Bulletin Board Freebie!

So, I have come to the conclusion that one can be quite productive while procrastinating! I really need/want to spend some time revamping my program with new unit and lesson ideas. I opened my laptop today with the intentions of working on that and instead ended up creating visuals for a September Bulletin Board. Yeesh!

One of the amaaaaazing teachers at my school (The Reading Corner) suggested using Powerpoint to create visuals, handouts and posters instead of Word because you can move things and format so much easier! I LOVE IT! 

Below is my take on Music "Mooves" Me! You can actually buy posters for a Music Moves Me bulletin board from Music Bulletin Boards if you prefer. Here are some photos of what I created (although I haven't put up my bulletin board yet... more photos to come of that). Thanks to my friend Sean, also a Music teacher, who added three posters to my original creation! Here is the pdf for the bulletin board Title Letters in cow font.

Here is the pdf for the Bulletin Board Moo Posters! 

These are some pics of two out of the twelve posters.

I also teach music lessons that incorporate the books "Clack, Clack, Moo" by Doreen Cronin, published by Simon and Schuster (click here for an online version of the book) and "How to Speak Moo" by Deborah Fajerman, published by Red Fox. I will be pulling those out for the Fall!

Can't wait to get my bulletin board up! 

-Steph

Blogging Awards

Thank-you so much for those of you who have been checking out my new blog! Special thanks to an amazing grade 1 teacher at my school, Ms. St. Laurent, who has an awesome blog and who nominated me for a Liebster Blog Award! Check out her creative ideas and incredible classroom at The Reading Corner! Thank-you also to Alex at the The School Potato who nominated me for a One Lovely Blog Award! Her blog is so cute and is full of great ideas!

I nominate the following blogs for the Liebster Blog Award:
1. Renee at The Reading Corner
2. Alex at The School Potato
3. Claire at Learn Me Music
4. Jennifer at In My Music Class
5. Kelly at Kelly Riley's Music Classroom

The rules for this award are:
1. Thank the blogger who nominated you and link to their site.
2. Present 5 other bloggers who have less than 200 followers the award by commenting on their blog and link to their site.

I nominate the following blogs for the One Lovely Blog Award:
1. Renee at The Reading Corner
2. Alex at The School Potato
3. Claire at Learn Me Music
4. Jennifer at In My Music Class
5. Kelly at Kelly Riley's Music Class
6. Elementary Music Teacher
7. Mrs. King at Mrs. King's Music Room
8. Vicki at Vandals and Prophets
9. Liz at The Mindful Music Teacher
10. Beth at Beth's Music Notes
11. Brittany at Sweet Seconds
12. Music Class Ideas
13. Mrs. Dennis at Music With Mrs. Dennis
14. Sing a New Song
15. Will at Interactive Whiteboard Music

The rules for this award are:
1. Follow the person you gave you the award.
2. Link back to the person who gave you the award.
3. Pass the award to 15 new bloggers.

Check these blogs out!
This blogging thing is so fun!

-Steph

Outcome Silhouettes

There are so many great self assessment and reflection ideas out there for classroom teachers to use with their students. I beleive reflection is an essential part of learning, but as a specialist I struggle with coming up with different ways to incorporate this into Music with only 30 minute classes!

Something that I did try this past school year was my outcome silouettes! I created these because I wanted students to understand what we were working towards in Music.

I had seven students, one from each grade, come to the Music room where we traced a body outline of each student onto bulletin board paper. We cut out each body outline and then painted the edges with black paint. There were 7 bodies in total, all different sizes and colours and each representing a different grade from Kindergarten to grade 6. I then typed up keywords for each grade from the general and specific learning outcomes of our Manitoba K-8 Music Curriculum, such as beat, cross over bordun, improvising, music of different times, etc. I printed the words, cut them and laminated them. The laminated words were glued onto the silouettes according to grade.

I posted all seven silouettes on the wall from smallest to largest, which was also from Kindergarten to grade 6. At the end of most Music classes this year I would take 2-5 minutes at the end of class to point out and discuss what we had focused on during that class. We would take a sticker, red for one class, blue for the other , and put a sticker on each outcome that we had worked on. Sometimes I would ask students what the class needed to improve on, what was challenging, what sounded really great and why, and other discussion questions.

I found the outcome silhouettes very valuable this year! Having the different grades posted on the wall was great because students could see what was to come in future years and we sometime made connections between what we were working on and what older students were doing. The silhouettes were also useful when students were waiting in line for the classroom teacher. We would fill a couple of minutes by checking out the silhouettes.

In September, I am trying the same idea of posting outcomes, but instead of having them posted in silhouettes, I have something different in mind. I will keep you posted!

-Steph

A New Toy... Smartboard!

A few months ago I got a brand new Smartboard in my classroom! Before school was finished in June, I was able to try a few fun games with the kids that focus on music literacy. Here is what we tried out.

STAFF WARS!

My students absolutely love this. I even had students come back the next day and say that they had played the game at home on their own! I love tricking students into learning... muuahahaha.

The game works by choosing a mission first. We always choose treble clef. Press the start button and go! As a note travels across the screen on the staff, a student must  press the correct note name. If a note name is incorrectly identified, the note explodes! As the levels increase, so does the speed of the travelling note! It is so exciting!

I observed another music teacher in my division do this with her class. She is amazing and incorporates Smartboard activities into her lessons on a regular basis! I follow her model for how we organize the game. I have all the students stand in a line, one behind the other in front of the board. Each student gets a turn and then goes to the back of the line. After everyone has had a turn for practice, I split them up into 2 teams and each team plays until their 3 video game lives are finished. The team with the most points wins!

Staff Wars can be downloaded for free at www.themusicinteractive.com. Other ideas for technology in the Music room are there too. Check it out!

KOOSHBALL RHYTHMS!

There is a great wiki at http://mustech.pbworks.com. It has tons of ideas and lessons for technology in Music. My grade 1 students loved practicing their tas and titis by playing the Kooshball Rhythms. Each student had a turn at throwing the Kooshball at one of the circles on the Smartboard and then a rhythm would pop up that the class would clap and read aloud. I had to try a few different types of balls on the Smartboard first because I didn't want to break our new toy!

BLOB CHOIR!

I found this game on a fantastic blog called Technology Rocks, Seriously. I haven't played it with students yet but I think it would be so fun for ear training and matching pitch. This could be helpful for students to understand what matching pitch and not making pitch actually sounds like. I find that some students really don't understand what that means and don't hear it when they themselves are singing.

Three individual examples are sung by the three little "blobs". Finally the big "blob" sings and students are to match the correct little "blob" pitch. I do think that the students would have more success if they were able to hear the big "blob" pitch first, but I will try it out with students in the Fall and let you know how it goes!

Try some of these out and let me know what you think! Please feel free to share Smartboard activities and other technology ideas that you have! I would love some ideas!

- Steph

Wowza, It's Finally Done!

Finally! After hours and hours of reading and watching tutorials, testing things out and googling for answers... my blog is up and running! I am trying it out! I am brand-spanking new to blogging, but I am also pretty new at following blogs, especially teaching blogs! Any suggestions? I would love to follow you!

-Steph