him at bedtime when he was younger. So, I can vouch that this one is "child-approved", and that he used to get a kick out of singing the verse about the "big fat hen" for some reason!

FREEEE music for instrumental music teachers!

2011-09-15T08:00:00.005-04:00

Usually, I know that my posting leans heavily into the vocal/general side of elementary music, but that is just what I am most familiar with. One of my new goals is to get more content here for the instrumental teachers, so that Jedi Music can be a more complete resource for the elementary music teacher.

It may seem like I'm rushing into the Christmas season in mid-September, but music teachers always have to think ahead! Fun Music Company is offering this FREE holiday percussion ensemble piece, an arrangement of "Sleigh Ride". For so many of us who have little to no budget to work with this school year, this could be a blessing! The PDF file contains separate pages for all of the parts, as well as a conductor's score.

You can also download a free e-book of seven other percussion pieces, compliments of Kevin Tuck.

Birthday!!

2011-09-14T00:50:00.002-04:00

Well, now I am officially a boring adult...today is my 36th birthday, and the greatest and most exciting gift that I've given myself is that I finally paid off my student loans!!!

It's a party up in here!! Help yourself to some "Yoda Cake"!

or perhaps a "Yoda Cookie" is more your style?

Worthy Website for Music Ed: Noteflight

2011-09-12T08:00:00.014-04:00

Noteflight is a fantastic resource for music educators. Noteflight® is an online music writing application that lets you create, view, print and hear music notation with professional quality, right in your web browser. You can work on a score from any computer on the Internet, share with other users, or embed into your own pages. Anyone can sign up for a free account, or purchase a Noteflight Crescendo enhanced membership. Any of the notation that I've included on my blog to illustrate a rhythm or melody that I use is embedded here from Noteflight.

Back in 1998, I remember struggling mightily with the Finale software at an on-campus computer lab, thinking that I might become the first undergrad to spontaneously combust from sheer frustration with a software program. (Those were the days when I was definitely more "Jar Jar" than Jedi!) While I'm sure that Finale has the bugs worked out of their program these days, I prefer the ease of use with Noteflight, and for all of the purposes I use it for, it is also FREEEE!

Ten Years Ago

2011-09-11T08:00:00.004-04:00

Ten years ago, I was in my third year of teaching, but beginning the first year as a third grade classroom teacher in the small Catholic school that I attended as a child. It was a beautiful sunny Pennsylvania morning and summer still lingered in the air. My students were busily humming in their newly-learned morning routines.

Our principal rapped on the door and beckoned me to the hall, where she had also summoned the other three teachers on our floor. She explained that two planes had crashed in New York City, and that something seemed to not be quite accidental about the crashes. Promising to keep the teachers posted, she requested that we not share the information with our students.

By lunch, we learned of the crashes in Shanksville, PA and at the Pentagon. Parents had begun calling the school for their children to be released to them, and some were arriving at the school to take their children home. My husband, who was in Michigan, called me and was incredulous that school was not dismissed early. My thought was that when you feel that a plane may drop out of the sky at any time, it made no difference to me if we were in or out of school. It felt unsafe everywhere.

In the afternoon, we still told the children nothing. Our principal felt that the parents would want to explain the events of the day to their children. My remaining students wondered at our dwindling class by the end of the day. "Must be a lot of dentist appointments", a few of them said. Our principal gathered the school near the end of the day for an impromptu rosary for a purpose that the students would understand later.

After dismissal, we went home to the flood of news coverage; planes hit the buildings over and over, dust-covered New Yorkers walking home in hoards, and the first responder's reports of despair. I asked my Grandpa if this day was similar to the attack on Pearl Harbor, and he said it was, but that they had had much less information back then.

The next day and in the days that followed, my students were eager to talk and share their feelings about the event. They were positive that it meant that our country would be at war. As a teacher, I felt unprepared. Reading and math were easy to prepare; this was something different. So many of their questions I couldn't answer, so often I was stumbling for a response to their ideas; it was all uncharted territory. We began some patriotic busywork: painting flag pins to wear (I still have mine and wore it to school Friday, with thoughts of that group of kids, who are currently college freshmen!), making patriotic window displays (they said "Be Brave" and "Be Strong"), and writing letters to the military.

Other teachers that day felt the uncertainty of their convictions. Sometimes situations in teaching can blindside us, and we are left feeling our way through in a fog. Did we do the right thing? I don't know. What could have we done differently? I don't know that either...

Mystery Singers: How the Legend Began

2011-09-09T08:00:00.011-04:00

One of the best ideas I ever came up with was the "Mystery Singer". In my building, Mystery Singers are a great way to promote our music program, and they enthusiastically perform for the school each Friday morning.

