Make Your Own: "Ribbon Wands"

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.

Happy Birthday, Dr. King!

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.

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

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:

What are we doing today?

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!)

Seasonal Bulletin Boards

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!

Quiet!

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.

Great Expectations

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".

Worthy Website for Music Ed: Creating Music

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:

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

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:

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

"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: