2/4 Tuesday! FREE Halloween printables and rhythm cards!

Welcome back to another 2/4 Tuesday! If you are a blogger, post about 2-4 ideas and link up below! If you are a blog lover, don't forget to check out the great blogs linked up below!

Here are my 2 ideas for this Tuesday!

1. Halloween Rhythm Cards

I love posting these on my "Rhythm Stew" October bulletin board. My students use the rhythm cards to create ostanati and/or create rhythm poems. Find them for FREE HERE!

2. Grade 1 Candy Rhythms

In grade one we sing and play a few songs about trick or treating. Here are some candy rhythms cutouts that are FREE and right HERE!

FREEBIE- DIY Tempo Turn from a Record!

Voila!

Cool, eh?! I love retro stuff and I love the way this Tempo Turn fits my style with neon colours and a record from way back when...

All you have to do is copy the FREE PRINTABLE onto your favourite coloured paper, cut everything out and glue onto a record! I used a brass fastener to attach the spinner arrow in the middle. The hole in the centre of the record is perfect for that! 

Check out how I use the Tempo Turn and Tempo Cat posters in my classroom HERE!

PS- On the printable I have also added rit. and accel. 

Have fun and I hope you like it! 

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!

Monday Music Manipulatives: Jitter Sticks!

Thanks again to Lindsay from Pursuit of Joyfulness for hosting another Manipulative Monday!

Things are crazy, but I wanted to take part in this linky party so I decided to post about JITTERSTICKS! I posted already about these little things that I made, but it was one of my first posts, so I figured most people haven't seen it yet.

I use these all the time as brain breaks for my kids. When they have been sitting a while, I let a student choose a jitter stick. The sticks also end up acting as motivation for kids to stay focused, because they really want a turn to pick a jitter stick out of the can!

Click HERE for the how to!

Click HERE for more Monday Music Manipulatives posts!

Tune in tomorrow for a 2/4 Tuesday!

Monday Music Manipulatives! Found Objects As Music Manipulatives!

I am linking up with Lindsay at Pursuit of Joyfulness for her Linky party!

I'm all for being crafty and making stuff, but for something different I thought I would blog about munipulatives that you actually don't have to make. Random objects that are easy to reinforce singing concepts!

1. Hulahoops

I use hula hoops for helping students internalize melody and lyrics. I place a hula hoop on the ground and have a student stand inside the hula hoop. The rest of the class or choir sings while the student is in the hula hoop. When that student jumps out of the hula hoop everyone needs to sing "inside their heads". It is a blast and the kids love it. It really helps them internalize beat as well.

2. Skipping Rope

I nabbed this idea from one of my amazing university profs. JL, you know who you are :) I still use this with my students to kinaesthetically experience so-mi. The skipping rope is used as the line on the floor and I have one student jump across the skipping rope (slow enough for us to follow), jumping sometimes above the skipping rope line, and sometimes below. We follow along singing so and mi appropriately. The kids get a kick out of this one too.

3. Red and Green Paper

A Jeff and Randy special. Check out the amazing Kriske and DeLelles resources HERE. This is another way to internalize melody and lyrics. I love using this during musical rehearsals when we are doing memory work. Simply have a green piece of paper and a red piece of paper. When the green paper is held up, students sing. When the red paper is up, student sing "inside their heads". Another easy way to get student leaders involved.

4. Ribbon Wand

I love using these to warm up my younger choirs. We do vocal slides that match the movement of the ribbon wand. Once I have demonstrated, I choose a student leader to move the wand and we vocalize appropriately. F.U.N.!

5. Anything Cool to Use as a Baton

I have a a neat light up stick that students use when they are conducting the class. It's pretty cool and it was only a buck from the dollar store. I have also used glow sticks for the same purpose. Super neat.

6. Wooden Puppet Thing

Another Dollarama find, I use my little tiger and clown every year when I teach forte and piano to my kinders. You can get these little push button guys for only a dollar! When the little guy is "sleeping" kids sing piano and when he is "awake" we sing forte.

7. Gadgets Great for Singing

This book is awesome! It is a new one by Christy Elsner, published by Hal Leonard. I just bought it and I am pumped to use it. She shares ideas on how random objects can help singing technique. Her ideas include using Oreos, balloons, building materials and more to reinforce singing technique! Click HERE to check out the resource.

Thanks so much to Lindsay for hosting this great Linky Party! I am excited to see other manipulative ideas! Please click on her blog at the top to check out the other bloggers!

Come on back tomorrow for my Linky Party, 2/4 Tuesday!

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

Cool Find! Mozart Finger Puppet!

I found the coolest thing at a local and amazing toy store, Kite and Kaboodle! A Mozart magnet! And then I picked it up and realized it was also a MOZART FINGER PUPPET! Whaaaaat?! Last one there too! It was my lucky day today!

You can check out finger puppets including Mozart, Beethoven, Veri and Puccini, as well a variety of many others including (Obama, Rosa Parks and Salvador Dali) HERE at the Unemployed Philosophers Guild website. The site is so fun and full of great gift ideas so check it out! My Mozart puppet will be great to use with Fun with Composers resource! Click HERE to see that resource!

My Mozart just loved coming home with me! 

He got along with Lola right away! 

After getting settled in, Wolfgang found my metallophone and started composing...

And playing his compositions for us!

He is so fun that guy! I can't wait for the kids at school to meet him!

- 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