Tiptoe, Walk, and Jump

My kinders are starting to learn about long and short sounds. This is the last thing I need to teach for analysis this year. We have already learned about high vs. low, fast vs. slow, and loud vs. soft.

To learn about long and short I like to use the patterns tiptoe, walk, and jump. Tip-toe represents the two shortest sounds as it gets two sounds in the beat. Walk represents the one beat sound, and jump represents the longest sound (two beats). Jump, jumps from one beat to another. In order to practice this I normally have students jumping, tiptoeing and walking by their chairs for several days. Then I give them symbols to represent the three actions: two small dots for tip-toe, one short line for walk, and an upside down U for jump. I have students create their own patterns on the board with these symbols and we perform the actions together as a class.

This year I created a mini-composition for all the kids to work on, so EVERYONE gets a chance to create their own long and short patterns. There are only a few rules to their compositions. They have to create two lines of four beat patterns. (This means that the two dots of tip-toe must go together in a beat. You cannot separate them!) Jump has to take up two beats and you can only put a jump to beats 1 and 2, 2 and 3, or 3 and 4. (Otherwise you jump off the edge!) It is much easier to explain all of this visually to my kinders and they had no problem understanding what they needed to do.

Today, all my kinders created their own compositions and performed them for their classmates. Here are some pictures of finished compositions!

If you would like to use this composition in your own classroom, this is a forever freebie in my Teachers Pay Teachers Store and you can find it HERE. Please leave a rating and feedback if you use it, but please remember that it is free and nothing fancy by any means. Just something cute and simple! (Click the follow me link, if you haven't already, to be updated on all my future products and told about my special followers only deals.)

That's all for now!

Activities Like... Note Reading Stations

I'm linking up with Blog Hoppin' today for their We're Thankful For Linky Party. Each day they are writing about something they are thankful for as teachers. Wednesday's theme is Activities Like...

If you would like to join the fun click the link below to find their post and/or read other posts written by other teachers. I especially recommend reading Mrs. Miracle's blog posts. She has been linking with them all week!

The last couple weeks I have begun the preparation of my 4th graders for playing recorders. They already had some experience reading notes on the treble clef thanks to Freddie the Frog, Music K-8 Kids Videos, and a basic introduction in 3rd grade. However, I really wanted students to get a lot of experience with note reading before I actually put the recorders in their hands. To aid in this process, I created stations around the room for note reading (and a few for rhythm work, since that is also important for recorders).

Here are the stations with information on where to get these materials online:

1) Apples and Oranges - Word Matching Game


This is a pretty simple matching game that I bought from Teachers Pay Teachers. How it works is a small group of students sort the apples and oranges by trying to match the words on the apples with the words on the oranges. For example the apple will have the word FACE written on it and they have to find the orange card that spells face on the staff.

I have been a little creative with this station and have also come up with some other ways to use these cards. I have the students play a game of memory with them. (This is a bit more challenging, but is great for my high achieving groups.) I also have them race against each other to see who can get the most matches. You can get this original game HERE as part of a bundle. The bundle includes Sandwich Match, which I'm going to talk about next, and it also includes some other activities I use with other concepts.

2) Sandwich Match - Letter Matching Game


This game is just like the Apples and Oranges game, but instead of whole words you just match a letter. This one is a bit easier to play as memory and many of my students prefer to work at this station that way. Again you can get this HERE.

3) Classics for Kids - Treble Clef Note Reading Game


I allow students to play this on my Smartboard by taking turns identifying the note and creating the words. You can find this game HERE.

4) Ladybug Game


You can find this fun game HERE. Susan has a lot of great games and you should check them out while you are there. All you need to do is print out the pdf she created and create playing pieces. For my playing pieces I used big buttons from Walmart with cute bug stickers on them. More specific directions are on the site, but the basic idea is students pick cards from the deck one at a time and move to the closest space of the letter they choose. Whoever makes it to the end first, wins. Students should take turns and if students draw a card that says bee sting or other things like that they should follow the directions on it.

5) Fly Swatter Game


This is another game made by Susan. I have seen games like this, but how this works is you print out the cards onto cardstock. Then, one student holds up a card while the others find the correct note as quickly as possible and swat the correct answer on the poster board. (You could also write your answers on the board.) Whoever gets the note correct first gets to take over the cards and the other two students become swatters. You can find this game HERE.

6) Fall/Thanksgiving Rhythm Composition


For some rhythm work I had students working on a Fall/Thanksgiving Rhythm Composition. The top of the worksheet students figure out which note each word should get based on the amount of syllables each word has. For example they put a quarter note with corn and four sixteenth notes with cranberry sauce. After finishing the top part they can create their own Fall/Thanksgiving Rhythm and create their own rap. They fill in each blank with a word from above and add the corresponding rhythms with it. It is a fun way for students to practice their rhythms and use their own creativity. You can get this activity at my Teachers Pay Teachers store HERE.

Fall/Thanksgiving Rhythm Activities (Flash Freebie!)

Wow! Was this week a long week for the rest of you? It seemed to drag on for all the teachers at my schools.

Now that Halloween is over, it is time to look forward to Thanksgiving. Are you looking for some fun rhythm activities to use with your students for Thanksgiving and fall? Well, I have a bundle of activities for ta, ti-ti, and ti-ri-ti-ri.

This bundle includes all the following:

• Cute pictures of different fall and Thanksgiving items (from My Cute Graphics) with words typed underneath.

• Directions for 3 different activities you can use these pictures for.

