2/4 Tuesday - MSOTM, Rockin' Behavior Update, & More Concert Prep

Yay! Time for another 2/4 Tuesday!

1) Music Student of the Month
With October over it is time for me to update my Music Student of the Month bulletin board at Fairview Elementary.



As you can see from the picture, I have a poster for each month of the school year and two spaces. Since I teach at a small school (one of each class Kindergarten-5th Grade) I pick one Kindergarten-2nd grader to get featured and one 3rd Grade-5th Grade student. At the end of the month I post their name under the month and at the end of the year they get a special Music Student of the Month certificate for the month they were featured. It is a fun way to recognize individual students that are going above and beyond expectations on a regular basis.



If you do something similar and are looking for fun awards for each month of the year, I will be putting together a bundle of my Student of the Month decorations and awards later this month. You can watch for an update in my Teachers Pay Teachers store or back here on my blog.

2) Rockin' Behavior Update
As you can see in my prior post, here... I have been using a Rockin' Behavior clip chart to motivate my students to work hard in music class. It has been working really well so far and I have already had my reward 'parties' for about three classes. Now that it is getting farther into the year some of my classes have earned five stickers on their clips already! This means they have made 5 'tours' to the top of the behavior chart! For showing such excellent work in music I have created a bulletin board (it is actually the back of a door window) that displays these classes filled clips. After their clips get added to the board their class gets a new clip and they start the process all over again.



3) Concert Try-outs 'Rubrics'
I discussed in my last 2/4 Tuesday post that this week is try-outs for Holiday Concert speaking parts. This is always a difficult part of having Holiday plays (as I'm sure most of you know). Now that I'm doing try-outs for my fourth year now, I feel like I finally have a process and guidelines that work for me. This is how my try-outs are set up:

1. About a week beforehand I prep students for the process and send home slips about the try-out process. (To read more about that go here)
2. During music class I have students in small groups go up and perform the part they practiced on their own.
3. I score students on the following three things: voice volume/tone quality - do they speak loud enough and clear enough, do they speak slow enough, etc, theatrical ability - do they show emphasis in the way they speak and are they willing or able to take cues from me, and reading fluency - this is also where I pay attention to if they practiced. Obviously you can't guarantee this but it is normally clear by the way the student reads and delivers their lines if they took time to look at them or not. This is NOT about how good of a reader the student is, just that they deliver the line as though they are good readers.
4. I rate students by giving them a 1, 2, 3, or 4 in each category.
5. If students have to sing a solo for the part they are auditioning for I have all students auditioning sing all at once. I can normally switch them around so I can hear each individual voice. They again get rated in two categories: tone - sing with a clear tone and good quality, notes - just meaning they follow the notes pretty well and are singing in tune.
6. After all my students are 'rated' it is time to plug in the numbers and pick my parts.

I will discuss how I go about picking parts in my next 2/4 Tuesday post. However, to help you all out I am linking to the rubric I use for my try-outs HERE. Feel free to tweak it to your own delight! Please let me know how you audition for parts or choose parts. I am always looking for new ways to do things.