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.

2/4 Tuesday - 4 Fun Videos

This week is a short week. I have one more full day of teaching before a day of in-service. Because of that I have a lot of classes that could easily get ahead. Plus, Christmas concert music practice will begin next week. As some time fillers and as rewards for some of my classes, I have showed some videos to my students. I love showing videos to my students and I have a whole list of videos I have used for various music occasions. My students just love them. So, here are a few that are new or that I just personally really enjoy.

Pentatonix - The Wizard of Ahhhs
This is a medley of popular pop tunes, I seriously love Pentatonix!


Roar - Alex Goot & Sam Tsui
These two guys have some beautiful voices and I love the message of this song. Katy Perry does write some good songs, but I just like men singing her songs better.


Ode to Joy - Muppets
Beaker sings Ode to Joy, but some things start to go wrong...


Moon Trance - Lindsey Stirling
This is a creepy little violin solo song that is perfect for the Halloween season.
I definitely suggest using Safe Share for showing these videos. You can learn more about Safe Share in one of my old blog posts here. Hope you all had a terrific Tuesday!

2/4 Tuesday - 2 Techie Tips!

Welcome back for another 2/4 Tuesday! I'm so glad that Steph is still running this. It really helps me stay on track and helps me post at least once a week.

Today, I wanted to talk about two Techie Tips that I don't know what I would do without:


The first one is using Dropbox. You can see it by going to http://www.dropbox.com. This file sharing service is completely free and allows you to save files to the internet. You can also connect your files to your computer at school, your computer at home, your smartphone, and your tablet. This is a serious lifesaver for someone who teaches at two different school like I do. I can save my lesson plans, my SMARTboard files, and everything else! It is so nice to be able to create, edit, and save files from any of my computers and not have to worry about emailing the files to myself, carrying around a usb drive, or anything else. Especially because it is so easy to forget and then you suddenly don't have the files you need.

My second techie tip is for teachers that use a lot of SMARTBoard files, Powerpoints, Websites, etc. I learned this from a colleague a couple years ago and it really helps cut down on the amount of prep I have to do from class to class. Here is how it works:

1. Create a new SMARTboard file that I normally label as Lesson Plans, but you could label it as anything you want.
2. Create a page for each of your classes. This could be one for each class or one for each grade, just depends on how detailed you want it
3. List out the activities you are going to use for each class. (Make sure that each one is a new text box)
   
4. Now that you have the activities listed out it is time to link them up!
5. Click on the arrow and press 'Link...'
   
6. Click 'File on this Computer' and then 'Browse...' for the file you need
   
7. Once you find the file you need clip 'Open'
   
8. Choose between 'Corner of Object' and 'Object'. I normally choose 'Object' which links the words to the file, but if you click 'Corner of Object' you will see a little paperclip in the corner. You also need to choose between 'Copy of file' and 'Shortcut to file'. Make sure to choose 'Copy of file' for this. It will open much faster!
   
9. Continue these steps until all your files are linked up to your original lesson plans

Now all you have to do is open your Lesson Plan file and all your SMARTBoard files will be linked to it. This will save you tons of time as you won't have to be searching for all your files all the time. You could also link up to a worksheet that you are going to do, a PowerPoint you want to show, and even link to a website if you are going to show a video. The only change you have to make for a website is you won't be clicking 'File on this Computer' but instead 'Webpage' and then just put in the URL! I just LOVE technology. (Unless it is being a bugger!)

In totally unrelated news, I have gotten to 11 followers on my Teachers Pay Teachers account and over 80 of you have downloaded my Halloween Rhythms Freebie from Sunday! I'm so glad to see so many of you taking advantage of this fun composition/rhythm practice work. My 1st and 2nd graders have been playing with these the last few days and they are really enjoying it. Be sure to rate the product when you get a chance! I would love to know what you think and if you think there needs to be some improvements. If you haven't picked up this free download you still can at my Teachers Pay Teachers account HERE!

2/4 Tuesday - More Music Books I Love

As I mentioned in previous posts (There Was an Old Woman Who Swallowed Some Leaves, Iza Trapani Books, & Get Ready to Romp) I love using books in my classroom.
Here are a few more I love:

1. Freddie the Frog Series: I cannot believe I haven't talked about these already. They are remarkable. They tell the story of Freddie and his friend Eli the Elephant. There are 5 stories in all and they all help teach young children (ages 3-9) different music concepts. This includes tempo, treble clef notes, bass clef notes, and jazz. There is also a great site you can go to and reinforce the concepts used in the books. (Click on the picture to go to the Freddie the Frog Site)




2. Puff the Magic Dragon: This book is the classic song, but has such beautiful illustrations! I love this song and I'm sure a lot of you do, too. My students love this song and ask for it all the time! (Click the picture for Amazon buying details)
   

On a completely new topic, I have continued to update the look of my blog! What do you think? I still have some things I want to continue to edit and I may still even change some of the pieces I updated, but I think it is really starting to look personalized. My goal is to make it look really nice as an inspiration to keep up with this blog. Make sure to check out the CONNECT TO ME links on the right to connect you with all the social media I'm apart of. (Including my new facebook page!) Also, if you have a music education blog button feel free to send it my way and I will add it.

