Looks Familiar!

I started this blog hoping to fill it with ideas I've used in my classroom, and I'll admit I've done a terrible job keeping it up to date. I hope I can get better about it, but of course we'll see.

Just like many teachers, I'm spending part of my summer already planning for next year. I was recently looking online for a good game to play to review instrument families, possibly with the whole class. Using the same idea as the game "Spoons" that I used to play in middle school, I came up with this game which I call "Looks Familiar!" I went online searching for instrument pictures to use as cards, and came across these coloring pages from the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra: http://www.bsomusic.org/bsokids/main.taf?p=4,3 They're great because they have 4 instruments from each of the 4 families, which works perfectly for this game. I plan on just printing them at a smaller size to make cards.

Looks Familiar!

Object

Be the first player to hold a set of four different cards from the same instrument family (example: trumpet, trombone, french horn and tuba).

Deck
For each player, you need a set of four cards from the same instrument family

Playing the Game
1. Everyone sits in a circle
2. Deal 4 cards to each player
3. Every person takes one of the cards they were dealt and passes it to the player on their right
4. Each player then receives a card from the player on their left
5. Each player may not have more than 4 cards in their hand at a time.
6. Players try to collect an entire instrument family (may not have any repeated instruments)
7. When a player collects all 4 instruments of any family, (s)he shouts out "Looks Familiar!", the teacher checks their cards and if the family is correct, they are the winner!

High and Low Woes

I know it's been a long time since I've posted, and I apologize. It's been a crazy few months here!

Kindergarten has finished their steady beat unit and has now moved on to the most difficult concept I have to teach them: High and Low sounds. This concept is especially hard because we constantly ask to have the volume of the television, the radio and the computer turned "up/higher" or "down/lower." So when it comes time to discuss high and low in music class, about half the class is convinced I am talking about volume. As with most abstract concepts, the best way for the kids to get a grip on high and low is to experience it.

I introduce high and low with a lot of movement up and down as we experiment with our voices. I also show them a xylophone turned on its side so that high is up and low is down. I also use the sentences "High and squeaky like a mouse" and "Ho, ho, ho, I speak low" to solidify the feeling of the high voice and low voice in their minds.

Last year, I came up with a game to really reinforce the concept, and the kids absolutely love it. I call it "High and Low Hide and Seek." One student is chosen to be "it" and has to close their eyes. Another student is chosen to hide an object somewhere in the music room (my room doesn't have many places to hide a person, so we use a hand drum mallet). The class's job is to guide "it" to the object using their singing voices. When "it" is far away from the object, the class sings low, and as "it" walks in the correct direction, the class's voices begin to rise. The highest sound is always right near the object.  After "it" finds the object, they get to hide it for the next student. It is great seeing the kids use their voices to help out their friends, and I especially love seeing the "it" person turn around the instant they hear the voices starting to get lower.

If you have any great ideas for teaching high and low, please share!

Treble Clef Beanbag Toss

This week in music class, my first graders are reviewing all 12 notes on the treble clef staff from C4 to F5. Most of them are able to identify about 10 of the 12 correctly on a regular basis, which is great. This is all thanks to Sharon Burch and Freddie the Frog. If you are a music teacher and haven't heard about Freddie yet, you're missing out! Go check out this site when you're done here. So far I've read "Freddie the Frog and the Thump in the Night" and "Freddie the Frog and the Secret of Crater Island" with the 1st graders. I make sure to read each of them through on two different days with each class, so that students who miss a day of music don't totally miss out on the story. It's also a great review for the others who were there.

I made a game to review the notes they know and the kids have had a blast playing it, and I've had a blast watching them learn. I call it the treble clef beanbag toss. Here's how it works:

Materials Needed:

• 6 Beanbags (I use different colors, but you could adapt it based on what you have)
• 6 Dry Erase Markers to match the color of the beanbags
• White Board (either one per team or a large one for everyone to write on)
• Treble Clef Floor Staff (I made a long one out of a clear vinyl carpet protector like the one pictured at the bottom of this post with electric tape lines on the bottom...I'll try to remember to take a picture of mine and post it on here)

Directions:

• Divide class into 6 teams (or number of beanbags you have).
• Have teams sit down in lines facing the floor staff.
• On teacher's command, first person on each team tosses the beanbag onto the floor mat (if they throw too far, their team loses that turn)
• Student who tossed figures out what note their beanbag landed on, and writes it on the whiteboard using their team's colored marker.
• After writing on the board, the students go sit at the end of their line.
• As a class, check all of the answers. I make the kids say cues with me like "The space notes spell FACE" every time we check an answer so that they have to pay attention. 
• If an answer was correct, that color team gets a point. If it was not correct, there is no point given. I try not to call attention to the individual who made a mistake, I just say that the "green team" was not correct. The students are also pretty good about understanding that we all make mistakes.
• At the end of the class period (yes, they can play it the entire 40 minutes without getting bored), I let the team with the most points line up first.

Let me know if you try this in your own classroom, or if you have any ideas to tweak it! The kids seem to love it and it's amazing how much more accurate their answers get by the end of class.