If you've been following me for a while, you might already know that I love bargain hunting. To me, there is nothing better than scouring a clearance aisle or wandering through a thrift store to get the best deals for myself or my classroom. Just in case you don't share my passion for the hunt, I went shopping at Dollar Tree yesterday and curated some excellent items for you to use in your music class:
I recently shared some of my newest Dollar Tree finds on Instagram and I wanted to go into more detail here to explain some of the teaching activities that can be done with these goodies. (Please note that this post is not endorsed or sponsored by Dollar Tree. I just really love shopping for good deals!)
HEART BAGS AND GEMS
A bag with sixteen hearts that can also be used for storage: can you say convenient!? Fill the bag with gems, mini erasers, or rhythm icons and you've got materials ready to go for rhythm dictation, decoding the rhythm of a song, or composing new rhythms.
Check out this post by Jane Lee to see the materials in action! Or, if you're short on time and would rather get a set like this ready-made for you, check out this option from Hutzel House of Music!
GNOME BEAT BUDDY
Is it just me or is everyone obsessed with gnomes this year? I like that this little guy has a heart stitched on his hat... it seems only natural to call him a beat buddy and pass him around a circle to the steady beat.
DIY FINGER PUPPETS
I bought these with the intention of making the puppets for my classroom but my four year old has already commandeered them for herself! Whoops! The set comes with pre-sewn finger puppets and felt shapes that can be glued on to make the different designs.
POP ITS
My six year old niece was visiting recently and she saw some bubble wrap we had lying around. She immediately grabbed it and said, "A pop it! I love these toys!" These mini pop its are the perfect size to use as giveaways or keep stashed in a sensory/calm down bin.
Stay tuned for my next post, which will feature more Dollar Tree bargains and DIY projects. And if you're still in the mood for a good deal, don't forget that there is a sitewide sale coming up on Teachers Pay Teachers on Feb 8 and 9. You can snag any of my products for an additional 20% off during the sale. Happy shopping!
Well, somehow we've made it to the winter holidays during this whirlwind of a school year! As exhausting as this year has been, I feel rejuvenated when I think about all of the fun holiday music I get to teach in the upcoming weeks. I like to share songs from many different cultures in order to make my music room an inclusive and welcoming place.
I know that I always feel gratitude when others acknowledge a holiday that I celebrate, and I'm sure my students do, too. However, I also know how awkward and othering it feels when someone tries to teach about one of my holidays and gets it just plain wrong.
As a Jewish teacher, I wanted to take some time this year to clarify some facts about the festival of lights:
What Chanukah is:
A festival lasting for eight nights celebrated by Jews around the world. It is a fun and uplifting holiday, full of fascinating symbolism. The story of Chanukah is a motivational tale of underdogs who persist despite great odds. There's gorgeous music and fun folk songs about this holiday that are a great addition to your elementary music lessons.
What Chanukah isn't:
It is NOT Jewish Christmas. In fact, from a liturgical standpoint, it is one of the lesser festivals and not the most religiously significant. The only reason it's become so popular is because of its proximity to Christmas on the calendar.
If you are not Jewish but are interested in teaching your students about Jewish music and culture, please double check the accuracy of the information you share with your classes. Did you get the song or lesson idea from an actual Jewish person?
Also, please be wary of these pitfalls when teaching music from another culture: Does your Chanukah lesson tokenize Jewish people? Is it the only time all year that you mention Jews? Are you including a Chanukah song in a concert that's otherwise all Christmas music, just so you can check off a box and call it inclusive? Can you accurately explain the difference between Jewish culture and the Jewish religion?
This time of year, I find many well-meaning folks sharing things that are just plain inaccurate. For instance, programming a random Hebrew song on a winter concert and saying it's for Chanukah, when it actually has nothing to do with the holiday. Likewise, it makes very little sense to teach Israeli folk dances as part of a Chanukah celebration. I like to teach Israeli dances in the spring, around Yom Ha'atzmaut (Israeli independence day.)
I'd suggest doing some research about other significant Jewish holidays as well, such as Passover and the high holy days. How can you include those in your music lessons during other times of the year?
