I wanted to share a great, QUIET activity I’m using in class this week. It’s easily adaptable to many music history topics but I am using it specifically to cover a composer from the modern era, Aaron Copland.

My students have already learned about the baroque, classical, and romantic eras in music history.  We used a lot of Quaver material for these topics.  Quaver is the best for music history, in my opinion.  There’s not a lot of Quaver material on modern composers though, so I had to get creative.

I created a section on my portaportal where I could put links for this project.  I linked to the DSO kids websites, Classics for Kids, Worldbook for Kids, as well as the American Masters website (although this is a high reading level for most of my students.) I was especially happy to include Classics for Kids because there is material there my students can listen to, which is great for my low readers.

I went to google forms and created a form with a few basic questions about Copland as well as some open ended questions.  I showed my students how to open two tabs and they worked (with headphones) on finding the answers and filling out the form.  I am able to easily look at all their answers at once and NO PILE OF PAPER!

This activity does require technology.  If you have fewer computers it would be a good partner project. It’s great for these end of the year testing days when we have to be quiet.  My students learned and retained a lot about Copland by seeking out the answers for themselves!

Here’s my Google form if you want to use it for inspiration:

https://docs.google.com/a/hampton.k12.va.us/forms/d/1rMYO6YIahVWEMAlDjXnLRASwCQROfpQQpe08fjzSdSw/edit?usp=drive_web#responses

Since I created my original Peter and the Wolf SmartNotebook with the excellent Flash memory game my school system has transitioned to Promethean software.  Promethean software is great for importing SmartNotebook files but sometimes things get a little wonky in the process.

I have updated my Peter and the Wolf file and checked it over to make sure it looks right in ActiveInspire.  I hope this file continues to be useful to you all! This file has been shared with teachers across the country via the wiki I created for sharing interactive whiteboard files.  I am very proud of this file and how it has helped so many teachers and students.

Click below to download the Flipchart. Enjoy!

Peter and the Wolf Flipchart

I have had all sorts of classroom management issues since I switched back to teaching middle school. Mostly they all boil down to me getting used to my new kids and them getting used to me. We all came in with expectations and ideas about each other that have collided and caused friction, but we’re working it out gradually. On good days I remember that I am the adult and my responsibility is to meet them where they are at.

One really tremendous thing about my kids is that most of them really do want to play their instruments. They don’t always have an easy time focusing during rehearsal, but they love to play! As a result one of them introduced me (and several of his classmates) to http://www.8notes.com/, which is a resource for free sheet music. I have plans to take many of my students to a solo and ensemble festival in the spring and I think this will be a good resource for them to find material. I was very encouraged that several of my students felt motivated to go to this website and print songs out (even if they do insist upon playing music from the site every single time they have even a second of downtime in rehearsal!)

I searched and searched all over the internet for blank fingering charts that I could either print out and have my students fill in or use along with my Promethean board. If they’re out there, I couldn’t find them, so I made my own using a nice little piece of simple software called Pixie. I did basic fingering charts for flute, clarinet, saxophone and three-valved brass. Not every key is included but you can always have the kids draw in whatever extra ones they need! They are available as a Resource Pack for Active Inspire at the IWB wiki.

In other news my new gig is keeping me extraordinarily busy. I knew teaching band again would be longer hours than teaching preschool music, but I had underestimated the intensity of opening a new school. I am hoping to get the blog back on track and post some lesson-learned type posts about the process but I will have to get out of survival mode first!

Danny Nicholson (@dannynic) recently tweeted about a post to his blog that is packed with great ideas on how ot use an IWB in the music room.  Danny’s Twitter stream always contains a lot of great tips on IWB stuff!

Extra thanks to him for editing his post to include a link to our IWB wiki for music teachers: mustech.pbworks.com.  A place where many music teachers go to share their IWB lessons, and you can too!

So of course teachers have been making their own games for years, it’s nothing new.  They are very useful for review and if you have several different games that are pertinent to your curriculum you can set them up in centers and add some variety to your classroom routine.

I thought it was cool when one of my Twitter pals (@msstewart) shared today that you can self-publish your own boardgame designs at http://www.thegamecrafter.com/.  Obviously this is cool for your own classroom, but if you really have a brilliant, creative idea you can use the Game Crafter website to sell it to others.