Just a day and a half of school left before Christmas Break!
Whole School Winter Concert -- check Kindergarten Caroling at the nursing home -- check
Fun with The Nutcracker -- check
K-2 and 3-5 sing-a-long -- coming up soon!
I am thrilled with the outcome of the 2010 winter concer "A Holiday of Music!"
It is always nice to get great comments from parents...
"Kimmy Scott, you are a gifted and talented teacher. I have never been to an elementary school performance quite like the one I watched tonight by Trent Park. You didn't just have them stand up there and sing songs, they put on a performance! Girl you rock!"
and from teachers
"Trent Park's BEST Christmas concert EVER!" "Trent Park Christmas Concert was fabulous tonight. We had it at Grover and packed the place! What an incredible job by our kids and our outstanding music teacher."
I haven't seen the 3-5 portion of the show, but I was please with the K-2 and Recorder Club! We had an AWESOME turn out and I had a BLAST doing the concert. I am looking forward to trying to top it next year. Below you will find a 5 minute mash up of the first half of the concert. Please enjoy!!
The week after the concert we focused on music from The Nutcracker.
We listened to music, analyzed the form, moved to the music, rode candy cane horses and played with the parachute. The parachute activity was LOVED by all grade levels K-5. One second grader was so excited to see the parachute stick to the ceiling that he literally "jumped for joy." In his excitement he jumped with hid knee right into my stomach -- caught that one on video. There was a lot of shouting in my room this week, so I feel a little bad for the class next door. But hey, what can you do? Parachutes are REALLY exciting!!!
Here is a preview of our Winter Holiday Concert. The concert is on December 14 at {gasp} the Middle School on the BIG STAGE!!! ACK!! We're moving up in the world. I think... no... I KNOW we will be ready in time! Sit, back, relax and enjoy our hard work!
Sometime after December 14, we'll let you know how everything turned out!
Videos are compliments of my students.
In honor of Thanksgiving my kindergarten students learned the song I Like Thanksgiving from Music K-8. It's hard to video them and sing with them...but here ya go! The girls in the back row are adorable. I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving!!!
**Sorry it's sideways... not sure how to rotate it! It played right before I put it in the blog. Suggestions??**
I am just trying out this Voki. I am thinking about doing a short research project with my fifth grade classes after the Christmas concert. They will each get a composer to research and questions to answer. They will then be able to create a Voki and type the answers to their questions. Just a different way of doing a report... thought it was interesting. :)
Can you help out my classroom? DonorsChoose is an AMAZING way for teachers to get items they need for their classroom. I have been very fortunate to have several projects funded by DonorsChoose. Right now, they are partnering with Yahoo!
Click on the link above to help support my classroom. My project ID is 463735. The name of the project is Get with the Gameplan!
Although Halloween has passed, the Recoder Club (we're still looking for a cool snazzy name) has been hard at work learning to play Hall of the Mountain King.Enjoy! The Recorder Club was started this year thanks to donors choose and Recorder Karate. Through donorschoose all of the fourth graders were given a recorder and were able to participate in Recorder Karate. The response was so amazing that some of the students wanted to continue playing in 5th graders. A great group of 14 fifth graders signed up to stay afterschool for an hour on Tuesdays to continue their recorder studies and make music with their friends.
Students earn belts for passing each level.
Usually the belts are on the bottom of
the recoder. This student is showing
hers off... as well as her lucky charm.
Although we still need a little more work, we had a TON of fun learning about the form of Brahms' Hungarian Dance No. 3. The very first time my students were introduced to the song, they simply listened to it. We discussed what we heard. We answered questions like "What instruments did you hear?" "How did the music make you feel?" "Did the composer repeat anything?" "Did you hear any parts that were the same?"
I then presented them with a listening map that showed them that the song had a form, or a map, that could be followed...
Intro A B A B C B A
As we listened again, we followed the map and chose a feeling for each section.
nothing happy sad/scared/angry happy sad/scared/angry very happy sad/scared/angry happy
There was a LOT of listening today! We listened, yet again, and made the corresponding faces
or
Finally we added scarves and moved to the music. Blue and purple scarves could move or dance on the A section. Red and yellow could dance on the B section and everyone could move or dance on the C section. This is what happened with our first go 'round.
Thanks to Donors Choose we received the scarves from the last video as well as a class supply of flashlight and D batteries to get us started. I took a sharpie marker (love 'em!) and colored over the lense of the flashlight in either blue, purple, red or light green (which looks yellow on the ceiling). The students were then given the opportunity to "paint" on the ceiling. The same rules for painting applied to dancing. Purple/Blue = A section, red/yellow = B section, everyone on the C section. I attempted this activity with K-2 (and the 5th grade because there were VERY jealous that they didn't get to do this when they were younger). The kindergarteners were not 100% successful, but for the first time it wasn't bad. Plus, it was all they talked about for DAYS! They needed a little more guidance. I plan on trying to find one song a month to do this activity with the students. It's my new favorite active listening activity.
As a teacher, I have always felt that the shortest weeks are the longest weeks. Although we only had 4 days of school this week, it feels like 10.
Yesterday I spent my morning at the Opera with my third grade students. We saw Three Billy Goats Gruff.
This is a video clip from the Carolina Opera Express giving a preview of the movie. This is not the cast we saw, but you get the picture.
The morning started off with a fire drill, was followed directly by a transformer blowing (causing the lights in the bathrooms to go out), a walk to the middle school for the Opera, Opera watching and then a one and a half hour music teacher meeting.