Once upon a time, almost five years ago, our principal was spending long hours digging in the earth around our school. No, foul play is not a part of this mystery story, he was searching for a long-overdue-to-be-exhumed time capsule, which was buried in the spring of 1986. The expiration on this capsule was 20 years, and it was late fall of 2006 before our principal finally unearthed it. I missed the big day, along with the assembly that followed because I was on maternity leave with my second child. Among other treasures of the 80s was an original school song, composed by a previous music teacher. On my first day back to school after my maternity leave, the copy of the song landed on my desk, along with a request to "do something with it."

Hmmm. OK, then. What to do? I didn't want to take a lot of class time to teach the song, because I wanted there to be a purpose for learning the song. But, it didn't seem like a good song for a performance either...Then I started thinking about a first grade teacher I knew who had parents be "Mystery Readers" and surprise their children by coming to the class to read a book. Could "Mystery Reader" become "Mystery Singer"???

Mystery Singers version 1.0 started out with adult volunteers, and boy, was it DIFFICULT to convince adults to sing the school song as a solo on the morning announcements for the school to hear! My volunteers who started the Mystery Singers were our security guard, physical education teacher, one third grade teacher, one fifth grade teacher, one reading specialist, one brave parent volunteer, and myself. Although each singer was met with great excitement and anticipation by the students, I only averaged one Mystery Singer per month back then! As we limped our way to the end of the year, I knew that I needed to modify the Mystery Singer concept if it was going to continue. Every other staff member made it painfully clear to me that they had NO INTENTIONS, not now or ever, of singing for the school on the morning announcements.

Enter Mystery Singer version 2.0...when it started getting really good! At the beginning of the next school year, I began asking student volunteers to be Mystery Singers. Well, live and learn, I was suddenly SWAMPED with volunteers! Once-a-month Singers became a thing of the past, I then began making Mystery Singers a weekly event. I started introducing new singers each and every Friday morning, and their identities are not revealed until Monday morning when our secretary reveals them on the morning announcements. If the students want to, they give me a clue to their identity that I print and post on the music room bulletin board for the week preceding their performance.

Each new school year begins with the sixth grade volunteers who have not been Mystery Singers yet. Usually, it takes until January/February to work through all of these students, each of them getting a chance week by week. Next, I begin on my fifth grade volunteers, and I have plenty of those to last until the last day of school in June! Any students who do not get a chance as a fifth grader know that I'll be giving them their chance when they return the following year in the sixth grade.

There are so many benefits (some have been unexpected!) to the Mystery Singer program:

Promotes school spirit and unity
Revived an old tradition, and introduced a new one
Students teach each other the school song in oral tradition, week by week, year by year
Involves everyone...about half of my volunteers do not choose to sing in our school chorus, but they don't mind being a Mystery Singer!
Well over half of the volunteers are BOYS! Very surprising!
Gives an unique opportunity for singing in front of a group, without seeing the group...my fifth and sixth grade students like singing into the microphone alone in a room where they don't have to face the audience!

I recognize each Mystery Singer with an award displayed in the music room until they graduate from our school; then they receive their award at our Sixth Grade Banquet. For some of my students, this may be the only award they receive beyond the "Completion of Studies", which helps them feel more recognized and also promotes our music program.

Today's Clue: Can you guess the singer's identity?

More Great Tips for the Music Education Interview

2011-09-07T08:00:00.003-04:00

As music educators interviewing for a teaching job, we have some special instances that are unlike a classroom teaching job interview. Kelly Riley has written some great Interview Tips for Music Teachers. Miamiflute also gives great insights into the interview process with Interview Questions for Recent College Grads. It is worth checking out these articles to get that extra edge we all need in an interview situation.

Teacher Attitudes: What makes an impression on your students?"

2011-09-05T08:00:00.005-04:00

Recently, I attended an excellent workshop for cooperating teachers at Slippery Rock University. Part of the presentation included a discussion panel of five university students, ready to embark on their student teaching assignments this fall. The students answered a series of questions about their needs, skills they want to improve, and concerns that they will bring to the student teaching experience. Finally, the students were asked about attributes of their own most memorable teachers.

The most memorable teachers who left a lasting impression:

made learning fun, and applied real-world situations to the class. The example given was a third grade teacher who ran a school store to give practice in buying and making change.
were energetic and enthusiastic about the subject they taught. Their excitement was contagious for their students.
had a good personality and added humor to the class in appropriate ways which made the students more comfortable in their classroom.
showed a commitment to their students, an interest in the students' well-being and went above and beyond the call of duty to help out. The example given in this case was that the student admitted that he wasn't particularly good either academically or behavior-wise in his middle-school years. His band teacher made a point to seek him out and took time after school to meet with him in the band room to work on homework because he knew that the student wasn't working on it at home. An enormous tribute was made to this anonymous teacher to a room filled with teachers, and he may never know the impact he made on turning a student's life around.
made personal connections with the student. They made a point to get to know the students' families very well which helped to keep pathways of communication open.
were approachable. Their students knew they would help them with anything.