• A composition worksheet for using ta and ti-ti

• A composition worksheet for using ta, ti-ti, and ti-ri-ti-ri (this worksheet also comes with one that says ti-ka-ti-ka, one that says 4 sixteenth notes, and one that is blank)

These activities are great for working in small groups, station work, or even whole class work. It is a fun way for students to be creative and create their own patterns. My 3rd graders did the Halloween composition and they had a blast doing it.

All of this is FREE until Tuesday at 9:00 pm. Make sure you do not miss out on this! Also, please leave me feedback on what you think. Every comment really does make my day and helps me improve my products.

Get the bundle HERE!

2/4 Tuesday - Halloween Rap and Concert Prep

It is Tuesday again, which means 2/4 Tuesday! This has been a rough day for me, so this is probably the best part of my day.

1) Halloween Rap Using Ta, Ti-ti, and Ti-ri-ti-ri:

My 3rd graders used their new knowledge of ti-ri-ti-ri to create their own Halloween Raps. This is very similar to the freebie I offered here, but this one adds in ti-ri-ti-ri (you can get just this worksheet for free --->here. Please rate it if you get a chance!). My students got one half hour period to work, plus 15 minutes a second day. At the end of the day my students got to share their compositions for the class and they had a great time!

2) Holiday Concert Try-Outs:
It is hard to believe, but I started Holiday Concert prep on Monday. It may seem far off, but when you only see some of your classes once a week you have to start early. I started this week by introducing the music and talking about my try-out process. Try-outs will be held next week and students that want a speaking part must prepare for try-outs by taking home the one page script I sent them home with. Then, next week, I pick students to read their part aloud for the class. I'll discuss more about my try-outs next week, but for now I'm sharing the short letter I send home to parents about my try-out process. I try to make it clear what I look for from each student during try-outs. You can download the file by clicking the link below:

Holiday Concert Try-Out Letter
3) Holiday Concert Smartboard Files for Kindergarten and 1st Grade:



3 years ago, I started to make Smartboard Files with pictures for my little ones. This helped my students who could not read, by being able to connect the words through pictures. The Kindergarten teachers and 1st grade teachers at one of my schools really enjoy these and ask for them each year. One teacher in particular said that it really makes it easier for her, and the kids thought it was awesome that she had the same file I do. You can see a few picture above of what this sort of looks like. (Clip art used in this file is from My Cute Graphics.)

One final note:
My Halloween Freebie was such a hit that I decided to put together a bundle for Thanksgiving. If you liked the Halloween bundle you will definitely like this one! This bundle will be free for the next week (until 9:00 pm Tuesday, November 5) after that it will be $3.00 so make sure to take advantage of this offer now! You can get the bundle here.

Have a terrific Tuesday!

Freebie Friday - Beat, Rhythm, Ta, & Ti-Ti

Wow! Sorry my Friday post is now being posted very early on a Sunday! It ended up taking me a little bit longer than I thought to organize everything I wanted before posting my blog post. I have been busy working on a BUNCH of files for my Teachers Pay Teachers store. All the files I plan on using with my own 1st Grade students or have already used with my 1st grade students. I'm very excited about them! (To see the actual files click on the center of the pictures provided.)

First, I put together a PowerPoint that introduces the difference between Beat and Rhythm:

Then, to reinforce this concept I made a fun manipulative to use either for full classroom practice or for small group activities:

Now that my students are recognizing the difference between beat and rhythm they get to learn about ta & ti-ti with this powerpoint:

And another fun manipulative to reinforce this concept of matching picture rhythms with music notation:

Finally, I put together a bunch of breakfast foods for students to sort as Ta's or Ti-Ti's. This also comes with a composition worksheet for 1st graders to create their own breakfast food raps:


Now for the FREEBIE for Emily's FREEBIE FRIDAY:

Along with the breakfast food rhythms and compositions, I created a Halloween version of this same file. As a special Freebie Friday I am offering this file completely free on my Teachers Pay Teachers Site. I definitely think this is a great file and has several fun activities you can use with your young students. Find the file by clicking on any of the pictures below and downloading it from my Teachers Pay Teachers store!

Get Ready to ROMP!

Shake, Shake Shudder
near the sludgy old swamp.
The dinosaurs are coming.
Get ready to romp!

The outdoor lesson for 2nd grade was using the story Dinosaurumpus!


As I have mentioned before, I like to use literature in my music classes. It reminds students of the connection between music and literature, but also there are so many great music stories I want to share with my students!

What I noticed about Dinosaurumpus! was that it had a lot of rhyming, but also had a nice steady beat. Along with this, it has tons of onomatopoeia words. This allowed for some fun sound effects. I broke the story into 6 parts and then gave each group of 3 students a part. They had to create sound effects for all the words I underlined. I told them that since Dinosaurs would roam around outside they had to create all their sound effects using their mouths, bodies, or items found in nature.



After a day of work they preformed their parts for the class.



Some groups were really creative with how they came up with sound effects :). Other groups, sounded as though they did the same sound effect for everything :/.



To stretch students creativity, in the future, I would change some of the directions for the project. First, I would make sure to state that they should use at least two sound effects with their voice, two sound effects with their body, and two sound effects using nature. I would also stress that the sound effects have to be different. Not just hit the stick on the ground, then hit it on a tree, then hit it on something else. Instead scraping the stick, breaking the stick, hitting the stick, etc.

Overall, I was very happy with this project, though. I love watching my students be creative and get the opportunity to explore music outside of the music classroom.