Five Favorite Pins of September!

Thanks to Aileen at Mrs. Miracle's Music Room for hosting Five Favorite Pins of September! Here are my five favourite (note the Canadian spelling :) ) pins of September! I hope Aileen does one for October too! I love this idea for a Linky Party! Please check out the other blogs that have linked up!

1. Musical Groceries Centre

Click on the link to go directly to Ashley Queen's blog for teachers. It is EXCELLENT! This is a cute and fun centre using fake fruit to create rhythm patterns.

2. Rhythm Cubes

This rhythm cube idea is a great pin and is originally from Music a la Abbott. Can't wait to make these bad boys.

3. Parts of a Listener Poster

I want this for my room! Check out the pin, originally pinned from Andrea Knight on Teachers Pay Teachers.

4. Awesome Bulletin Board

I love this idea. I wish I had a big bulletin board outside my room for this one. The original pinner is not named. If this is your board, let me know so I can recognize you!

5. Online Metronome

This is cool and could be used in conjunction with my Tempo Cat posters and my Tempo Turn!

Happy pinning and thanks again for the Linky Party Aileen!

Sweet Dollar Store Finds!

I was so inspired the other day by my good friend Renee over at 

The Reading Corner. She found some really great dollar store finds! 

So good, that I decide to take a little trip to Dollarama myself!

Here's what I found!

1. Mini Hockey Nets.  

 My brother was obsessed with mini sticks growing up! I have many students who are also hockey lovers. Wouldn't it be fun to make a hockey target shot game out of these and have rhythms hanging as targets? Oooooo the possibilities!

2. Cd Cases

I thought I would adapt my Note Name Battleship game to fit into a CD case! Neato! I was looking for folders for that purpose and found these instead! 

3 for $1! Woot woot! I'll try it out and let you guys know what happens :)

3. Stylus Pen

 I totally copied Renee on this one! I bought a stylus for my new iPad too! Two bucks baby!

4. Ice Cube Trays!

I am most excited about these! Yay! At first glance they just look like ice cube trays, big whoop. But just wait! They can magically turn into tools for students to manipulate rhythm patterns in 4/4, 3/4, and 2/4! I love spying on classroom teacher blogs! I get great ideas from those gems... I've seen word and math work being done with ice cube trays, and thought... "Hmmm, I must have a use for these..."

5. Cute Pencil Case

 Unfortunately, I didn't find a cute iPad case but I did find this super adorable pencil case. I will keep my favourite pens, pencils and markers safe in here!

And ta-da! There ya go, five cool finds from a Dollarama. Love it!

What treasures have you found?

Please comment below and share a fave find that you have bought from a dollar store! 

Music Centre Ideas- Fun for June!

Oh my gosh! I just realized I haven't posted in 3 weeks! Ah!

As things are beginning to wind down, (only 5 days left!) I thought it would be perfect to have the children do centre work. It has been the perfect thing to do in June! 

Grade 1 and 2 students have been doing a rotation of three centres during the last two Music Classes.

#1 ROBOT RYTHMS

Check out the "how to" HERE

#2 NOODLE RHYTHMS

#3 WRITE A RHYTHM

I can't take credit for any of these ideas though! Lego rhythm activities are all over the internet! I've seen many noodle activities on Pinterest, but my favourite is Mrs. King's, over at her blog. And my friend Renee over at      The Reading Corner swears by Dollarstore page protectors for numerous activities in her classroom!

Stay Tuned for the new additions to this week's centres!

-Steph

Tech Tuesday- Online Rhythm Trainer!

Check out this cool online rhythm dictation site! I have this on my school website for kids to practice at home if they want to.

Click HERE for the website!

- Steph

So-mi Fish Assessment FREEBIE!

This was really fun for my little grade 1 students. We finished up our Under the Sea month by demonstrating so-mi. Each student got a so-mi fishbowl and some Goldfish crackers. Students were prepared as they had been practicing notating so and mi with THIS Smartboard activity and by using popsicle sticks together with bingo chips. 

I sang a 4 beat so-mi pattern and the students notated it using their Goldfish and fishbowl. Once I checked their work, they could eat their fish. This was a lot of fun, and a perfect end to our Under the Sea Unit.

Click HERE for the free so-mi fishbowl template. All you need now is some Goldfish! Voila!

- Steph

Techno Tuesday- Smartboard Dictation!

I love using my Smartboard to quickly assess my students' rhythm/melody dictation skills. Keeping with our "Under the Sea" theme in grade 1, I created a simple Smartboard activity where students notate so-mi on my 4 line staff (right before we get to 5 lines) after hearing me sing a short so-mi melody.

Click HERE for the free Smartboard file!

 

 

My grade 4 students were working on identifying "syn-co-pa" (this year I actually started saying "ti-ta-ti" instead) in November. We learned "Canoe Song" to help us achieve our goal. I created a Smartboard activity helping students demonstrate the rhythm of the words in "Canoe Song".

Click HERE for this one!

And last of all today... a super fun one that is just great for practicing ta and ti-ti in a fun way!

Kooshball Rhythms! Click HERE for the Smartboard file. Check out The Music Interactive for more free resources.

 

- Steph

PS- I'm so sorry my files weren't available! Everything is fixed now so click on the Smartboard files and you can open them!

Rhythmic Popsicle Sticks!

I have devoted September to rhythm learning craziness. Since I have been at my school for a few years now, it is has taken less time to go over routines and we have been able to get right down to music learning business!

This past week I taught my grade 2s all about ta-a. We move it with jumps (versus walk=ta and tip-toe=ti-ti), we sing it (I use the traditional "Jim along Josie"), we look at it, we talk about it.

After all of that, the students dictate rhythms that I perform for them. Prior to writing them out, I like for my grade 1 and 2 students to use manipulatives to dictate. 

Popsicle sticks are so easy to use! I have students use them for their tas and ti-tis. I cut pipe cleaners in thirds in order to make circles that will be attached to sticks for ta-as. I also cut pipe cleaners in thirds to make quarter rests. Students have everything they need! 

I find this activity very useful to do formative assessment. It is easier for me to see their work from far away and it takes less time to see who needs help.

I will post a "Jim along Josie" Smartboard activity in the next few days. I want to try it out with my kiddies first!

- Steph