2/4 Tuesday - Rhythm Practice

For this weeks 2/4 Tuesday I thought I would focus on rhythm practice. This time of year I review the rhythms students already know, plus I start introducing new rhythms. To go along with this I love to have games, activities, and apps to reinforce these concepts. Last year, I shared a game that I created for this purpose called Rhythm Concentration. You can learn more about that game HERE. However, here are a few more resources I have found.

Rhythm Football
This is a fun interactive SMARTboard file that you can get for FREE at TeachersPayTeachers. I found this game last year and my students love it. I have found that any rhythm activity that includes a sport in it is a great way to get boys excited to practice their rhythms. Unfortunately, if you do not have a SMARTboard you will not be able to have access to this file.

Poison Rhythm
This is a simple game and quite easy to adapt to any grade and any rhythms you want to work with. You start by writing four rhythms on the board, as depicted in the picture above. Then I mark one with an 'X' (somtimes I allow the students to pick the poison rhythm instead). The 'x' represents the poison rhythm. I clap one of the four rhythms and students should echo me by clapping the rhythm back. If I clap the poison rhythm they do NOT clap. The game is set up as teacher vs. student, so when I clap the poison rhythm either the students get a point (for not clapping) or I get a point (because they clapped the rhythm - even if it is just one student!). Sometimes I have classes that do not participate or just stop clapping all of the rhythms. When this happens I tell them I get points for them NOT clapping non-poison rhythms as well. This normally solves that problem.

Rhythm Cat
Rhythm Cat is an Ipad App for practicing rhythms. It is actually kind of fun even for a teacher. How it works: Students look at the rhythm and push the green button as they play the rhythm. When they play the rhythms correctly the notes light up green and they get to move on to the next level. If they don't hold the button down at the right time or long enough, etc. the notes turn red and if they miss a lot of notes they do not get to continue on to the next level. (click the picture to find more information about it)

Monkey Drum
Monkey Drum is another Ipad App for rhythm practice. This can be just a cute app for students to create and play with, but how I use it in my classroom is for rhythm practice. At the end of a class I'll pick students to play rhythms on the monkey drum app. After they play the rhythm the monkey will play the rhythm back. This is a great way for me to assess if students can play the rhythms correctly and to assess if other students can HEAR mistakes in a rhythm. It is a very cute free app, so there is no reason not to at least check it out. (click the picture to find more information about it)

2/4 Tuesday - Rockin' Behavior + Some Books I Love

I'm totally on a roll with my blog posts. If only I could be like this all the time! :)

The first thing I'm using this year that seems to be working so far is my new Rockin' Behavior chart:


This idea is not a new one and is posted all over Pinterest, but there aren't a lot of teachers who have given ways to use this in a music room, so I kind of came up with my own way of using it.

First, instead of each student I just have the classroom teachers name. I keep track of all the expected and unexpected behaviors of my students during the class time on the board. This is just a chart with a smiley face and sad face and I post tallies as I go through class. Students know not to ask for tallies and that sometimes they won't get tallies for a while and then might get a bunch of tallies all at once.

If at the end of music class they have more expected points than unexpected points one student gets to clip the class up, to choose a student I just go straight through the seating chart so I know everyone will eventually get a turn. (If they have NO unexpected points or just one or two, I will sometimes let the class clip up two times.)



Along with clipping up they get to earn tickets towards a reward day. Depending on the color the class lands on they earn or lose tickets at the end of each music class. You can see from my chart they get extra tickets for getting all the way to the top. I do NOT reset this each week, but instead keep their clip where it is. When they get to the red I add a sticker to their clip and put it back on the green to restart. When the class gets five stickers I give them a new clip and post their filled clip on a Wall of Fame. :)

A couple things I would change about this:

1. I would make it so you get to earn a ticket each time your class clips up and lose a ticket every time your class clips down. Otherwise, you have problems like classes being on orange and having to clip down to yellow. Do they still get tickets?


2. This system works just perfect for my classes that only have music once a week, but for my classes that have music twice a week I should have almost added more to the top. I have some classes that have super days each day and so after one week they can already be to the top of the chart.

The other thing I want to share are some books by Iza Trapani. I don't know how many of you have seen them, but they are wonderful for the end of a music class. I actually have all my Kindergarten, 1st Grade, and 2nd Grade classes end with a book or songtale each day. This is a great way to get my students to refocus before going back to their classroom teachers. Otherwise, sometimes music class gets a little wild and crazy (but the good kind, where there IS learning) and I feel terrible sending them back to their classroom teachers all wound up. Iza Trapani's books are based on popular folk songs, but she adds her own twist with new verses. Some of my favorites are below. Click the pictures to see where you can buy them on Amazon: