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.

Audition Help (always wanted!)

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!

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!

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:

1. Contact the t-shirt business and ask them to develop three samples of designs for the students to choose from.
2. The students vote on their favorite shirt design and also vote on a color.  (This year multi-color tie dye won the vote!)
3. 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.
4. Collect order forms and money.
5. When orders are complete, and money is collected, submit order and payment to the t-shirt business.
6. When shirts arrive, distribute to the excited students!
7. 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:

1. 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.
2. Learn the return/remake policy of the t-shirt business, in case of shirts not fitting properly, or if students order the wrong size.
3. 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.

Spaghetti Conducting

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.

Caroling (in the school setting)

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.

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.

Worthy Websites for Music Ed: "Metronome Online"

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.

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".

Mystery Singers: How the Legend Began

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"???

Music Questions for Games

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:

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

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.

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: