Posts from the Past
Sometimes when looking at a blog, you don’t have time or get a chance to read articles written a year or two or three ago! So to help you out, here are posts from January 2012!
Pinterest: Check it out! My blog is pinned many times on Pinterest!
Recorders: Read how I teach recorders and what materials I use!
January 2011 Posts: Previous posts about the FootNOTES rug I use to teach music literacy, how I use hula-hoops to conduct my students and using Froggy Gets Dressed with instruments for the winter!
Sing, Dance, Shake Your Tail Feathers: Decor outside the music room for the winter.
Squirm!: The musical I chose for the 1st grade performance in 2012 was a new one called Squirm! My students LOVED it! The songs, especially A Spider Song, are challenging yet so catchy that I want to listen to them over and over again!
Movement Exploration
At a recently attended workshop, I purchased a great book called The Book of Movement Exploration by John M. Feierabend & Jane Kahan. Here is what Amazon says about this book: “This book is for ages 3 to 9 years. These activities bring out the strong movement impulses in children, who love to burn off energy by spontaneously dancing around the living room or running from place to place. Children will develop an awareness for their bodies, time, space, weight, locomotion, flow, and shape. Performed quickly or slowly, with music or without, solo or in a group, these activities make for fun, engaging educational experiences for children.”
I have been going through all the activities in the book and love them! Great way to incorporate movement into every music class. Or if you notice you’re losing your student’s attention… or if you’re needing to give your students a wiggle break? Perfect activities! I am very excited about incorporating these movement activities into my music classes!
New Books!
I just love half.com! It is a great place to get cheap, used books, and the shipping prices drop if you purchase 2 or more books from the same seller. Here are some great deals on books I got yesterday! (All of these books are available at West Music as well, which is where I would’ve written a PO to get them from, if the deals weren’t so great on Half!)
There’s dreadful news from the symphony hall – the composer is dead! In this perplexing murder mystery, everyone seems to have a motive, everyone has an alibi and nearly everyone is a musical instrument. But the composer is still dead. Perhaps you can solve the crime yourself. Join the Inspector as he interrogates all the unusual suspects. Then listen to the accompanying audio recording featuring Lemony Snicket and the music of Nathaniel Stookey performed by the San Francisco Symphony. Hear for yourself exactly what took place on that fateful, well-orchestrated evening. Very Good Condition, $7.24 after shipping. $14.50 from Amazon. $17.99 BEFORE shipping on West Music.
Click here to download the teacher’s guide for the book.
In this book, students are introduced to great music through great works of art. From “The Flight of the Bumblee” to “The Four Seasons” to “Night on Bald Mountain,” music is illustrated by great works of art, and the text and accompanying CD urge students to listen for certain instruments. Can you hear the car horns honking, played by clarinets? Can you hear the horses’ hooves, played by castanets? When each CD track is played, students will stop, look, and listen as never before.
Classical music is filled with unforgettable images. In this book, great examples of pictorial music are matched to masterpieces from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, for an introduction to both music and art appreciation for young listeners. Included is a CD featuring 12 short works and an introduction to the orchestra and the instruments. Very Good Condition, $9.82 after shipping. $12.89 on Amazon. $18.95 from West Music BEFORE shipping.
This is a simple way to combine music and math, with instruments and counting. This book offers an introduction to beginning multiplication. Students learn to count by twos, threes, and fours as they follow a group of monkeys parading down the street. The monkeys are playing instruments! The rhythmic text adds to the parade theme, while the animals’ shenanigans make counting fun. A note to adults gives suggested activities to reinforce the ideas presented in the book. Good Condition, ex-library hardback book, $4.74 after shipping on Half. Paperback only available on Amazon.
Great for Kinders and young students at the beginning of the year. In this story, Howard gets into a lot of trouble for not listening. When he becomes a better listener, his life improves dramatically. Teacher and counselor endorsed. For more reviews, the Listen Up song and other free, fun resources that support the book, visit wedolisten.org.
A picture-book version of the nursery rhyme/song about a boy tending to all the animals that live on his farm. Color illustrations accompany the text., An old English rhyme names all the animals a farm boy feeds on his daily rounds.
Perfect for supplementing Lynn Kleiner’s “Bought Me a Cat” lesson from Farm Songs and the Sound of Moooosic!
Paperback only available on Amazon. Hardback from Half: Good condition, ex-library book, $3.24 after shipping.
Guided Reading Beach Ball
I am always looking for ways to incorporate the core curriculum into my classroom. One way is through literature. Here is my find of the day!
A third grade teacher at my school is having a “garage sale” in her classroom after school this week. Me, being a bargain shopper that loves to get first pick and good deals, went digging early today and immediately after school before the other teachers migrated down the hall. I purchased several things that I’m thrilled about, especially the two “guided reading beach balls”. One ball has six open-ended phrases, and one ball has six questions to reinforce comprehension skills. Using these beach balls will be helpful in reviewing the many stories read in my music room. Students can toss the colorful beach balls around the classroom for a fun, hands-on guided reading lesson!