So, what should you do?
If you've read this far, thank you for taking an interest in Jewish music! One of my favorite ways to teach my students about Chanukah is with a dreidel. I start by explaining the four Hebrew letters on the dreidel and the acronym that they represent: a great miracle happened there. (I also show my students a dreidel that I bought in Israel which says "happened here" instead.) This allows me to briefly tell the Chanukah story before we sing the dreidel song and play the game.
If you're looking for a resource to help you teach the dreidel song, I have a presentation you can get here. It also includes a printable DIY dreidel and gelt so that your students can make their own before they play the game.
I hope this post has helped you as you choose to make your music classroom an inclusive and welcoming place. Chag sameach!
Are you teaching music remotely and interested in incorporating Google Slides in your lessons? I have been using Google Slides for about three years BC (that's "before Covid") so it was already a comfortable choice for me. When my school system shifted to full remote learning, I started using it for every single lesson. Here are just a few of the ways that you can use Google Slides remotely as a music teacher.
1. Welcome Screen
I always start my synchronous video conferences a few minutes early to give students a chance to log in and get themselves ready for class. While we're waiting for class to start, I share a slide like this:
On my welcome screen, I usually play a timer video that counts down to the start of class. I also include a picture of whatever materials we will be using that day. If I want to do something like a cup game, box drumming, or movement with scarves, I want to make sure I give my students a few minutes at the beginning of class to get those things ready. This helps with transitions during my lesson because I don't have to stop in the middle to send them on a hunt for materials.
2. Flashcards and other visuals
Google Slides is the perfect way to keep all of my flashcards and visuals together in one place. I love it because I can access my slideshows from any device, so if I'm browsing facebook at 10pm on my home computer and suddenly have a flash of inspiration for tomorrow's lesson, I can easily open my slides and make those edits instantly. I import .mp3s and videos that I plan on using and can seamlessly transition through every step of the lesson this way.
Here's a video I made at the beginning of the school year, walking through the components I put into my daily lesson slideshows:
3. Curate groups of YouTube videos
YouTube recently removed the ability to put children's videos into playlists. While this change makes total sense for children's safety, it's kind of inconvenient for a music teacher trying to compile teaching materials. Google Slides is a great workaround to this problem since you can embed YouTube videos directly into your slideshow. (And as an added bonus, there's no ads before the video and nothing autoplays afterwards!)
I recently made a slideshow with tons of YouTube videos related to The Nutcracker and it has been wildly popular with my students and other teachers! Click here to make a free copy.
4. Self-Correcting Games in Present Mode
With Google Slides, it's easy to turn objects into links that will direct students to another page within in the presentation. This means that if a student plays through the activity in present mode, they can click on an answer and it will automatically take them to a different page if it was the correct answer or the incorrect answer. Here's an example of a self-correcting game I made that uses embedded audio files and beautiful, high-resolution images:
5. Interactive Activities in Edit Mode
For more tech-savvy students, you can also create interactive activities that students can manipulate by moving elements around the screen in edit mode. This is a great way to have students compose music! For this activity, you can move the rhythm tiles onto the squares to arrange them any way they want. It takes a little bit of work at the beginning, teaching students how to drag items without accidentally resizing them or deleting them. However, I've found that kids tend to pick up these tech skills pretty quick- even faster than many adults!
Today's the day that Marty and the Doc should be arriving. To celebrate, I've teamed up with a group of fabulous music sellers to bring you deals to make your future self thank you.
Here's what you need to know.......
1. Big Flash Sale
Search for #BTFMusic on TPT to see all the deals available.
We've hidden a secret message at the top of our store pages, too! Start here and click through all of our pages to decode the secret message. Once you've got it, you're ready to enter the giveaway below:
It's hard to believe that our first week back at school is almost over. So far, I've been having a great time getting to know my classes and meeting new students that I did not teach last year. Before it's too late, I wanted to hop on that "classroom reveal" bandwagon. I am linking up with Tracy King over at Mrs. King's Music Room to share "What's On My Wall!" Make sure to read all the way to the end because I'm also including a FREEBIE to download!
