1st and 3rd Grade Concert

1st and 3rd grade Spring Concert

Finally I have time to catch up on the blog! These past few months have been a whirlwind of events, from concerts, to talent shows, grades, and inventory I have to say I am very grateful to have this first full time year under my belt! That being said I now have the time to brag about my wonderful students and all the great accomplishments that they did in the past few months!

1st and 3rd grade do a concert together here at Snyder Elementary.  My goal for students in these ages is to have a concert that gets their feet wet in singing and performing in front of a group.  I also find it important that because the students are still very young that the concert is about a half hour-45 minutes long so that they can get home for homework/dinner/bedtime, maybe it's the mom in me, but it is on a school night!

This is my wonderful first grade! They sang a children's music called "The Box" by Mark Burrows. In this musical the students sing songs about using their imagination to turn a plain ordinary cardboard box into anything they can dream up. They sang songs including, Anything can happen in a fairy tale, Rocket ship, and Take it from your Teachers, to name a few!





With 3rd grade I wanted the students to start to learn about acting and and performing in a musical. Together we put on a great show, The Princess and the Frog! Each of the 42 actors had costumes that were graciously made by an amazing woman, Mary Hurr, all by hand, and with only donated materials! She really helped the kids feel important and special as they got to partake in a show complete with costumes!

Teachers Pay Teachers Sale!

Here we are! The LAST full week of school, and the end of my first full time year of teaching! It has been a fantastic year filled with ups and downs. I will take everything I learned from this year and continue to grow as an educator.

Since it is the last week of school I have decided to throw a sale on all of my Teachers Pay Teachers products.  Please take a minute to look at what I have. There are games for the end of the year, and some ideas to get a jump start on next year's plans.

Happy summer everybody! Until next year!!!

~Mrs. G

Jeopardy- Review for Grade 2

Here it is, the end of the school year!! How we got here so fast is beyond me.  However, we are not done...yet! I find this time of year to be the perfect time to assess how far the students have come from the beginning of the year I like to do this with a few weeks of games.  This particular game (my favorite) is the classic Jeopardy!

 Second grade took a big chunk of the year to learn about the instrument families.  To evaluate and see where the students are at we played Jeopardy, the instrument version! Each category is a different instrument family, Brass, Woodwind, Strings and Percussion!

 The following are sample questions that are from each category. The colored part on the bottom is the question and the lighter blue portion is the answer that I was looking for.

The students did a FANTASTIC job this year!!! I can't wait until we have the opportunity to learn some new exciting things in 3rd grade, including **Drum roll please** the 3rd grade musical!

Where in the World is Mr. Maraca?? RUSSIA

 This time Mr. Maraca is visiting Russia! This month in composer corner students are learning about Sergei Prokofiev, so I thought it would be the perfect time to introduce the country of Russia, they're similarities and differences not on in music, but their country and economics as well.

In the first slide I use animation to go one line at a time with the students. Each sentence is a clue to let the students figure out where Mr. Maraca is.  Finally the word RUSSIA presents itself at the bottom (after all clues are given) so that they can guess!

One of the most important things I like to discuss with the students are the similarities and differences in our American culture with the other countries. This doesn't always mean we are only talking about the music background, but sometimes about their economy and culture. One of the National Standards for Music education is: 9. Understanding music in relation to history and culture. In order to do this successfully I think that it is important to show the students other historical facts about those countries to help them understand where music comes into play.

 After students learn about the culture/economy we discuss some of the famous genre's of music and the famous composers.  Here are a few of the composers we spoke about.

Many countries have their own form of instruments. This slide shows historical Russian instruments, and then we decide as a group which of the 4 traditional family of instruments they belong in.

Peter and the Wolf is a famous children's symphony that is written by our composer of the month, Sergei Prokofiev. This symphony introduces the instruments of the orchestra to the students through music and through a story that Prokofiev wrote. Students have a chance to watch the Disney version of this in class.

After watching Peter and the Wolf we do a matching game to see who was paying attention! Which instrument goes with which character? Each character in Peter and the Wolf is assigned a specific instrument that always plays when their character is on screen.





