iPads in the Music Room

3rd grade has been spending some time checking out the Garage Band app on the library iPads! They've been having a blast creating their own melodies with string sections, guitar riffs, and drum kit. A class favorite has Smart Drums where they can combine various instruments and experiment with what happens when they move and instrument closer to one of the settings like this: 

 Here's some of the ladies recording each other's compositions and then editing it in the Audio Recorder. 

The boys really have a knack for some keyboard chops!

Fifth grade students have been using an app called Animoto to create video presentations for their composer research project. They've spent several days researching all sorts of information about musicians ranging from Mozart and Beethoven to Bob Dylan to Carlos Santana and just about anyone in between! With this app, students have been collecting images that represent aspects of their musician such as portraits, awards, album covers, famous concerts, etc. Once they built a picture timeline of their musician's life, they needed to create effective captions to explain what each image represents. 

Here's a student brainstorming creative captions about the electric guitarist and rock musician, Jimi Hendrix!

Sample finished project about George Gershwin!

A Very "SPECIALS" Night

Last night Thompson Elementary hosted it's first Open House for Specials (Music, Art, PE). Providing exposure for our curriculums, parent education, community involvement, and interactive learning all came together in a fabulous carnival style event.

Each department (Music, Art, PE)  designed 4 interactive stations that summarize large concepts for students to lead their families through and serve as the expert. After all, parents and even homeroom teachers aren't the people who are in our classes learning these skills. Why not give the student the spotlight and let them teach others! It was such a joy to see students taking such pride in being the expert on these skills and showing younger siblings and parents how to do the same things they do.

To guide them through these stations, each student was given a ticket card to be signed off after station completion. Given a goal of 2 music, 2 art, and 2 PE students eagerly found favorite stations and took on challenges. If the ticket card was filled out completely, they were entered in a prize raffle for items such as baseball & bat set, soccer balls, art supply buckets, family 4-pack tickets to Dallas Opera and Plano Symphony Orchestra, and more!

Here's a few highlights or jump to the bottom for the digital scrapbook!

Folding Origami Cats 

Mystery Melodies - play the notes and try to identify the well-known tune. 

Spot Shot - pick a spot and make a basket :)

Saxophones are tricky! Does it belong to the brass family or the woodwind?

If you're interested in designing a similar style event, I'd be happy to share any information in how this was planned! 

Click here for the Digital Scrapbook!

Research Project

Each year, 5th grade students do a large research project on different composers and musicians who made significant impacts in the course of music history. They work in partners to complete a guided research question list and then spend a few days composing an essay and preparing a presentation to share their new knowledge with their classmates. Each pair of students receive a cover page to start their project and share 3 reasons as to why their musician is on the research list. 

Musicians range from the "big wigs" of Mozart, Beethoven and Vivaldi to more contemporary artists such as Gershwin and Stravinsky and even popular musicians such as Carlos Santana, Stevie Wonder, Elton John, Bob Dylan and more!

Students will conduct their research through approved texts and websites, video interviews with the musician (if available), and school/public library databases. They are allowed to bring their own technology devices of smart phone or tablet to supplement available resources. Once they complete their research, they will design a presentation to share with the class. This presentation can be as creative as they want to make it: poster, PowerPoint, Prezi, youtube video, iMovie, etc. As long as the visual aid is informative and is well put together, the sky is the limit!

5th grade has been receiving their packets and assignments this week and will jump into formal research on Thursday. Let's get going!

Recorder Exploration

At the tail end of the fall semester 4th grade kicked off their recorder study and got to know B, A, and G. 5th grade jumped back in with a review of Low E and Low D. Fast forward a few weeks of break (with hopefully a lot of at-home practice!), and we join back together to keep exploring! I have my students work on two different types of repertoire: practice songs, and belt tests.
          
Back during my first year of teaching, another teacher introduced me to Recorder Repast (published by Sweet Pipes). This collection of songs is a wonderful resource for selecting our practice songs. We spend about 10-15 minutes dissecting the music and identifying parts to watch out for. This past week, I shared the biggest secret of analyzing music with my 5th graders - look for patterns! If you can identify parts that repeat, the amount you need to actually learn is a lot less daunting. (Thanks to my percussion professor, Dr. Rick Dimond for pointing that out my freshman year!)

Here's one of my 5th graders labeling repeating patterns in Juba (working on High D).

We may go a little bit overboard with analyzing, but I'd rather point out anything that could trip someone up and leave them a whole menu of options for their own markings. I always tell the students that any music they get is their own copy and to make notes on it as they need to help be a successful performer.

After analyzing, I try to give students about 20 minutes to work through the song on their own and then get in small groups of about 6-8. During the final 10 minutes of class, we take turns performing as a group for each other and then the "audience groups" give 3 comments about the performance. By performing the practice songs in small groups, this helps students work through any performance anxiety before they have to perform their belt tests as a solo.

Small group performance #1

Have stage fright? Just turn your back to the audience!

Since I've mentioned "belt tests", here's what I mean: after students and I work through their practice repertoire, they are responsible for assimilating the knowledge they've learned so far. They receive a song from the Recorder Karate book and independently analyze it just like we did for their practice songs. Students choose to either work alone or with a buddy to figure out their test song and then perform it as a solo for me. Once they pass the test, they receive a colored piece of yarn to tie around the foot joint of the recorder as their "karate belt". 

After they complete all 9 belts, they are a RECORDER KARATE MASTER!

First Performance - JOUST!

Back on October 28, 5th grade students shared the first musical production of the year. We spent about six weeks preparing the songs and working on the choreography in class. Our featured cast took on the extra responsibility of after school rehearsals, stage blocking, and memorizing scripts. It was definitely the most intricate show we've taken on but it was so much fun to see in its final form! Check out some of the pictures from the evening:

King Arthur attempts to rally his knights to turn from their violent ways and choose to make harmony with Boomwhacker instruments. 

 "All I Ever Wanted Was Music"

Hopefully I'll have some more pictures soon and from different angles. Being front and center directing limited how many different shots I could actually get. I'm super proud of these kiddos and the hard work the put in to make such a fun production!

MineSTAFF!

With the popular craze of MineSTAFF, I decided to jump on the bandwagon for a bit of a music theory review. Last year, 3rd grade students learned how to read standard musical notation from a staff while 4th grade enhanced their ability by applying it to reading sheet music for recorder. Hoping they didn't forget this skill over the summer, we've been reviewing note names with MINESTAFF!

Students divided themselves into teams to be represented by characters from the popular game such as Steve, Pig, Zombie, and Creeper. (Considering I've never played the game, I hope I picked the good ones!) Students then chose their world of choice and worked as a team to figure out which pitches were shown. 

 

Sharing thoughts with teammates...

So much excitement! If you're not sure, make sure to use the resources around the room to help you...

 One 5th Grade Cougar explains how she figured out lower ledger lines. Remember, the staff has a pattern of line,space, line, space and the music alphabet only goes A-G!

After plenty of review, some frenzied competition, awesome teamwork and tons of fun, I'd say 4th and 5th grade Cougars are ready to go!