In all of these cases, it was the teacher's attitude (undoubtedly postive) made the lasting impression. What do you think? What are/were the attributes of your most memorable teacher?

September Music Education Blog Carnival!

2011-09-03T17:06:00.001-04:00

Sing Imagination is hosting the Music Education Blog Carnival for the month of September... and one of my posts is included!!! Sweet!

As if our minds aren't swimming in enough to think about at this back-to-school time, Yoon presents a plethora of terrific resources for music education, music technology, music advocacy, music listening and performance review, music hardware/software, and music tips/learning reflection. I can't wait to start reading, I just have to find the time! Please check out the carnival!

Children's Literature for Music Ed: "One Little, Two Little, Three Little Apples"

2011-09-01T08:00:00.016-04:00

Here is a well-known counting tune ("Ten Little Indians" or "Michael Finnigan") re-written by Matt Ringler for a fall apple harvest theme. "One Little, Two Little, Three Little Apples" is nice and calming for the last five minutes of your class when you want your students to be winding down.

This book is appropriate for your students in Preschool, Kindergarten, and First grade, and fits in nicely with a fall/apple/harvest theme. The counting repetitions are also going to be helpful for use with your special needs students.

The two children in the story-song are apple picking with their parents and grandfather, and while Mom and Dad are preparing an apple pie, Grandpa and the kids go back outside for some fall fun: jumping in leaves and playing ball. When the pie is finished, the entire family enjoys eating freshly baked apple pie.

Here are some of my ideas for incorporating this book in your music class:

Reinforcing counting to ten forwards and backwards is a big part of the story, so be sure that your students are counting and singing along with you!

Use ten play apples, magnet apples, or real apples as you count and sing the song. If you have a paraprofessional to assist you, they can model counting out the apples as you sing the song. If you do not have a helper, then demonstrate counting out the ten apples before you begin with the book. After demonstrating, select students to help count out the apples.

Practice echo-singing on the unfamiliar verses of the story song.

If you used real apples, you could cut them up and give each student a slice at the end of the class. (Check for any student food issues beforehand.)

Teacher Attitudes: Gratitude

2011-08-31T08:00:00.005-04:00

I've been thinking about gratitude in the past few days, and especially how it applies to teaching. I live in an area where teaching jobs have been historically hard to land...we have many universities in our state and many graduates with education degrees with a desire to stay in-state. With the economy as dismal as it has been, and with a governor slashing the education budget, teaching jobs are EXTRA scarce these days.

Gratitude is what I feel to be working in my field, when so many are not. Gratitude is what I feel when I look into the summer-tanned faces of my students who have grown a little older since I've last seen them, and gratitude is what I feel as I begin to learn the names of every student in my new school assignment. Gratitude is abundant as I begin my thirteenth year in education with fresh new ideas to add to the old ones, and at the same time help to guide a newly hired teacher and a student teacher both just beginning their teaching careers.

If you are beginning this year as a teacher with some years under your belt, try to remember the excitement of the first teaching job, the anticipation of the beginning of the first school year spent teaching, and the hours spent in classroom preparation long before you ever saw the first paycheck. Combine with those feelings the Jedi-master calmness that comes from confidence that you have done this well before, and you will surely suceed again. Adding the wisdom of years in the classroom to the enthusiasm of the beginner will make you a dynamic teacher who will make a strong impact on your students.

If you are a new teacher this year, congratulations! Remember that you are lucky to be in your teaching position and that your students are counting on you to have a great year. This year you will make mistakes, and that's OK...your students will forgive you because you are showing them you are human. Show your students that they matter to you, and when they misbehave, don't take it personally because you never know what sort of situation they are dealing with outside of school.

And now, to all teachers, "Much to learn, you still have", so let's start with learning our new student's names!

Hydration

2011-08-27T08:00:00.005-04:00

This school year my schedule is especially jam-packed...so I bought an extra-big water jug!

I'm noticing some pros and cons already...I like the size (there is so little time for refills with my packed schedule) and it really does keep the water cold all day long, but I need to find a secure place for it in my car so it stops rolling around as I make turns! My next car needs a 52oz. cup holder, I guess...

And no, it's not coffee (as my students think) in my monster mug, (nor any alcoholic beverage, like some of my colleagues may suggest!) it is really for my water that I drink constantly throughout the day.
Drinking lots of water is something I've always done to stay healthy and to hydrate my vocal cords. Every new music teacher needs to get on board with keeping their hydration adequate. So, if you are leaving the college world with a Mountain Dew/Coke/Pepsi/coffee/Monster/RockStar habit, try swapping out a few of those drinks with a big jug of water. Little by little, you may be able to wean yourself off the caffeine and your body (and teeth!) will thank you for it!*

*OK, those teeth pictures were even sicker than I thought possible! But, if it was enough to shock you into reaching for some ice water instead of "Doin' the Dew", then my mission is complete.

