Artful, Tuneful, Beatful

I put off the IWB week 3 challenge for awhile first of all because I had a lot going on and second of all because I didn’t know how to do transparency and I thought it might take some effort to figure out.  I was wrong, it’s extremely simple and wonderful to be able to remove that pesky white space from around images!!

I am recycling the Transportation notebook I posted below as my week three challenge file.  Transparency is a wonderful, useful tool in the software!

Transportation Notebook with transparency

I have expanded my Country Crossing idea into a larger Transportation SMART Notebook.  I am still working on it and brainstorming to add some more pages, but i haven’t posted in awhile so I though I better share something!

Transportation SMART Notebook

The second challenge in the Whiteboard Challenge is about using cloning.  I create a three-page SMART Notebook to help students learn the simple song “Bernie Bee” which is a traditional so-mi song.

On the first page the iconic notation (small and large bees) are already in place and students can drag ta’s and ti-ti’s (or whatever you call them in your room) to match up with the bees.

On the second page students have to place both the bees and the stick notation.

On the third page students place the bees and stick notation again, but I have added a single staff line so that they can show which sounds are high (so) and which are low (mi.)

I created the background in a simple image program called Pixie 2.

Bernie Bee SMART Notebook

Because one of my goals this year is to use the Interactive Whiteboard more often I am taking part in the Whiteboard Challenge. If you have not heard about it already it is a 14 week project consisting of 7 “challenges” to create Notebook files demonstrating specific features. It is for all IWB users, not just Smartboard. I have part-time access to a Smartboard (we share in our whole building between about 16 teachers. The librarian and I are basically the only ones who use it) but full-time access to an Interwrite pad, so its possible some of my IWB activities will be executed on an interactive pad instead.

The first challenge is about recording MP3’s and putting them into your notebook. To satisfy this challenge I present a lesson I created to go along with a book we read in class called Country Crossing. The book contains all sorts of cool sound effects and the kids love to pair instruments with different things and then play along with the book. I used Garageband to record the instrument sounds.

You can read more about how I use this lesson in a post below specifically about it.

Country Crossing SMART Notebook

Five Little Snowmen Animation

I created this Flash animation to go along with the song “Five Little Snowmen”.  I usually play a game with this song where the students take turns standing up in groups of five.  One student gets to be the sun and pick which “snowman” to “melt”.  Last year I had some snowmen and a sun printed out in color at Office Max so the kids could hold them while we play the game.  They love it.

I thought this high-tech twist would provide some nice variety.  The movie should begin automatically.  After the music plays through one verse (and the sun moves across the sky) it will stop.  Click or a snowman (or touch one with a SMART board) to make him melt.  Then click or touch the house to play the music again for the next verse.

I had originally recorded myself singing the words to each verse.  I changed it to just a piano melody line, but I am considering redoing it again in the winter with a recording of some students singing.

country-crossing

I am back to work today preparing to welcome a whole new crop of preschoolers into the music room.   This year I am participating in a 21st Century Classroom program sponsored by my school division and as a result I will be getting access to a lot of instructional technology resources.  I am trying to create a lot of SMART Notebook files and things I can use with my Interwrite pad.

I created this SMART Notebook to assist my students with matching instruments to the sounds contained in the book Country Crossing by Jim Aylesworth.  This book is an old-fashioned story of a car reaching a railroad crossing in the quiet woods and the sounds of the train speeding by.  I use the book in a small unit about trains I do while the classroom teachers are focusing on transportation.

There are many great train songs in the Kindergarten Making Music textbook and I use many of them during this unit including “Mbombera”, “Little Trains” and The Little Train of the Caipira. My students have always LOVED The Little Train of Caipira and I have often brought it back out during the year for a reward and allowed the children to play instruments along with it.

The train unit it particularly useful for practicing different tempos and the feeling of speeding up and slowing down.  We talk about how a train has to start slow and then get faster and faster, and how it has to gradually slow down before it gets to the station.  Many of the train songs I’ve mentioned here begin with an accelerando and end with a ritardando to imitate the feeling of a train.

I created this basic flash animation to assist in teaching the song “Bernie Bee”.  When you touch the bees they play either a so or mi tone.

I am working on something a little more involved to use with “Five Little Snowmen” which I teach in the winter.  That one isn’t finished yet because I don’t have good sound clips (and I’m not sure about copyright issues.)

I’ll be happy to share the .swf file for Bernie Bee with anyone who’d like it, in the meantime here is a link:

Bernie Bee Flash Animation