Report cards are due on Monday for grades 1-5. Nothing like 300 report cards with comments. Bleck.
Today was also a challenging day. It started out with two melt downs in my first class. I guess I should be flattered because I caused one of the melt downs. "Bob" was upset and had a meltdown because we were not doing the fruit loop activity we did last week. Who knew it was such a loved activity. I will have to bring it back out again sometime. Sadly, I had to call the administration to come and get "Bob" because he was threatening to throw chairs at other students and I was afraid he was going to hurt someone or himself.
On a happy note, U.S. Cellular (along with several other wonderful donors) funded my project Music with a Twist! I'm very, Very, VERY excited about all the new supplies I will be getting!!! I'm really looking forward to using the new drums, scarves and FLASHLIGHTS! Also, I was chosen as a winner of the North Carolina Bright Ideas grant!!! I will go to Raleigh in November 19 for a luncheon. I will receive about $1,350 for guitar making kits to use with the second graders.
We had so much fun today in First Grade! I am fortunate to see this class two days in a row :)
Yesterday, we read the poem Big Black Cats. We worked very hard to figure out the rhythmic pattern of the words -- which happens to be
ta ta ta rest
ta ta ta rest
ti ti ti ti ti ti ta
ta ta ta rest
We performed the rhythms using claps, snaps, pats, and more. Once we had the rhythm under belts, we created new rhythms using ta, ti ti and rest.
Day Two Here comes the fun part! After doing a review of yestday's class we moved on to the fruit loops!
I have worksheets for the students that have 16 boxes on them.
Each box is worth one beat. A quarter note (ta) is represented by one fruit loop. We know that in 4/4, a quarter note is one beat, one sound -- ta. Barred eighth notes are represented by two fruit loops in one box. We know that in 4/4, eighth notes are one beat, two sounds -- ti ti.
I said and clapped a variety 4 beat patterns using ta, ti ti and rest. The students used fruit loops to notate what I clapped.
They also created their own four beat patterns using fruit loops and then performed them for the class.
At the end of class, they were allowed to eat the fruit loops (this might have been their favorite part!).
Like any day, today was full of rainbows and thunderstorms. Let's focus on the rainbows...
The morning started out with an amazing sunrise and 10 out of 13 green lights on the way to school! Woo Hoo!!!
In Kindergarten today we were practicing recognizing rhythms to day. This says "ta", this says "ti ti". Let's read these rhythms "ta ta titi ta." I made a comment similar to "Boys and girls you are so smart!" A student responded "Yep. We sure are. I bet we're even smarter than you are Ms. Scott!!"
Several students have requested to hear Wavin' Flag again. I'm glad that song went over so well. I'm thinking about using it again next week as their song for their listening journal. The fifth graders were doing some dancing today. While they were getting drinks, I let them listen to Wavin' Flag (since it was requested). I really only taught them the refrain, yet when the song started there was a group of girls singing their hearts out on the verse. They liked the song so much they went home and downloaded it!!
This morning in carpool I was met by a bright and smiley fifth grader waving her recorder to let me know that she was VERY excited for recorder club this afternoon. Also today was the first day of recorder club. I had 14 fifth graders sign up, bring their recorders and spend an hour after school playing recorders. We learned one duet from Dojo Duets (by Plank Road Publishing) and started on In the Hall of the Mountain King. The kids are pretty excited about In the Hall of the Mountain King. :) Also 13 out of 14 students were picked up on time. Not bad for the first day. :)
At the school book fair, parents donated three of the four books on my wish list!! Also a wonderful parent brought me a Dunkin' Donuts coffee!!!!!! Just what I needed to make it though the day.
Here's to a week full of more rainbows than thunderstorms!
I was inspired by a blog entry from on of my friends from college. http://alluemkids.blogspot.com/2010/10/identical-flags_13.html
When I saw this link I KNEW I wanted to do something like this in my classroom. The song was also mentioned over the summer on a listserv I subsribe to. My problem is that I tend to dream big and over plan. Because of this, I usually can't fit in all the great ideas I hear about.
This morning I was told that we were unable to get a sub for the Art teacher. PE and Music would have to split the Art classes in half and add them to our regularly scheduled class. My first thought was "Oh man! There go my lesson plans for the day! :( But then I realized I could use this lesson today. Although I had big plans for the song (making flags, talking about hopes and dreams, creating a boomwacker ostinato, movement activity...), sometime SIMPLE is better.
The third and fifth grade classes came in and we did a quick discussion about the song and watched two versions -- the Young Artists for Haiti http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nB7L1BIDELc&ob=av2e and the World Cup Coca-Cola comercial http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTJSt4wP2ME. After comparing and contrasting the songs/videos I put the song on repeat and let the students design their own flags... flags that represent who they are and who they hope to become. It was a very enlightening lesson.
"When I get older
I will be stronger
They'll call me freedom
Just like a wavin' flag"
We have just completed two weeks of summer vacation! Woo hoo! I love having almost two month of free time to catch up on things I didn't accomplish during the school year. However, I'll admit it, I spend half of my summer vacation searching for new and exciting things to do next year during class.
I have had a few projects funded through donorschoose since school got out. I am super excited to use these new supplies next year. Thanks to all our generous donors. www.donorschoose.org/kscott.music
or 
We have just completed two weeks of summer vacation! Woo hoo! I love having almost two month of free time to catch up on things I didn't accomplish during the school year. However, I'll admit it, I spend half of my summer vacation searching for new and exciting things to do next year during class. 