Music Questions for Games

2011-08-26T16:19:00.002-04:00

My students love to play games in music, and they get quite competitive in the process! Having a set of music questions on index cards on hand is very useful; I can use them with any game (music football, music baseball, etc.) that I dream up to play in music.

If you get these prepared early in the school year, then you will be ready for any game that you want to include in your classes for the entire school year! (Forethought=timesaving=good!)

I like to give the students two choices of answers to pick from; that way they have a 50/50 chance at success, which adds to the fun. Here are some examples of questions I use for grades 5 and 6, taken straight from our music series and curriculum:

1. Very soft means __________.
piano or pianissimo?
2. The location of a tone with respect to its highness or lowness is _____. pitch or ostinato?
3. A large group of singers is a _______.
chorus or crowd?
4. A composition for two performers is a _____.
diatonic or duet?
5. A style of folk music from the Caribbean that tells a story about an event or experience is _____.
Calypso or Gamelan?
6. Medium loud is _______.
mezzo fortissimo or mezzo forte?
7. The part of the song that repeats using the same melody and words is the _____.
coda or refrain?
8. Music that supports the sound of the featured performer is _____.
dynamics or accompaniment?
9. Music written for small groups, often having only one voice or instrument for each part is _____.
cartoon music or chamber music?
10. The way movement is organized in music using beat, no beat, long and short sounds, meter, accents, no accents, tempo, syncopation and so on is _____.
rondo or rhythm?
11. The playing or singing of the same notes at the same time is _____.
upbeat or unison?
12. A person who creates music by putting sounds together in their own way is a _____.
composer or singer?
13. A musical composition in which the parts imiate each other; one part begins and the other part follows in a _____.
canon or chord?
14. The musical term for gradually getting louder is _____.
crescendo or fermatata?
15. The "tail end" or short section added a the end of a piece of music is a _____.
forte or coda?
16. A composition written for solo instruements with orchestra is a _____.
contour or concerto?
17. A melody that is played or sung at the same time as the main melody is the _____.
ukelele or countermelody?
18. Music performed in a smooth and connected syle is _____.
forte or legato?
19. The distance from on tone to another is an _____.
intro or interval?
20. Symbol for silence in music is called a _____.
rest or stop?
21. A style of music taht grew out of African-American music is _____.
jazz or classical?
22. The scale on which a piece of music is based, named for its tonic, or home base tone is _____.
meter or key?
23. The musical symbol made up of sharps or flats placed on the staff that defines a key of a piece of music is the _____.
key signature or major scale?
24. Music lpayed before the main part of a compostiion begins is the _____.
introduction or preview?
25. Music performed with stressed or accented notes is ______.
marcato or glissando?
26. Medium soft is _____.
mezzo piano or mezzo poco?
27. A line of single tones that moves upward, downward or repeats is a ______.
melody or dischord?
28. A grouping of beats set off by bar lines is a _____.
measure or motive?
29. A male voice with a range that lies between a tenor and a bass is a _____.
baritone or tuba?
30. The feeling that a piece of music gives is the _____.
mood or motive?
31. Two or more songs that can be sung at the same time to create a harmony are _____.
partner songs or polyphony?
32. Pitched or unpitched instruments tha tare played by striking, scraping or shaking are _____.
percussion or pentatonic?
33. A form of music based on recitation of rhythmic poetry over an incessant beat is _____.
rock or rap?
34. A term used to intdicate unaccompanied choral singing is _____.
alto or a capella?
35. This sign in music would raise a notes pitch by a half step. It is a _____.
sharp or flat?
36. A female voice that has a range of notes below a soprano is called an ______.
alto or bass?
37. Each of the smaller sections (usually 3 or 4) that together make up a symphony, sonata, concerto, string quartet or suite is called a ______.
interlude or movement?
38. In a melody, the span from the lowest tone to the hightest tone is the _____.
range or register?
39. An African American religious folk song that originated during the period of enslavement was a ___.
shanty or spiritual?
40. Then length of sounds from the very short to the very long is the _____.
dynamic or duration?
41. A theatrical production combining drama, vocal and orchestral music, constumes, scenery and sometimes dance is an _____.
opera or outrageous play?
42. The term for gradually getting softer is _____.
"shutyourtrap" or decrescendo?
43. This symbol (>) indicates that a note should be sung or played with more emphasis than the other notes. It is called a _____.
accent or articulation?
44. A continuous movement from one pitch to another is called a _____.
leap or glissando?
45. This symbol (f) means loud. It it ______.
fortissimo or forte?
46. The overall structure or plan of a piece of music is the _____.
form or mood?
47. To make up the music while you are performing is to _____.
pretend or improvise?
48. The degrees of loudness and softness of sound is _____
dynamics or key?
49. To decorate the melody of a song and take freedom with the rhythm is to _____.
embellish or show off?
50. A jazz vocal style in which syllables are used instead of words is ______.
scat singing or scoot singing?

