Super Sale Instant Replay

I'm really excited that TpT is having a quick sale tomorrow. I was on vacation during the last sale and so I missed out on a bunch of goodies!

Tonight I'm linking up with Aileen and Amy to update you on my store since the last sale PLUS tell you what I can't wait to get my hands on during this sale.

First, since the last sale I've been working hard on several different files. The biggest update is this set of rhythmic interactive games. This fun game will be a great review in your classrooms and I can't wait to try it with my students this week. You can check out the bundle in my store by clicking the pictures below (Note: I'm adding to this tonight still, so make sure to check back often to see if I've added more individual games):


Now for some things I'm hoping to snag from the sale. I have a sweet treats/bakery theme at one of my schools this year and I could find multiple uses for this cute clip art. You can add these things to your wishlist by clicking on the pictures:


That's all for now! Have a great night and happy shopping!

1,000 TpT followers Giveaway

Wow! I cannot even believe I'm writing this right now. Just a year ago I was celebrating 400 followers and now I have OVER 1,000 followers. What a humbling experience. I'm so grateful for each and every one of you that has followed me, so I'm throwing a BIG HUGE giveaway!

SIX FABULOUS prizes up for grabs:

1. $25 TPT Gift Card to be spent on anything site wide
2. $15 credit to my TPT store
3. Ready for School Bundle: Watercolor Music Word Wall (donated by Lindsay Jervis @ Lindsay's Kodaly Inspired Classroom) and Music Teacher Binder (donated by Aileen Miracle @ Mrs. Miracle's Music Room) (approximately worth $17.50)
4. Listening Activities Bundle: Carnival of the Animals - Listening Journal & Fact Sheet (donated by Cori Bloom @ Rhythm & Bloom), Peter and the Wolf - Storybook Powerpoint (donated by Shelly Tomich @ Pitch Publications), and Flight of the Bumblebee - Listening Activities & Assessments (Katie Robertson @ Cowgirl Compositions) (approximately worth $14)
5. Music Games Bundle: Rhythm Monsters (Jennifer Hibbard @ The Yellow Brick Road), Solfa! An Uno-Inspired Game (donated by Amy Abbott @ Music a la Abbott) and The Case of the Sneaky Singing Snails - So, La, & Mi edition (donated by Tina Jones @ Totally Tuned-In Teacher) (approximately worth $12.50)
6. Music Worksheet Bundle: Space Pals - Music Worksheet Bundle (donated by Jena Hudson @ Sew Much Music), Music Worksheets (donated by Sara Bibee @ Music with Sara Bibee), and Do Worksheet Bundle (donated by me) (approximately worth $12.50)

Here is a preview of what you could win:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Good luck!

High and Low Worksheet Activity

This year I created a small project for us to work on to continue work on high vs. low. I really enjoyed this project because the students got excited about it. (It includes coloring, cutting, and gluing. All things Kindergarteners love.) Plus, it was an easy way for me to assess how students were doing with this concept. The first time I used this project with my first set of Kinders, I chose to do it too soon and students struggled with it. So, I tried it as one of my final activities with my second set of Kinders and they were rather successful with it.

Here is how it works:

1. First, students get the page with all the pictures of different items.

2. I played short music clips of each of these sounds for students to hear. I really stressed that they should NOT just pick based on what they thought, but on what they actually heard. (Link to these music clips is included in the file)
3. As we went along, students colored the squares orange if they sounded HIGH and purple if they sounded LOW. Note: It's extremely important to continue to remind students they are listening for high and low. I also had students draw an orange - UP arrow and a purple - DOWN arrow to remind them what color they should color the square.
4. After coloring all the pieces I had students turn them in. This gave me a chance to assess how they did and figure out which students I needed to work with on certain sounds.
5. The second day, I had students cut out their squares and glue them into the correct places on their "Is it High? Or is it Low?" worksheet. (With some classes, that did really well on this worksheet, I had them cut and glue on their own. Other classes, that struggled, went through the answers one by one and glued them in the correct places. This allowed them to easily see which ones they got right or wrong.)

In the end, some students ended up with sheets that looked 'perfect' and others were 'imperfect' but it was a great learning experience. I also found that after doing this activity my students were much more aware of high and low sounds. They didn't refer to everything as loud and soft all the time.

Now for the GREAT news! This project is a FREE download in my Teachers Pay Teachers store. You can download it HERE! Please feel free to download and use. I'd also really appreciate any and all feedback you can give me!

Making May Musical - Linky Party

The big Teacher's Appreciation Sale is starting tomorrow! I'm so excited to finally stock up on some new resources at 28% off. My store will be on sale during the entire sale, but make sure to use the promo code: ThankYou to get the 8% extra savings.

In preparation for the sale I'm linking up with Tina at the Totally Tuned-In Teacher to share some resources I'm particularly excited about during this sale.



First, something I'm really excited about in my store is my Half Note, Half Rest, Whole Note, and Whole Rest Bundle. This bundle is HUGE and includes so many resources I cannot even go into detail about all of them. Not only this, but I'm still ADDING to the bundle! I recently added the Introduction to the Half Rest - PDF/Powerpoint. In the pictures below you can see many of the resources included. It includes games, visuals, introduction powerpoints, song files, and worksheets!





Click any of the pictures to find this in my shop.
(You can also buy all these things separately, too.)

Second, I'm really excited to purchase this resource from a fellow music teacher:

Amy Abbott's file would be a lot of fun for continued practice on the recorder. Plus, I think my district is one of the few where we teach BAGC'D' before teaching BAGED. This is one of the few resources I've found for practicing just these notes. I may even have to buy it to use this week with my 4th graders.

Finally, I'm planning on buying a LOT of fonts in this sale, so I'm not sure I'll purchase much in clip art. If I do, I will probaby buy this bundle of clip art from Whimsy Clips. Her clipart is my absolute favorite and I really cannot get enough of it. This bundle would really help continue to add to my growing collection for random projects:

Click the picture to find it in her store.

That's all for now! Hope you enjoy the sale! Please check out the other blog posts back at the original Link Up HERE.

Preparing High & Low

I'd love to share some of my new (and old) activities for working on high and low with my students. This has been an extremely difficult concept for my Kindergarteners to understand, but this year I had every Kindergartener receive 100% on our assessment of opposites. (Which includes one question for loud/soft, one question for high/low, one question for fast/slow, and one question for long/short)

This year I got some fresh new ideas from many colleagues on the Facebook General Music Group. It is so great to collaborate with so many other music teachers and bounce off ideas. It was from this conversation that I received some ideas of new ways to teach this concept.

Vocal Explorations
Before I even talk about high and low, I work a lot with students on singing in their high and low voices. This includes having students match the pitch of a slide whistle I play for them. Saying phrases like 'mmm' going up and down with their voice. Plus, we do a lot of vocal explorations on the SMARTboard. The vocal explorations are my favorite to create and use in my classroom. If you aren't familiar with vocal explorations they are pictures with hills and lines showing the way students should sing. Students follow the image using their voice. They sing in their high voice when the line is toward the top of the picture and use their low voice when it is at the bottom. We normally have to practice a couple times before we really start to get good at it. One of the most common mistakes I get is when students just repeat the first image over and over again. I then remind them to look at the way the line is different and work on singing what it shows. Another common mistake is that students always want to end in their high voice. It helps when I point out before we start: Are we starting in our high or low voice? Are we ending in our high or low voice? Then I correct if students don't sing it correctly.

Here are some images of what vocal explorations look like:


Note that some have lines and others are empty so your students can draw their own on your interactive white boards.

You can find a wide variety of these in my Teachers Pay Teachers Store:
Vocal Explorations
-OR-
You could create your own using Powerpoint.

If you aren't sure how to create your own Vocal Explorations and would like to learn more about how to do this please leave a comment on my facebook page or in the comments to let me know. I'd be happy to blog about how you can create your own (if there is enough interest).

13 Nights of Treats and Frights

This is just a short post letting you all know about the fun event going on, on Teachers Pay Teachers the next 13 days. 29 music teachers on TpT have decided to give away ONE freebie and mark down ONE item to 50% for a day. Because there were so many of us we decided to split it between the first 13 days of October. So, for the next 13 days (STARTING TODAY), you can grab at least 2 freebies and at least 2 items at 50% off. Below is the promo so you can see who is hosting this event each day, but to make it even easier you can just search '13Nights' on Teachers Pay Teachers, so you don't miss any days!

We all hope you are as excited as we are about this event. Click on the picture above to be immediately brought to Teachers Pay Teachers '13Nights' search.

Happy October!

Products for Prep - TpT Sale

For those of you that haven't heard, the big Teachers Pay Teachers sale starts on Monday and ends on Tuesday this week. That means everything in my store is 20% off and you can get an additional 10% off at check out using the promo code 'BTS14'. That means 28% saving on my entire store!

Today I'm linking up with Mrs. Miracle's Music Room to talk about a few items from my shop that I think will help you prepare for the upcoming school year, as well as, some items I'm excited to purchase and/or use in my classroom this coming school year.

The first item I would recommend for starting out your school year is my Music Street file. This file not only includes the items necessary for a Music Street bulletin board, but it also comes with student manipulatives and the story I use for introducing these houses. I have heard many great comments from teachers that have already purchased this file, saying that it has inspired them to use kodaly in their classroom.
(Click any of the pictures to find the file on Teachers Pay Teachers)

Here is a look inside the product:

These are the manipulatives that can be used on the staff paper I added in the file. Each student can have their own staff to place the notes where they belong.

  This is a black and white version of the large house cut-outs that come with the file.

Another item I would recommend for the beginning of the school year is a new file I just added! My Rhythmic Detective game is a great game for all ages and will definitely help when reviewing rhythms at the beginning of the school year! Even though the original game only uses ta & ti-ti the games I have included will be sure to please any elementary grade level. These cards come with standard and stick notation and color or black/white versions.

I will also be adding the other rhythm concepts throughout the next couple days and I'm hoping to get them all done before the sale ends, so stay tuned for updates.

Finally, I would recommend my newest posters that I've been adding to my Teachers Pay Teachers Store. These are a great alternative to a word wall or another addition. They are posters that have music vocabulary words sorted by groupings. Here are the four I have in my shop so far:
(click on any picture to see the product)

As well as items from my own store, I am very excited about the following items in other teachers' shops.

1) I would love to grab some of Amy Abbott's music inspired games. I think these would be great for use with a substitute. I especially have my eyes on the following:

(click on the pictures to view the files)

• Music - An UNO-Inspired Treble Clef Game


• Old Maid - A Music Version of the Classic Game


• Go Fish! A traditional card game with General Music Classroom Instruments

2) I have my eyes on the Music Center Sets from Aileen Miracle:

• Music Centers Set (3rd Grade)

Don't forget to use the promo code 'BTS14' when you check out or you won't get the addition 10% of savings!