Those are only part of the slides for Russia, however if you would like to get the entire PowerPoint please visit my store at Teachers Pay Teachers

Going on an Egg Hunt!

In preparation for the Easter holiday I found a great unit by a fellow musician called Goin' on an Egg Hunt by Adron Ming III.  It is a song and game for k-2nd that I adapted to fit the kindergarten students here at Snyder.  In the game students use a call and response to echo a chant about finding Easter eggs.

The lyrics go like this " Going on an Egg Hunt, Lookin' all around me, gotta find a bright one. Something green!"  The color changes at the end of the song for which ever egg the students are hunting for.

 I have been looking for a way to start stick notation with the kindergarten students, and this was the perfect opportunity.  Stick notation is the first step in getting them to read music. Which is part of the National standards that all students in music have to follow. Standard 5. Reading and notating music. Every time there is a single stick we say "TA", I have the students clap the rhythm and say it.  The fun twist is that around the room are Easter eggs that they have to find. Once they find it they read and clap the rhythm then run back to me and clap/say it. The picture to the right shows the first rhythm they learned, Ta, Ta, Ta, Ta









When the stick notation is connected then we say ti ti. ti ti's are twice as fast as ta's and always come in pairs (at least at the kindergarten level.)

Finally if they get it right and they are the first ones to get it right then they get to choose an Easter egg from my Easter basket and keep whatever prize is in it.  The picture below shows the Easter basket I used and how they chose their prizes! 

10 Little Leprechaun's!

In the spirit of St. Patrick's day my Kindergarten students continue work on the series "there was an old woman who swallowed a..." This holiday she swallows a clover! 

Eventually the students will have sung through the entire series of "There was an old lady" and then the students will have a chance to start "composing" for the first time. The students will be given a picture where they can draw anything they want in the old lady's mouth and show what she swallowed this time!

 After the book has been read they learn the 10 little leprechaun's song and then we play a game of hot and cold! One student is the Leprechaun and another tries to steal the Leprechaun's Gold and hide it.  If the Leprechaun can find it then the Leprechaun wins if not then the student that hid the Gold wins! The rest of the students sing the song to let the Leprechaun know if he is getting close to finding it or not. If the students sing LOUD then the Leprechaun is very close, if they sing quiet then the Leprechaun is far away!

 As an added extension idea the students have a chance to start to get an idea of music notes and what they look like by looking at the pictures that symbolize what the notes are. (They will start to learn notes in 1st grade)

If you would like to check out the entire PowerPoint and game please visit my site at Teachers Pay Teachers

Form and listening maps!

To continue with teaching the students the importance of learning that music has different forms, I've decided to bring out a fun concept that I learned in college, Listening Maps!

  Listening maps are great tools, especially for the younger kids that can't read music yet.  A listening map is essentially a visual representation of a song.  It can show how the music goes up or down in sound, or if there is a steady beat. Your job as the reader of the listening map is to follow along.

 The second great thing about the listening maps is that it shows when the music changes. When the pictures change, the music changes. From earlier lessons (Such as Music Form) The students already learned that when the music notes change to a different pattern then the form changes. In this slide we see the pictures are different the previous slide therefore even if the students can't hear it (yet!) they will be able to SEE it change!

Since we will be doing these listening maps near Easter I decided to write the map to a song called "The Ballet of the Unhatched Chick" by Mussorgsky (Get the youtube clip here Chicks!) In order to get the students even more engaged I made a bunch of Chicks on a Stick! This tool will be used to help them follow along with the map on the projector screen, and lets face it have some fun too!! I fully believe that students learn better when they want to learn, and when something is fun they want to do it!

These were super east to make, and pretty cheep! If you go to AC Moore or any other craft store right now they have things out for the Easter holiday.  These foam chicks came 5 to a pack, and the pack was only a dollar! The googly eyes and Popsicle sticks were only a dollar as well. Super cheep, super easy to make, and loads of fun!


If you're interested in the whole 24 slide PowerPoint, complete with 2 listening maps, please visit my store at teachers pay teachers 

Happy Listening!