These beach balls are available for purchase here for $6.95.
Using Books in the Elementary Music Classroom
There is an ever-increasing need to make music visible in schools and cross-curricular. Every subject, including math, science and literacy, can be integrated into the music classroom. When I was younger, music was a separate subject from everything else; however, today music and literacy go hand in hand. Using books in the elementary classroom is a strong belief of mine. The “Reading Corner” in my music classroom consists of about 100 books that help teach music. Many of these stories are non-musical and can be made musical by adding instruments or singing a song about it.
There are millions of children’s books out there and only a tiny portion of those are music related or can be used in the music classroom. So how do you know which ones to use and what musical concept to teach with them? Use my Elementary Music: Book List & Musical Concepts spreadsheet to help you get an idea of some books and what musical concepts I use them for!
Also, find out more about my “Reading Corner” and tips on Music & Literacy in the upper right navigation bar.
Hear Your Heart
Hear Your Heart by Paul Showers is a book idea I received from an elementary music teacher in my district. She learned about this book from a clinic.
The book includes science and physical education content, and can be tied to music. Some of the book is technical heart talk about veins, arteries, and valves. But a lot of it is about heartbeats and PULSE. Specifically the SPEED (or tempo!) of heartbeats! This is a perfect book to supplement a tempo lesson and it is cross-curricular! Win win!
It also has a way for students to make their own stethoscope (paper towel or toilet paper roll) and listen to a friends heart to compare tempos. So, get saving those empty rolls!
May 2011 Post
If you do not have Mallet Madness by Artie Almeida, you are missing out! This is my second year teaching and I don’t know why someone didn’t hit me over the head with this book and yell at me to use it. The activities are engaging (for me and the students) and just fabulous! I love the instrument activities and the lessons that include literature.
Click here to read more about Mallet Madness!
My Favorite Books
I love using books to teach musical concepts (and literacy!). Here are a few of my favorites!
Mabela the Clever: This is a great story, by Margaret Read MacDonald, that I use with all grades if I have time. I use it with grades K-2 every year, and 3-4 if time. The story is a folk tale from Africa, and has a cute song for students to sing during the book. With kindergarten, depending on when I use it during the year, they sing the song, keep a steady beat either on instruments or laps, then play the “Mouse, Mousie” game from Singing Games Children Love Vol.1. In 1st grade, students keep a steady beat of Orff instruments while singing the song, then play “Mouse, Mousie”. Finally, in 2nd grade, students learn a crossover on the Orff instruments and keep a steady beat that way, and end with the “Mouse, Mousie” game. Instruments can be added to the “Mouse, Mousie” song. Each year, the steady beat gets more challenging. In 3rd and 4th grade, students play contrasting Orff instrument parts at the same time while singing the song. You can change the instruments depending on the Orff techniques your students are able to do or what techniques you want to teach them.
Here is what Amazon.com says about Mabela the Clever: “Mabela may be the smallest mouse in the village, but her father has taught her to be clever. And this cleverness comes in handy when the cat comes, inviting everyone to join the secret Cat Society. The mice line up, with Mabela at the front and the Cat at the back. They march into the forest, singing the secret Cat song and shouting FO FENG! Only clever Mabela realizes the Cat is up to no good!”
Buzz and Ollie Series: This series has three adventures that follow siblings Buzz and Ollie. The three adventures are: steady beat, high/low and loud/soft. These are engaging stories to read to your primary students that emphasize these musical concepts. Use them to supplement your pitch, beat and dynamics lessons.
Here is a description from Friendship House: “Buzz and Ollie’s Steady Beat Adventure teaches and reinforces the concept of rhythm. Learn about pitch in a whimsical and wonderful way in Buzz and Ollie’s High, Low Adventure. Buzz and Ollie’s Loud, Soft Adventure is a delightful story that teaches children the concept of dynamics.”
How to Speak Moo: Click here to read my post about this engaging book!
Mallet Madness Books: I enjoy all the lessons from Mallet Madness that go with these books. My favorites are: Old MacDonald Had a Woodshop, Rumble in the Jungle, Mortimer, There Were Ten in the Bed, Jump Frog Jump!, In the Tall, Tall Grass and Peanut Butter and Jelly. I do not own the other books, so I have not done the lessons with my students, but I’ve read through the lessons or seen them done at a workshop, and they are great!
Mallet Madness Strikes Again Books: These are a new purchase for me this year, and I am doing a couple weeks of Mallet Madness with these books in May. The lessons look engaging for the students. I will let you know how it goes!
Listening Walk: This is a great book to introduce environmental sounds to Kindergarteners, or young students. After reading the book and discussing sounds with students, you can add instruments to make the sound if you desire. You can take a listening walk outside and discuss sounds the students hear. Also, you can have students draw or write down the sounds they heard while outside. There are so many fun activities to do with this book!
Whew, this post is getting long. Time to wrap it up! There are many other books I love to use: Too Much Noise!, My Daddy Snores, My Many Colored Days, I Feel Silly…, and so much more! Here is a link to my Elementary Book List and the concepts the books are used for!