I'm so glad to get to participate in this linkup since I actually had a room to decorate this year! Since I teach itinerantly, it's always up in the air whether I'm going to have my own space at various schools. (I'm on a cart at my other school, so I'm planning to do a whole post on my cart organization some time in the near future.) This year, I have a portable all to myself at one school. So here it is:
I know I still have some blank spaces to fill- like a whole bookshelf where my new Spotlight on Music textbooks will be going- and plenty more anchor charts and student work as the year progresses.
Here's a breakdown of some of my favorite parts of the room:
Front of the room and my rug
I am opting for no chairs this year... there aren't even any in the classroom! Hopefully I won't get too many complaints from kids about this. But I plan to keep them up and moving frequently, so the chairs really just get in the way.
I don't have a smart board at this school, but I do have a pull down screen and projector. I use a wireless mouse on a clipboard that I pass around when I want to have a student take a turn using something interactive on the computer.
Under the chalkboard
Under the chalkboard, I set up a tempo race track (the faster tempos are winning the race, obviously.) Next are my recorder fingering charts. They're actually from before I started selling my resources on TpT so they're not all "dressed up." Then I have a poster that says "What country's music are we studying today?" next to a map of the world, so I can point out where our music comes from.
"I Can" Statements
(I know, I know... I put my flags up backwards!!! I'm going to fix that first thing on Monday when I'm back in that room!!!)
I use my dry-erase board for my daily objectives, which are posted in the form of "I Can" statements. This adorable set came from I <3 Teaching Music. The set also came with the new national standards cards in a very kid-friendly format, so I posted those underneath the board.
Above the board, which I know is hard to see because of the glare, sorry, it says "Music are what feelings sound like." To the right of the board, I put up my solfege ladder. This set is specifically color coordinated to match my boomwhackers, xylos, and hand bells. You can pick it up from my store here.
Back of the room - reference section
In the back of my classroom I have posted my note values anchor charts and Thinking Maps (Thinking Maps are a county-wide initiative so I am always looking for ways to include them in my music lessons.) I've got a nice dry-erase board with staff lines, which is currently on top of the piano.
Minion Themed Bulletin Board
This bulletin board is really just for fun! It's already grabbed quite a few kids' attentions at they line up right next to it. Inside the folder, I placed a Beethoven coloring page that kids can take home or complete if they are an early finisher. I plan to teach a lesson on Beethoven later in the school year, so hopefully this bulletin board will build interest for that.
My small- but growing- instrumentorium
Don't worry- I have access to many more instruments than this! Since I'm the part-time teacher at this school, most of the orff instruments and a TON of other class percussion is housed in the other music teacher's classroom. We collaborate and share materials constantly. So I only have a few basic go-to instruments in here, like a class set of rhythm sticks and some basic percussion.
The blue poster is one of my favorite quotes from Leopold Stokowski: "A painter paints his pictures on canvas. But musicians paint their pictures on silence." I frequently reference it when I'm asking students to be quiet.
The poster with the guitar came from my local Target, but it's also available from AllPosters.com. And it's only $5! I showed it to my husband- who is a guitarist- and he insisted that I buy another one to frame and put in our basement.
MEGADESK
Last, in the corner of my room, I present to you: MEGADESK. I know that there's a growing trend on Pinterest for teachers to get rid of their desks altogether (my school's custodian was complaining about having to remove a ton of desks this year.) I guess that makes me old-fashioned then because I love having my own little retreat in the corner of the room. So I put three tables together to create MEGADESK. Obviously I don't sit there while I'm teaching. But I love having all that space to spread out and get to work on projects. It's like my own little fortress.
I've surrounded my personal workspace with things that inspire me: The blue sign above my computer says, "Every accomplishment starts with the decision to try" which I bought after my first year teaching. That first year was a rough one for me and I thought about leaving the teaching field. But my husband encouraged me to give it another year and really have a mindset to try and give it my all. And guess what? I'm still here!
