Safe Share Instrumental Videos

As I stated in an earlier post, I am currently working on teaching different instruments of the orchestra and various ensembles. In my experience, any time I can share a cool video with my kiddos they get SO much more excited about what we are working on. This is especially important to me because if the kids don't have fun learning about it they tend to not actually listen -or- learn. Plus, I find that some students will enjoy the work no matter what, but others need a little inspiration to make them excited about the subject.

My trick is to use videos of popular artists on YouTube or new and interesting videos that relate to the topic. On my professional website I list all sorts of links to these videos for my students to watch at home, at their convenience. I also show various videos in class when they relate. This gives me the opportunity to show or remind the students of these videos and spark their curiosity. My philosophy is to get kids excited about music and have them involved in music even outside of music class. If that means watching an orchestra play a Katy Perry song or Bruno Mars song, I feel I'm still building their music pallet. This is not something they would probably search out themselves, but they are still excited about it!

As I stated before, I have MANY videos on my school website, but I'm going to share just a few that I have used for this instrument families unit:

The Vegetable Orchestra - People creating instruments using vegetables. Great way to introduce the orchestra or just talk about non-traditional instruments.


Cello Wars by The Piano Guys - This is a piece by The Piano Guys. You seriously have to check them out and see more of their videos. I also shared their One Direction video with my 1st graders who are studying vibrations, and their Mission Impossible video with some of my classes. They are just a fun group and I'm sure your students would like any of their videos.


Crystallize by Lindsey Stirling - Another great strings player. She has some WONDERFUL videos and it is a great way to get students into some classical music. It is hard not to get pulled into her videos.


Lady Gaga played by Breaking Winds - This is a group of four bassoon players. I liked it because bassoon is an instrument students do not normally know that much about and may not have ever heard.


Somebody That I Used to Know perfomed by Pentatonix - If you do not already know about this group, you are missing out. They have such GORGEOUS arrangements of different pop/rock songs. The best part is they sing all a cappella, but the students have such a hard time believing it. Show them any video and your kiddos will be hooked. I have a 2nd grader who is begging his parents to go to one of their concerts this year and other students that tell me how they watched EVERY one of their videos.


Firework performed by Salt Lake Pops Orchestra - This group creates beautiful arrangements of pop songs for their orchestra. Wonderful videos, too!


Now, I know this is getting a little long winded, but I feel it is important I quickly talk about Safe Share. Safeshare.tv is a website that makes sharing YouTube videos with your students safer. You know how pesky those ads are and even the videos they may recommend you aren't always appropriate for your little ones eyes. So, you take the link, paste it into SafeShare and voila you have a safe video. Same video, no ads, no recommended videos, and no way to get to YouTube directly from the video. Much safer for sharing with your students. It is probably the best link I could possibly share with you. Hope you find it as useful as I have and please let me know if you share any of these videos! Or feel free to share YouTube videos you watch. I'm kind of a YouTube-a-holic.

Have You Been to Melody Street?

One of my favorite things to teach about are the instrument families and the various instruments. I teach this unit in three sections:

3rd grade learns about the four instrument families and the instruments from the orchestra that belong to these four families. We focus on the characteristics of each family and talk about how non-orchestra instruments would also fit into the four families.

In 4th grade we add on to their knowledge about the four instrument families and we focus more on the sound of each instrument and their particular instrument family. We talk about the word timbre and we learn how to describe music using various timbre words.

Finally in 5th grade we talk about various ensembles and how different ensembles use different groupings of instruments. They have to use their knowledge of instrument families and instrument timbres to arrange instruments into various ensembles. Some of the ensembles we focus on are concert band, orchestra, jazz band, and

This year, I'm more excited to teach instrument families than I have EVER been before. This is due to some of the amazing resources I have found. There are so many great youtube videos and games I plan on using for this unit. I'll share different ones in the next few days and weeks, but I'll start with one I have been using with my 3rd graders.

Last summer, I stumbled upon this gem. It is a story called Melody Street. Some of you may have already heard of it. It is a story about the instruments of the orchestra and it plays the sounds of the instruments as the story is read to the kids. The story is in three chapters and I find it to be very interesting.

When I first found the story, I was a bit worried about using it. I was excited, but 3rd graders can be so fickle at times. I love teaching 3rd grade, but they tend to be in that stage where some things are now too 'kiddie' for them. I decided to be brave and just try it this year as an introduction into studying the instrument families. To my delight they LOVED the story and many of them stated "That was really good!"

We have been reading the story in chunks. We read the first chapter the first day and then we got through part of the 2nd chapter. The only thing that bothers me about the story if you cannot start in the middle of a chapter. I want the kids to have the full experience of hearing all the instruments playing, but I am not sure how to finish the chapter without starting all over. (The second chapter is about 15-20 minutes!)

Anyways, there is also a Melody Street site with different music games and activities. One I particularly find useful and will probably use with one of my classes is one where the students have to identify the instruments by sound.

Hope you enjoy these resources as much as I do. Do you have any other cool instrument sites to share?

The Power of a Green Monster

Now I know what you are all thinking, it is after Halloween, why are you talking about monsters? However, the green monster I'm talking about is not THAT kind of monster. In fact, it is a smoothie. Now you are probably wondering why I would be talking about a smoothie on my teaching blog, but read on!