Kick the new school year off right...with Music Football!

2011-08-24T17:37:00.005-04:00

I like to start the school year off with a review game for my older students (4th, 5th, and 6th grades)...and what better game for the fall season than (American) Football...although I've tweaked the rules to review musical vocabulary or instruments that the students can identify.

Making the football field by hand was a big time investment when I made the first one (about 10 years ago!), but today I think that I'd take a simpler route and use Google Image to find a simple view of a football field such as the one pictured here. I'd then blow it up using a color copier and laminate it for durability. The game board that I use for my classroom is roughly 2 1/2 feet by 6 feet.

Music Football Game

Objective: Explore different choices the students will have to play instruments this year. Play a Musical Football game to practice identifying the instruments, first by sight, and then by sound.

Procedure:

· Students will divide into teams.

· Students will begin by individually identifying pictures of the instruments. If they answer correctly, they move their team's marker 10 yards on the football game board.

· When a team reaches the touchdown zone, they score 6 points for their team. If the student for the winning score can throw a football into the garbage can, they score an extra point.

· After identifying all of the pictures, the students will identify the sounds of the instruments, using the CD.

· The game continues for the remainder of the class period. The team with the most points wins, although in the case of a tie, we have had a "field goal shoot out" for a tie-breaker!

Here is my handmade music football game,
complete with field goal (garbage can!) on lower right!

Fabric Maps

2011-08-23T21:46:00.001-04:00

Check out these USA map and World map panels of fabric at JoAnn Fabrics!

I've been covering bulletin boards in fabrics for quite a few years now, and I use maps often in class to track where the music we are studying originated from. These two products combine using maps and fabric coverings for bulletin boards...win-win!!

These are useful year round and with all grade levels of students as we pin-point the places that our music is from. The USA map also includes state capitals, which is great reinforcement for our fourth graders who will be memorizing state capitals this year.

Fabric for Bulletin Board Coverings

2011-08-22T22:05:00.004-04:00

(This is a new one I bought for this school year!)

A few years back, I started using fabric to cover my bulletin boards, and I've been so happy with the results. Using fabric for bulletin boards beats paper by far because it is:

Much easier to hang.
Fades less than paper (but also depends on the fabric).
Looks more appealing and interesting.
More durable than paper (you won't be re-hanging it year after year).
Widely available in many musical patterns.

Yes, I know that buying fabric for bulletin boards may go against my efforts to always "make $ense" (or save money). My school does provide the paper, after all. But, I believe that when you do something very well, you save yourself time in the future because you won't have to re-do it. This is an area where I think that spending the extra money is worth it in the long run. This will be the seventh year for many of my fabrics, and they still look great...paper I used seven years ago would have been torn down and tossed long ago.

Speaking of bulletin boards, have you checked out musicbulletinboards.net? What a great resource for tons of bulletin board ideas to reinforce music! If you are at a loss for ways to cover your bulletin board space and connect your boards to your curriculum, this is a terrific place to start!

Comments?...

2011-08-20T09:17:00.001-04:00

Does anyone under 33 know this guy? Or has the movie been played enough on cable that age doesn't matter?

Have you ever worked with someone as dried up and in need of retirement as this guy? Or were you a student with a crusty teacher?

I think I should make a video of myself for my blog, saying "Comments?... Comments? Comments?..."

Educator or Entertainer?

2011-08-19T09:09:00.004-04:00

"The cardinal sin

of an educator

is to be boring."

-Theodore Roethke

Haven't we all been there? Nodding off at a desk, counting the minutes, doodling in our notebook, watching the clock...(I had a teacher in my pre-cell phone high school days who removed the clock from the room because too many students checked it constantly!) all of these memories conclude that education is not always entertaining.

And that's OK by me. Sometimes it's like taking a bad-tasting medicine..it will make you better in the end. I had a childhood where we didn't have cable TV or video games and we were allowed to be bored, and I believe those experiences stretch the mind into creativity. But, today's kids are not OK with boredom, or anything that doesn't smack of pure entertainment. I have watched a student of mine come into the classroom, plunk himself in a seat, and announce immediately, "I'm bored!" before the class even began! Talk about a tough crowd...

How can we strike the balance between entertainment and education? In the music education world, we do have an advantage; our subject IS fun. If we remember not to take the "special" out of special subjects, our classes can be an oasis of activity in a day filled with standardized test-aligned instruction, which has taken the "fun" out of a lot of classroom teaching.

We can also help "stretch" our students to be able to persevere in activities that may not be entertaining, but nonetheless help them grow. Learning a new instrument isn't easy, as they will find the skill doesn't happen instantly, but it will happen with practice. We can challenge our young students to quietly listen to music for 30 seconds, then gradually lengthen that time, and work on verbalizing descriptions of what they heard.

