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 - 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: