2/4 Tuesday- Exciting Music Apps!

Link up with me for another 2/4 Tuesday! All you have to do is blog about 2-4 ideas and link-up!

I am on the hunt for great music education apps for my new iPad! Here are four apps that I am excited to use in my classroom.

1. Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra APP!

I am really excited about this app because our grade two classes are going to the orchestra this year and will be listening to excerpts from Britten's Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra. Check it out! I will let you know what I think!

2. ABC Music APP

This will be a great one for my little grade one and Kindergarden students. This looks like an app that would really be fun for kids to explore various instruments.

3. Jelly Band 

This looks so fun! I think this would be excellent for my young students to prepare them for Garage Band compositions in grade 6. I plan on using this with my Grade 3 students this year.

4. DoReMi 1-2-3

This looks fantastic for all sorts of reasons! Pitch matching games, composing and more!

I will try this out with my K-2 students.

Has anyone tried these apps out? I am looking for more apps for my older students. Any ideas?

Don't forget to link up and to check out the linked up bloggers!

2/4 Tuesday: FREE Smartboard Rhythms and a Cool Resource!

Welcome back to the 2/4 Tuesday Linky Party!

Yet again I only have 2 things to share!

1. Canoe Song (good for teaching ti-ta-ti, or syn-co-pa) FREE interactive activities

I thought I would share my new and improved Smart notebook file of Canoe song! I use this song with my grade fours to teach ti-ta-ti. We learn the melody and identify the new rhythm and also learn to play the melody for the first time (we played harmony only prior to this). HERE are the slides from the Smart notebook file.

For the first two slides I work with my students to match the proper rhythms with the words to our song.

The second slide is a replica of the worksheets I have my students fill out. They match the rhythm box according to the words of the song and then copy out the rhythm above the words.

After filling out our rhythms independently, we start figuring out the melody of the song on the barred instruments. I cover up the measures and remove them as we go to keep the students focused and to avoid them feeling overwhelmed.

This slide has the completed melody but is still covered up in order to isolate measures as we need.

Hope this helps you with Canoe song! 

2. Criss-Cross Apple Sauce, for teaching ta and ti-ti

I have been using this poem for the last five years (thanks to a former teaching partner) in order to teach ta and ti-ti to my grade ones. They love the poem and they way we use high, medium and low voices. It is fabulous! You can find the poem in this great resource by Doug Goodkin. 

Buy Intery Mintery HERE.

I hope these two ideas are helpful!

Try Thinglink! Way more fun than Powerpoint!

I've fallen in love with Thinglink! It's like interactive Powerpoint. 

I am working on some traditional drumming songs from Ghana with my grade 1 and grade 3 students. I will post about the resource I often use for African drumming later this week. 

It's so important to give students some context when learning songs from different cultures! I will otften show some videos, photos, maps, share stories, etc. to give more meaning and in-depth understanding to what we are learning. Using Thinklink is perfect because you can put all sorts of different information in ONE PLACE!

Here is a photo of the Thinglink I created for students about West African Drumming:

First, I selected a free use photo for my Thinglink. Then, I added touches (those are the question marks). For each touch I could add a link to anything on the internet (videos, definitions, sound clips, photos, etc.) and also include some of my own text.

Click HERE to use my West African Drumming Thinglink with your kids FOR FREE!

Click HERE to join Thinkglink for free and create your own pages to share with your kids!

What did I say~ so much more fun than Powerpoint!

Let me know what you think!

- Steph 

Instrument Match Up- Free Smartboard File and Quiz!

My grade 4 students went to the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra this past week! 

As we were preparing for the field trip, one of their goals was to identify instruments and organize them into the proper instrument families. I created this quick Smartboard group activity to activate their instrument knowledge prior to the concert. 

Click HERE to receive the FREE Smart Notebook file!

With the help of some of our educational assistants, I created bundles of popsicle sticks that were each labeled with an orchestral instrument. Each student practiced grouping the instruments on their own. This was harder for them without the pictures of the instruments, especially since many of my students are EAL learners. 

The following class we reviewed photos and sounds of each instrument, to help them with the instrument words. They did the popsicle stick activity again.

Working on it...

Not quite...

 Ah, there we go... 

After attending the Orchestra concert, I had students do an instrument match up quiz. One page had pictures and once they were finished that sheet, I gave them another match up sheet with the instrument words. 

On the back of the second sheet I had them write and draw a reflection of what they enjoyed at the concert.

What kinds of music events do you take your students to? It's so valuable for them to gain experience as an audience member!

- 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

Neat Videos!

It's officially SPRING BREAK! Wohoooo! 

I was exhausted this week! I could barely keep my eyes open!

The kids are ready for a break too. I shared these videos with my kids this week to take a 5 minute chill break. After each video, we discussed what we enjoyed and what we maybe didn't enjoy while watching the videos.

Check them out!

The Vegetable Orchestra

Soooooo neat! I had a lot of students who, after watching this, attempted to make their own at home!

Cello Wars by the Piano Guys

This is awesome! I LOVE Star Wars and so many of my students do as well. Especially boys. 

This was a great opportunity to talk about electric instruments that we usually hear as acoustic. 

You Da One- by The Pentatonix

This is a great video and all of their arrangements are amazing! Rihanna is coming to our city soon, so a lot of the older kids got extra excited for the concert as we watched this video (waaaaayyyyy more appropriate than a Rihanna video btw...). After watching this, we discussed a cappella music, and what each person's role in the ensemble was in this video.

Enjoy!

What cool videos do you find on Youtube that are appropriate for the Music room?

- Steph

The Planets! Part 1

I love "The Planets" by Gustav Holst! I have studied little bits of it with my kids in the past, but this year I decided to really expand on some ideas and create a unit that has lasted about 8 classes. Manitoban students study the solar system in grade 6 Science, so the cross-curricular connections have been great for students to get engaged!

Here is what we did!

Day 1

I introduced our unit by putting together a Smartnotebook file that included:

 Brainstorm what we know about planets already.

 

 Discover/discuss how Planets are named after Roman gods.

 How all of this relates to music. Touch each planet to find out!

Discuss what we hear in the Mars and Venus movements (instruments, phrasing, mood, etc.).

Click HERE for the FREE Smartboard file! I promised that I've shared it this time!

Day 2

Next the students did a Gustav Holst Webhunt! I had a list of questions for them to answer. Students used the internet to find their answers.

I took all of their answers to create a Holst autobiography. Click HERE for the video. Students studied from the video to prepare for a short quiz about Holst.

 

 

Stay tuned for Part 2 and 3 of The Planets unit!

 

- Steph



Pete the Cat! Rocking in My School Shoes Composition Unit!

I have been working with my grade 3 class on creating music for the book "Pete the Cat, Rocking in my School Shoes". It is really coming to life! 

These are the steps we took before getting to our end result.

Step 1:

The first thing we did was read the book "Pete the Cat, Rocking in my School Shoes"

by James Dean and Eric Litwin.

Find it  HERE on Amazon.

Step 2:

The students then composed a melody (as a class) to match the reoccurring speech pattern from the book. We used a Smartnotebook file to help us.

We changed things and voted on ideas as we went along. Here is our final melody:

Click HERE for the FREE Smartnotebook file. It looks like this:

Step 3:

Next I divided my class into 4 groups. Each group represented an area from the story, where Pete was wearing his shoes. Each group was in charge of creating a soundscape to fit their area (busstop, lunchroom, library, playground). While choosing instruments and creating their soundscape, the groups were to write down shapes and lines that represented their composition (something that they could refer to later).

Step 4:

Next, students each created artwork that represented a "snapshot in time" of their group composition. They were to refer to their group composition notes for ideas. Using chalk pastels, each student drew their groups sound (I told them to imagine that they could see the sound and asked them what it would look like).

After drawing their sound in pastel, each student had to draw their school area in black marker. They made sure to include Pete in their drawing!

Step 5:

Finally we put it all together! We read the story, singing the song every time it came up in the book. Each group held up their "snapshot" and played their soundscape at the appropriate time in the story. It was so fun! The grade 3 class is sharing their story via Polycom (video conferencing) with a class from New Jersey tomorrow and we are so excited!

Pete on the playground!

Pete outside waiting for the bus!

Pete in the lunchroom!

Pete in the library!

What kinds of things do you do in your Music room with picture books? Please share!

- Steph





Mad Lips App for Composer Study!

Grade 6 students are studying Holst and his composition "The Planets". They spent one class on a web hunt finding and citing facts about Holst. I used their findings to create this video using Mad Lips! Feel free to use this video with my lips and Holst's face, or try the Mad Lips app on iPad or iPhone to create your own! There is a free version HERE!

The kids got a total kick out of this!

- Steph

Techy Tuesday- Play and Roll Recorder Game

So I just realized that I have named my Technology posts something different.... for every post! Tech Tuesdays, Techno Tuesday, Technology Thursday.... and so on. Inconsistency is one of my pet peeves! Go figure... thus Techy Tuesday.

Anywhooo, yesterday we had a professional development day at school. No kids and tons of Smartboard stuff. I also got to connect with fellow Music teachers in the morning. I felt inspired so I created something that I can do with my kids today!

This Play and Roll Recorder Game was created as a sight reading activity for my grade 4 students. There are 6 hidden melodies. A student must come up to the Smartboard and "roll" the virtual die. Whatever number they roll, corresponds with a hidden melody. When the student taps the numbered shape, the melody is revealed and the student must play the melody. 

Click HERE for the free Smartboard file! I promise that it is unlocked this time! :)

Don't forget that you can use Smart Notebook files with an E-beam or other interactive technologies!

Super fun!

- 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!

Technology Tuesday- Melody Street and Young Music Genius!

I am currently working on orchestral instrument families with my grade 2 students. I have been trying out some different tech resources to help us learn about this. Check out my post Orchestra Activities for the Smartboard to find on-line resources that I have tried out earlier this month.

Thanks to Brittany over at Making Music Memories who commented about how wonderful Melody Street is! Thanks for introducing me to Melody Street Brittany! It was actually one of those many things that I had pinned and then forgot to look at. Oops!

Melody Street is FANTASTIC! It is great interactive story for iPads but also works on your Smartboard or just anything that will project a video from your computer. We started by using Melody Street on our Smartboard. We listened to the story of "The House on Melody Street", starting with chapter one. Watch it on Youtube: 

The House on Melody Street

After watching each chapter and learning more about the instruments, we played the instrument guessing games found HERE on the Melody Street website. There are many different games, but we played the "Memory Card Game" and "What's That Instrument?" on the Smartboard as a whole class and it worked well.

During the next Music class the students tried "Young Music Genius", a great iPad app and it's free! In pairs, my grade 2 students used the iPads and played an instrument sound matching game on the Young Music Genuis app. There is also a memory card game that's fun to play. They loved both games! 

Young Music Genius

I love sharing ideas! Please let me know what you think of these resources! I would love to her what you do with your students as well!

- Steph

Tech Tuesday- Orchestra Activities for the Smartboard!

Here are some great interactive sites for students to learn about the orchestra! I used Orchestra Fact Files to introduce my younger students to what an orchestra is!

Kids Mozart

Orchestra Fact Files

What technology do you use when teaching your students about the orchestra?

- Steph

Classical Music Videos with a Twist!

Technology Thursday (sometimes Tuesday) begins now!

Every year in January and February, my grade 2 and 4 students prepare to go to the orchestra. Here in Winnipeg we have an amazing symphony concert series designed especially for elementary students. The performances include dancers, artwork, visual effects, and children performance collaborations!

As we study orchestral instruments and the concert repertoire, I always like the children hear or see different interpretations of the pieces. Here are two excellent Youtube videos to show your students, especially if they have already heard the orchestral versions.

"Ode to Joy" by James Turner

Beatboxing Peter and the Wolf

So cool eh?

What are your favourite classical music videos with a twist?

- Steph