No teacher starts out with the dream of being the "Beuller?... Beuller?...." type of teacher, am I right? We chose education because there was an element of the entertainer in us, the type that likes to be in front of the group getting a good reaction from the crowd. Striking the balance between the entertainer and the educator is where the beauty of good teaching lies.

What do you think of Roethke's quote? Do students need to learn to be bored in order to get creative? Or is it our job to provide constant entertainment? Please share your thoughts.

Substitute Planning...Do it while you're healthy!!

2011-08-15T21:29:00.000-04:00

Back to school season is here again, and when setting up your classroom, please don't forget to plan ahead for the inevitable day when you might not make it to school because of illness. Beginning teachers are especially prone to picking up sicknesses going around because they haven't built up an immunity. So, your sick self is going to thank you sometime mid-winter when you don't have to haul yourself out of bed in sub-zero temps to get to school to set up for a sub!

When it comes to sub plans, keep it simple! Most of the time your sub will not be a music specialist, and will not feel comfortable picking up lessons where you left off. My best sub plans include a music game or activity that anyone can teach, or a video that reinforces or extends concepts taught in music.

Here are some good activities to leave in your sub folder:

An easy option activity is for the students to have a "Greatest Hits" day. They get to choose their favorite music from their music series for the sub to play on CD.

Music Bingo is a great activity for grades 3-6. Concepts that can be reinforced with these games include lines and spaces, rhythm, melodies, instruments, composers, solfege, musical styles, and musical symbols. Just be sure to leave chips, cards, and access to a CD player.

Wunderkind Little Amadeus is a great PBS series available on DVD, suitable for grades K-3.

Again from PBS, the Composer's Special DVD series gives a glimse into the lives of six famous composers. Titles include Bach's Fight for Freedom, Bizet's Dream, Liszt's Rhapsody, Strauss: King of Three Quarter Time, Rossini's Ghost, Handel's Last Chance. These movies are appropriate for grades 4-6, as well as middle school grades. They are a little long for our class periods (50 minutes), so you may watch 15-20 minutes on another day so the student's can see the end.

A dance video, such as Everybody Dance! is a fun activity for a sub. This is a good choice for grades K-2 in my school, just because space is limited. If you could provide a large area, this would be a good activity for grades 3-6 as well. This is a good activity because the students all have different levels of knowledge about the Macarena, Electric Slide, etc.
If you are lucky enough to have enough computers in your room to set up stations for online music games, or if you can reserve your school's computer lab for your class ahead of time, these online music education sites are great! Try musiced.about.com for a listing of games and sites, and you can choose from these for grades K-6.
Even if you can't get the students online for games, there are still games that are simple and fun for a sub to facilitate. Check out ehow.com for ideas on simple music class games.

So, remember, don't delay....plan for your sub today! (and thank yourself later!)

Children's Literature: "Punk Farm"

2011-08-14T22:53:00.001-04:00

A while back I introduced "Punk Farm on Tour", and now I'm happy to share that my copy of "Punk Farm" has arrived and is ready for use in my music classes! And if my own children are any indication, my students are really going to enjoy this one!

While "Punk Farm on Tour" was a remake of "The Wheels on the Bus", this book is an updated version of "Old MacDonald", written by Jarrett J. Krosoczka. In the story, we meet the band as a innoculous group of farm animals, but when Farmer Joe goes back to the farmhouse for the evening...look out! These animals are ready to rock a packed house in the barn!

Here are some of my ideas for incorporating the book in music classes for young children:

Just as in "Punk Farm on Tour", getting the kids on board with this book is going to depend on the delivery of the reader...so don't be afraid to be silly, adopt different "rocker" voices for the animals, and really rock out for the singing parts. Also, whichever book you introduce first is going to get the children excited for the next one, because they will know what to expect.

And again, a challenge is going to be for the students to have fun with the song, but not to be out of control with silliness so that the song stops being musical and just descends into chaos. To help balance their exuberance, I warn them about this in a fun way before beginning the book.

The song's new lyrics imitate the sounds of the instruments that each of the animals play. It's a good idea to introduce the sounds of the instruments (drum set, electric guitar, electric bass, and keyboards) to your students before you begin so that together you can decide how to imitate the instrument sounds using your voices. If you have a Music Bingo game, you can use the CD to play the sounds for the students (just in case you don't have your rock instruments/amps on hand!)

This is also a good time to decide on any movement you may want to incorporate as well. Deciding and reviewing voice and movements as a class will cut down on a lot of chaos and silliness because the students will know just what to do.

For your youngest students, you may want to match up pictures of who plays what on the board before you begin so they can follow along with the verses.

Cow/drum set
Pig/electric guitar
Chicken/keyboards
Goat/bass

The book is also a good opportunity to discuss timbre of the musical instruments and discuss which instrument family each belongs in.