On the other wall, I have a rally towel for the Baltimore Orioles (Let's Go O's!) and another personal favorite quote. This one is from Dr. Edwin Land: "An essential aspect of creativity is not being afraid to fail."
I also made a set of little positivity posters with some tidbits of inspiration on them. They're perfect to look at on a lousy day when I need a reminder of why I do what I do. I'm giving this away for free, so go ahead and download the complete set of four! They each fit in a 4x6 picture frame, or you can just staple them to the wall like I did.
At the top of the wall I printed out my name using these beautiful sheet music letters. Tanenblatt has a lot of letters in it, so there was a lot of cutting and trimming laminate going on here.....
So there you have it! I hope you liked the tour of my room! If you're still looking for classroom decor, you can find some of my pieces here in my TpT store.
Don't forget to check out Mrs. King's Music Room to get a peek at what other teachers are doing!
By now, I'm sure you've heard about the site-wide back to school sale going on over at Teachers Pay Teachers. To celebrate, I'm linking up with some other music sellers to promote some quality products available during the sale:
#1: My Own Product
I had a very proud moment the other day when my husband came home and saw my fully assembled Getting-To-Know-You cube sitting on the piano and he asked me where I bought it.
Well I didn't buy it... I MADE it! And putting it together was super easy. You can see a demonstration in this short video:
If you're looking for a fun game to play on the first day of school, this cube will definitely be a hit. My students have loved answering these questions in the past and I can't wait to show them the new cube format!
#2: A Product by Another Music Seller
This ukulele bundle looks PERFECT for teaching my upper elementary students. Once again, Shelley from Pitch Publications has been incredibly thorough in thinking of all the little details to really help students understand the concept.
In the individual song sheets, I love that the words are highlighted where each chord changes. That was often a point of confusion with my students when I did ukulele.
Because I teach on a cart now, I haven't been teaching a uke unit, but this product is inspiring me to find a way to make the logistics work and bring them back out, for the sake of my students!
#3: A Non-Music Item on my Wishlist
I am just drooling over these ethereal outer space papers. They are so dreamy! I am trying to incorporate more real-life images and photography into my lessons. Now I just have to come up with a good way to use them within a musical context!
I hope you have fun shopping during the big sale! And don't forget- if you buy a product from my store, you are eligible to enter my exclusive customer giveaway, going on from now until August 15th!
I have a confession to make: I am a shopping cart hoarder! I put things in my Teachers Pay Teachers shopping cart that I intend to buy and then they just sit there, accumulating virtual dust. I have eight weeks of school left and since this is the final push before summer break, I think now is a good time for a shopping spree...
Let's link up with three items that we are planning to buy on a spring shopping spree!
I finish off the school year with my instrument families unit and I love using Peter and the Wolf to teach instruments in first and second grade! I'm so excited about the tremendous variety available in this bundle so that I can tailor it to my students' different levels.
I think this will be a really fun game to play in the last few weeks of school. It will be a great way to introduce composers that I haven't quite gotten a chance to discuss this school year.
I love introducing thematic material to go along with the seasons, so Vivaldi's Spring is an obvious choice for this time of year! My primary students will love the rondo form review while listening to this timeless classic.
And here's a bonus... if you're planning to go on a shopping spree this spring, you might consider this product of my own:
Just like the traditional card game "Concentration," this is a fun memory game for your students to play during review centers. There are two of each treble clef note and students must try and find matching pairs. One final push for music literacy before we send them off on summer vacation!
Before you go off and spend all of your hard earned money on these fantastic TpT resources, I have ONE MORE announcement to make, and that is a HUGE GIVEAWAY!
You read that correctly... two lucky winners are each going to win a $50 gift card to Teachers Pay Teachers. What a great way to get some brand new resources to finish off the school year right! Follow the directions below to earn entries into this HUGE giveaway!
I am so happy to have teamed up with some amazing music sellers on Teachers Pay Teachers to participate for the first time in a $2 Tuesday Flash Sale!
This sale is going on TODAY, Tuesday, January 27, 2015. You can get some very valuable products today only for just two bucks! That's less than the cost of a latte at Starbucks.