As some of you probably know, I teach Kindergarten - 5th grade in two school districts. I teach four mornings a week at one school and five afternoons a week at the other school. My travel time normally cuts into my lunch hour. By the time I get from point A to point B I usually have 15-20 minutes to prepare for class AND eat. I'm sure some of you face this same problem and wonder what the solution could be. You could skip eating lunch all together, but at least for me I am completely drained of energy when I do that. Plus, I am starving as soon as school is done and all I can think about is getting home and stuffing my face. (NOT exactly the healthiest option...)

So, here is my solution... A Green Monster (read more about this revolution here...). If you haven't heard of them, they are smoothies that use spinach as a main ingredient. That is what makes them green. It may look gross to some or freak some people out, but I for one love spinach. Plus, anyone who has drank a green monster can attest to the fact that they taste NOTHING like spinach.



Still skeptical?

I began researching Green Monsters back in September. I found out how many vitamins they are packed with and how many people said they were very filling. So, I began to go to work. I created many different flavors, created a whole pin board on pinterest, and just started experimenting. I decided to make one for each day of the week and freeze them at the beginning of the week. During my rush to get going I would grab my drink from the freezer and go to work. After finishing teaching in the morning I would hop in my car and drink my green smoothie on the way to my other school. (Or sometimes I drank it at school or while I was teaching) I noticed after a couple days of doing this, I did not feel super hungry after school each day. I also did not feel as drained and tired.

About two weeks ago, I did not make my green smoothie drinks for the week. Instead, I fell back into some of my bad habits of skipping lunch or eating junk. By Wednesday or Thursday I noticed myself really dragging. I could NOT figure out what was wrong with me. Then it hit me! My green monster drinks really do give me a lot of extra NATURAL energy. So, I returned to making my green monster drinks as my lunch.

It is so important for us as teachers to stay energized throughout the day. How many of us feel exhausted after a long day of teaching? Imagine what an extra dose of vitamins, nutrients, fiber, and natural sugars could do for you! I seriously recommend you give them a try. They really are yummy!

Here is my favorite combination, so far:

• 1 cup soy milk
• 1/3 cup greek yogurt (for protein!)
• 1 T flax seed or wheat germ or both (this is just added protein and fiber)
• 1 Handful of frozen pineapple (I actually freeze pineapple juice in an ice cube tray and then I put the whole ice cube tray of pineapple juice in my blender)
• 2 Handfuls of spinach
• 1 ripe banana (I normally freeze mine, but it doesn't really matter!)

Put all the ingredients in a blender and blend! Comes out to taste like a tropical smoothie, YUM!

Describing Music using Music Terminology

One of the things I'm really working on with my older students (3-5 grade) is describing music using musical terms. I explained to one of my principals that I feel this is an important skill that can really help students appreciate music in a whole new way. How cool is it when a student can pick out instruments in a pop song or describe differences in tempo. This is a skill that all kids can learn and use even if they never continue on in music.

I first emphasized this skill during our outdoor music classes (read more...).

When we went outside I had my students sing I Love the Mountains. Later, I had my students write a short reflection on the difference of sound singing outside verses inside. They were encouraged to use music words from the word wall.

Most of the reflections said things like:

• The sound echos more inside than outside
• We sang quieter outside rather than inside
• There were other noises outside like leaves rustling and birds chirping
• Our sound was much more blurred together outside

After this reflection I realized I really needed to show students HOW to use music terminology in their reflections without having to change what they are saying. In order to do this I came up with a reflection assignment students had to do for homework. (I rarely give homework, but this was a simple assignment and they were given 2 weeks to complete it)

First, I showed students some examples of reflections they wrote:

I Love the Mountains sounded different outside because it echoed less outside than inside. I also thought we sang a lot quieter outside. I also noticed that outside the music was much more blurred together where as inside it was much more disconnected.

Then, I showed them how they could just substitute a few words for music words and it still was saying the same thing.

I Love the Mountains sounded different outside because it echoed less outside than inside. I also thought we sang at a piano dynamic outside. I also noticed that outside the music was more slurred or legato rather than inside where it was much more staccato.

Finally, I gave them the assignment (this was partially an idea I was given by my school principal to also include some technology):
Students should write a short music reflection about a song that they have listened to during the month. This allows students the opportunity to listen to any song they enjoy and still be practicing writing and using music terminology. *NOTE:I even allowed non-school appropriate songs as long as they had permission from their parents. That way they could truly listen to whatever kind of music they like*

All responses were emailed to me unless they could not because of not having internet or computer access at home. I also printed out a few paper copies for these students, but they were responsible for picking them up from me.

I posted all information on my school website so students could access it at anytime. Along with this I posted: the questions they were to answer, links to music videos they may like to watch for the assignment, a word bank of musical terms to use in their reflection.

This assignment was due by Halloween and I do have to say it was such a fun experiment. I did have quite a few students that I was constantly hounding to turn in their assignment (what is new), but the responses were great! I also had quite a few students that were really excited about the assignment and enjoyed the videos I posted. It was also a great way to include technology and writing into my curriculum. (Two school goals for Fairview Elementary.)

You can see all the directions for the assignment, video links, and word bank all on my school website -->here<--. Feel free to steal the idea and even the word bank, just let me know how it works for you. :)

Happy Halloween! BOO!