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)

New Look... More to Come!

I have been inspired by some cool looking teachers blogs to update the look of my blog. I really like coding and creating images, so I didn't want to just go get a free look off the internet. Instead I have been working on my blog layout piece by piece. I am really happy with how it is turning out.

Some new features:

1. Links to connect you to some of my social media sites.
2. Signature
3. Background
4. Blog title
5. Blog button with script to add to YOUR blog. (If you have a blog button (for a music educator blog) feel free to comment to this post and I'll add it to my blog buttons.)
6. Search this blog
7. Follow by email

If you get a chance check it out and let me know what you think!

Freebie Friday - In the Woods

As part of Mrs. Q's Freebie Friday I am offering the following Freebie:

I recently created an adorable file for the song In the Woods (also known as The Green Grass Grew All Around). If you are unfamiliar with it you should check out Beth's Music Notes blog post HERE. The version I sing has a few changes in lyrics, but the melody is the same and you can get the general idea.

I sing this song with my 1st graders and they absolutely love it. It is great for practicing singing short phrases and echoing. To make the song even more fun, after a few times of singing it without visuals I add the SMARTboard file for fun pictures. I recently updated it with cute pictures from My Cute Graphics.

In order to share this with you I have uploaded it as a SMARTnotebook file, a powerpoint, and a pdf. If you do have a SMARTboard I have already linked up each page, so you just click on the last lyric of each page to continue with the song. If you have a PDF or powerpoint you flip the page and they go in order. I'm sharing all these files through Dropbox, and I don't think you'll have a problem downloading them, but if you do please let me know! (Click on the picture to get the link to download the file)

Powerpoint Version:

Follow this link -> https://www.dropbox.com/s/z7ds9h2ab25domh/IntheWoods.pptx
PDF Version:

SMARTnotebook file:

Please let me know if you use this file with your students and things that you liked or disliked about this freebie. I'm always looking for ways to improve! :)

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: