General Music Minute to Win It Games

As winter break is ending, I've been compiling rhythm games to play as a review during the first weeks back to school. I am planning to use these games with my 2nd, 3rd and 4th grade classes. Over the holidays, my family played some Christmas themed "Minute to Win It" games for the younger kids. It was so fun and everyone was engaged so I searched for music themed MTWI games. I found some great resources, adapted some for my age groups, and created some for use in general music classroom.

Rest Sculpting
Construct 3 rests from play-doh and arrange them from shortest to longest duration. If the student completes this task successfully, the team earns a point.
(Found at Heidi's Piano Studio post)

Treble Clef Van Goh
Draw a Treble Clef on the board using a visual cue. Correct? Team earns a point.
(Just a fun review for my 4th grade classes that made a treble clef ornament before break.)

A Bit Dicey
Using rhythm dice, roll the dice to create a measure of 4/4 time. Students may roll as many times as needed.
(Found at Heidi's Piano Studio post) Correct? Earn a point.

Rhythm Sorter
Solo cups are labeled 1-4 representing the number of beats. Students are to sort a set of ping pong balls with notes and rests into the appropriate cup. Correct? Earn a point.
(Found at Orchestra Classroom Ideas post)

Bean Bag Rhythm Toss
With rhythmic values placed on the floor as tiles, a student must toss a bean bag to the correct symbol as the rhythm values are called. The teacher must keep track of correct answers, maybe clear the beanbag if the answer was wrong. I also anticipate needing a student to collect the stray beanbags.
(You can get the "tiles" here)

Note Value Dice
Roll the value dice as many times as you can in a minute, answering the number of beats the rhythm receives after each roll. Teacher keeps track of number of correct answers in the minute. Correct answers? Earn a point.
(You can find a rhythm dice printable here!)

Staff Spelling (4th grade)
As a review, students will draw staff spelling words out of a hat and "spell" them on the staff board. Correct answers earn a point.

Rhythm Telephone- Group Finale Game
Everyone knows this game and it is an old favorite in my classroom. I thought it would be a great team game for the finale that requires everyone to participate. We may end up doing several minute rounds because they love it so much.

You can find more advanced MTWI games from these blogs:
Orchestra centered games: Orchestra Classroom Ideas 
Piano centered games: Heidi's Piano Studio
More piano centered games (and some for older, advanced students): Noteable Music Studio 

Lastly, here is a great timer that frees you up from keeping the time, lets the students see the time left and will build excitement in the onlooking students! Use it as full screen and listen for the buzzing when times up!

Choir Gifts

I wanted to do something for my choir kids as a thank you for all their hard work this semester. This was a relatively affordable "gift" even though I ended up getting the giant sized Symphony bars (since Walmart didn't have enough of the XL bars stocked....) I conned my sister into helping me cut out the tags and tie up the ribbons.  Here is the finished product.

I designed the tags in powerpoint. Here is a closer picture and a PDF if you'd like to print your own.

Whacky March for Boomwhackers

In December, we have been studying the Nutcracker. Like last year, I used the storybook app and the kids were once again mesmerized by it. In order to use the Nutcracker in the older elementary grades, I drew an arrangement of Whacky March from Music K8.  First, we learned the kazoo part then added the boomwhackers. I was a nice change of pace (for my recorder classes) especially with all the craziness of field trips and parties.

This goes right along with the CD, although we enjoyed playing it unaccompanied.

You can get the PDF HERE

Halloween Treat

I love Halloween and we always have a lot of fun celebrating the not so scary parts of this holiday. My recorder class has been working hard on Recorder Karate this semester, so we decided to work on a fun piece for Halloween. Here is B A Dancing Zombie from Music K8.

All the credit for the acting goes to my students. They made it all up.

Beginning Belts for Recorder

It's recorder time!! My 4th grade classes have been playing for two weeks now. We have been working on fundamentals and playing with a pretty, soft sound. I've also been crazy about articulation. I don't know why but a "fwah" attack drives me insane!

I am doing a couple things differently this year in order to reinforce all these great fundamental habits and really motivate the students. First, like recorder karate, we have 3 beginning belts: Black and Yellow striped, Pink and Sparkly.

Black and Yellow: "B Belt"
Hold a B with a soft, pretty sound for 20 counts with left hand on top and good posture. We practice a breathing exercise every time they come to music up to 24 counts.

Pink: Tonguing Belt
Tongue 4 notes in a row with a tah attack on each one

Sparkly: First solo
Play Hot Cross Buns for the class. I make my students leave their recorders in the classroom until they can play a song as a class. It is a great motivating tool and keeps them from going home and reinforcing bad habits.

Here is a picture of my recorder with the belts attached. I use pipe cleaners and they work like magic. The kids can get them on easily and they stay on! For the B belt, I just twisted yellow and black together. My fifth grade class came up with pink for tonguing. Everyone has gotten a kick out of that. And of course, sparkly is the most exciting belt.

Second, during class I am watching for students who are putting forth great effort and doing the fundamentals well. When I see or hear something great, I give the student a ticket. (Those carnival ride tickets...2000 on a roll for 4 bucks) They write their name on it and place it in the box. At the end of the six weeks, I will draw out x number of tickets and we are having an "Ice Cream Sundae Party."

As a review of fundamentals and a ticket opportunity, I sat in front of the class and performed things wrong, like posture, left over right, breathing, tonguing, etc. I asked the class to figure out what I was doing wrong and when they knew, raise their hand. If the person I called on got it correct, they got a ticket. Every hand in the room was up!

Carnival of the Animals Listening Tickets

Last year, my third grade classes were split by semester. This year we have year long classes with 3rd grade, but they are HUGE!

The good thing is that I can revisit Carnival of the Animals! The librarian and I have decided to do art activities with 3rd grade (because our art teacher travels to the high school after lunch) and I am incorporating that into my Carnival of the Animals unit with 3rd grade. This also coincides with their field trip to the zoo!

As an intro to each lesson, I have decided to play the piece and have the students make a prediction about the animals that is being depicted.

You can get the tickets HERE.

Fossils has a special ticket asking for the name of a familiar song. These tickets are included in the PDF.

Football Rhythms

In 5th grade, I have a room full of boys! I mentioned in an earlier post about playing the rhythm football game. Everyone loves this game! It is definitely worth the 3 bucks! As an additional activity for 5th grade, I created a word rhythm matching worksheet with NFL teams.

I let my classes work with a partner to sound out the teams and match them with the rhythms. My 5th graders are especially interested in college teams so I added a page for them to figure out the rhythm of their favorite college teams.

You can get the PDF file HERE.