To see all of the products that are being offered for $2 today, simply click here.
The product from my store is a brand new instrument families board game, Opening Night! The set comes with everything you need to review the four major families of the orchestra. There is a game board, die, four playing pieces, and 48 trivia cards about the different instruments.
I'm planning to use this as a center activity when I do my big end-of-the-year review centers. It works best with four players but with a larger class you could stretch it to about six students.
Here's how it works:
You start by placing your piece anywhere on the board. You roll the die and move that number of spaces in either direction. You then answer a trivia question about the instrument family you landed on (percussion, woodwind, string, or brass).
If you answer it correctly, you keep the card. If not, it goes back under the pile.
The first player to collect a card from each instrument family wins!
Raise your hand if the concept of Arts Integration completely stresses you out!
I have definitely been on both sides of this coin. So far, out of the four schools in which I've taught, two have been STEAM schools where arts integration is expected out of the classroom teachers and cultural arts teachers. (STEAM = Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Math) I've been fortunate enough to attend several local workshops on arts integration, the most interesting of which would definitely have to be The Arts Integration Conference at UMBC.
I am by no means an expert on the subject, but I would like to share one important principle of arts integration:
An arts integrated lesson should have TWO objectives: one for the arts component of the lesson, and one for the general ed component. For example: While it's certainly wonderful to use a catchy song to teach multiplication tables, this would NOT be an AI lesson, because the music is merely there as a tool to enhance the math lesson.
The reason I bring this up in a post today is because I wanted to share my most recent product, Musical Math!
A brief backstory: Last year, the entire faculty at one of my schools attended a PD session with Greg Tang. It's not very often that I am asked to attend a session on teaching math, and this session showed me many teaching models that I had never heard of. When he discussed the part-whole relationship model, I immediately saw how it could be applied to music. Now that I am building up my TpT store, I finally got around to developing this product!
The product includes 30 different examples. If you have an electronic white board, you can draw the missing notes directly onto the slides. Or, you could print these slides for students to complete individually. (If there is interest I might spend the extra time to make a student follow-along packet. Let me know in the comments if this is something you might be interested in.)
I can't wait to use this with my fourth graders tomorrow. Be on the lookout for more STEAM related blog posts in the future.
I'm teaming up with some other music sellers on Teachers Pay Teachers to bring you a mega giveaway and start the new year off with a bang! Each of us is offering $10 worth of products in our store! The winners will be chosen on January 10th, so hurry and get your entries in this week!
I will be letting you choose any products you want to add up to the $10... which is pretty generous, if I do say so myself! ;) What are you waiting for? The contest only runs from Jan 5-10... Sign up now! a Rafflecopter giveaway
One of the neat things about this giveaway is that you can get more entries every time you leave feedback on one of my TpT products. (If you haven't bought anything from my store before, now is a great time! Otherwise you can download a freebie.) {Why leave feedback? Check out this post by Shelley Tomich to learn about how to leave fair feedback and get TpT credits for future purchases!} Don't forget to visit these other sellers and join their giveaways for more chances to win!
Surprise! As an impulse, I decided to change up my layout a bit today. I wasn't happy with the way my old header looked, and then things just snowballed from there :)
I figure since I am showing off a brand new look, I should also take this opportunity to show up a new product from my TpT store:
I'm particularly jazzed about these worksheets because I am going to be starting my harmony/texture unit soon. This project will allow my students to experiment with writing three-part music and hearing how the texture fits together.
I recently downloaded some instrument clipart from The Dancing Crayon so I really wanted to include that in this product. I also wanted to make something that incorporated a cut-and-paste component... I used to think that my 3-5 graders were "too cool" and "too mature" for that kind of thing, but I'm starting to rethink that, since they LOVE any time I ask them to color with crayons. So we're going to try it out.
I made an exemplar and I have to admit... I had fun meticulously cutting and pasting the little squares!
I'm looking forward to trying it out with many different grades, since the actual rhythmic content is open-ended and can be adjusted to meet the level of whichever students are working on it.
Once we get back to school, I will let you know how it works out!