As incentive for good behavior during the reading of the book, I choose 5 students to be the "band", and perform "air guitar, air drums, and air keyboards" while we review singing the song.

Building a Partnership Between Music and Reading Skills

2011-08-13T01:04:00.000-04:00

Encorporating reading is natural in early childhood music education, but sometimes finding appropriate literature is not. We want to be sure that both reading skills and music skills are being addressed by incorporating a particular book. You will know that the balance is met when you can identify specific music objectives being met at the same time as reading skills are reinforced.

Also, building a library of children's literature appropriate for reinforcing music is challenging to a new teacher because of the expense of purchasing the books. Here are some of my thrify tips for picking up quality books on the cheap:

I purchased many of my books through Scholastic when I was a classroom teacher. If you are not a classroom teacher, ask some friendly classroom teachers in your building if you can take a look at their book order to see what they have to offer.
Amazon is my go-to choice for books of all kinds, and I prefer to buy the used books because the price can be as low as $0.01! Shipping is $3.99, but it is still a good deal to get a specific book that I want to use in my classes. Barnes and Noble also offers used books on their site, but I have not used them because I've always been satisfied with Amazon.
Other teacher's cast-offs are another place to search, and they are FREE. In every building I've ever worked in, there has been a spot where teachers place the materials that they no longer use in hopes that someone else will find a use for them. It's worth a look...and if you don't end up using the book, it can always go back in the pile for someone else!
Library sales are another economic choice for children's books, and you get to browse the books in person, unlike Scholastic book orders or online ordering.
Borrowing from the library is a good idea if you aren't sure if the book will be one that you want. If you borrow it, you can give it a "trial run" in a few music classes with your students to see if it's one that you want to invest in for your library. If it's not the "hit" you hoped it would be, then you can just return it to the library (hopefully, on time!)

"Where Children Sleep"

2011-08-12T13:33:00.002-04:00

Documentary photographer James Mollison recently published a photo book entitled "Where Children Sleep" which developed from his idea that a photo of someone's bedroom can reveal much more about them than a portrait ever could. The book gives a fascinating view into the personal lives of children, and is an especially stark compare/contrast tool for the "haves" and the "have-nots" around the world. (And the pictures are going to be excellent as an extension to our "Hello to All the Children of the World" song in the Third Grade "Share the Music" series.)

Imagine if all of your students arrived at school with a picture of their sleeping place in hand. In our communities, we would likely see a very diverse a group of rooms, and some may be just as startling as "Where Children Sleep". Understanding just where our students are coming from is a big step in a new teacher's understanding of their students, and a useful reminder to teachers to use patience with our students. This is why many school districts have begun to incorporate the home visit. More ideas on home visits can be found here and here.

However, many teachers will not have an opportunity to make the connection of a home visit, and we have to be careful to not jump to conclusions based on a "snapshot" view of a student's world. It is not correct to draw the conclusion that the child who has a room stacked floor to ceiling with toys has a loving and supportive home life, any more than we can say that every child living in poverty is neglected. What we do need to remember in our day to day interactions with our students is that there is a reason behind every child's behavior, and many of the reasons we may never know. In education we MUST be the steady positive influence in their lives, and in that role we may be supporting what the child learns in the home, or we may be the only stable positive role model in their experience.

Children's Literature for Music Ed: "Punk Farm on Tour"

2011-08-04T22:18:00.000-04:00

Here's another new gem I picked up at the library to peruse for the new school year, and I think it's going to be a winner with the little ones...."Punk Farm on Tour"! Written and illustrated by Jarrett J. Krosoczka, this book is actually a sequel to "Punk Farm" (I'll be checking that one out soon!)

One of the many elements I like about this book is that it combines a story with a song...and the story is one that my young students are going to enjoy! Farmer Joe is off for the Tractor Conference in Reno, and the Punk Farm band (Sheep: lead vocals, Chicken: keyboards, Cow: drums, Pig: guitar, & Goat: bass) is going on their first big tour, complete with issues with their van, the weather, and a rush to get back to the farm before Farmer Joe.

Here are some of my ideas to incorporate this book in music classes:

Getting the kids on board with this book is going to depend on the delivery of the reader...so don't be afraid to be silly, adopt different "rocker" voices for the animals, and really rock out for the singing parts.
A challenge is going to be for the students to have fun with the song, but not to be out of control with silliness so that the song stops being musical and just descends into chaos. To help balance their exuberance, I warn them about this in a fun way before beginning the book.
The song's new lyrics: "The wheels on the van go round and round..., the wipers on the van go swish, swish, swish...., the tires on the van go pop, pop, pop..., the engine in the van goes clank, clank, clank...." The words, along with some pictures, can be enlarged on the board so that the students can easily join in the repetitive lyrics.
The old standby hand movements can be incorporated into the song, and new inventive movements can be added for the "popping" and "clanking".
Classroom musical instruments can be used for sound effects for each new verse.
As incentive for good behavior during the reading of the book, I choose 5 students to be the "band", and perform "air guitar, air drums, and air keyboards" while we review singing the song.
To simplify for the youngest students, I would present the word/image in pairs on four posterboards to show the order of the song (1. wheels/van 2. wipers/van 3. tires/van 4. engine/van). This will also help them remember the movements. Here are some images you can easily cut and paste to help your students recognize and read the lyrics to the song:

van

wheels

wipers

tires

engine

What are some of your ideas for including "Punk Farm on Tour" in music class? Please share!

The Networked Teacher

2011-08-03T00:39:00.005-04:00

Check this out:

When I started teaching in 1999 (last century!) 64% of this would have been very puzzling. At that time, I could have told you how to use exactly five of these networks for educational purposes. (I was fresh out of undergrad; chat was soooo not used for educational purposes on my campus!) Can you believe how lucky we are to have instant access to so much information? As teachers, we should be more efficient and better educated than anyone who has come before us! Is it any wonder that our brains are feeling a little fried??! And I know I'm not alone in blaming technology for my lack of sleep; each night after my children are tucked in, I'm online waaay too long at night, and I'll admit, it's not always for professional reasons!

This graphic was part of a dissertation by Alec Couros on Open Source Culture, which "usually refers to a condition where cultural artifacts are made generally available to all citizens. Participants in an open source culture have the right to use and modify shared artifacts, but are usually required to redistribute these items back into the community if there are changes or improvements. Open source culture is unique in the sense that it is recursive; its basic tenet is that the culture itself is based upon the sharing and promotion of cultural artifacts."

This speaks to one of the teacher attitudes that is so important: openness. We must be open to share with our colleagues and our students, and at the same time we must also be open to receive suggestions and to explore new ideas. Our ability to be open, sharing, and collaborative with each other should come only from the desire to help improve ourselves, our colleagues, our schools, and our student's learning. It is so simple to connect today via social media, why can't we put this tool to work in our professional lives as well? We can widen our influence as well as gain information from new sources. Teachers cannot miss this opportunity to enliven and enrich their teaching. Part of our ongoing professional development must be to employ these networks.

At the time of his writing in 2006, Couros considered Open Source Culture to be at the beginnning stages of infiltrating mainstream education, with the educational technology teachers taking the lead. Five years later, would you consider teachers to be fully networked? Which of the networks do you find most useful? Please take my poll on the networks...it is located on the bottom left of the main page.

And back to my lack of sleep, how do we find a balance in these activities? It would be possible to spend inordinate amounts of time on that "Networked Teacher" wheel. Should I try the "timer method"* on myself? Suggestions are always welcome!

* I set my oven timer so that my son knows when to stop playing wii.

Children's Literature for Music Education: "Rap a Tap Tap: Here's Bojangles-Think of That!"

2011-08-02T12:24:00.001-04:00

"Rap a Tap Tap: Here's Bojangles-Think of That!" by Leo and Diane Dillon is a terrific book that I found at my local public library and I plan to utilize it soon in my classroom. The book shares a slice of Bill "Bojangles" Robinson's life, focusing on his street dancing. A simple afterward tells a short biography of Robinson's life. The repetitive rhyme, "Rap a Tap Tap- Think of That!" lends itself to many musical extensions.

One of the many great aspects of including children's literature in music is that there are limitless ideas that we can use in each book. Each teacher is going to think of different activities they can implement so that the book not only reinforces reading skills, but also supports our music curriculum. Our students will often lend their own creative ideas when given a chance, so don't forget to ask them!

Here are some of my ideas on how I will include this book in music class:

The book is used best in kindergarten, first, or second grade
Younger students can clap the rhythm of "Rap a Tap Tap-Think of That!" each time it repeats, and they can also play the rhythm on instruments. Older students can use iconic or musical notation to represent the rhythm of the repeating rhyme.
Students can devise a body percussion pattern to accompany the rhyme.
Enlarge some of the images and pages from the book, so that the high frequency words become part of the environmental print in your music classroom.
My district uses the "Making Music" series from Silver Burdett, and this ties in nicely with tap dancing which is explored in the Grade 2 book. "Making Music" goes in depth with an interview of a cast member from "Tap Dogs". Children could explore the comparison/contrast between Bojangles' style of tap dancing and the more modern "Tap Dogs", after viewing some excerpts from each, easily obtained from YouTube.
A really positive aspect of the introduction of these two different generations of tap dancers is that all of the performers are male. Many of my student's only experiences with tap dance leave them with the impression that tap dance is only for girls and dance recitals. Seeing the dancers in these groups in action reinforces the statement from our series, "Male dancers are great athletes."
Tap Dogs video:

Bill "Bojangles" Robinson video:

Do you have other ideas for using this book in your music classes? If so, please share!