A Fun Back-to-School Find

I love Back-to-School shopping and all the "stuff" I can find to use in my classroom (sounds reminiscent of Easter time, huh?!  The reality is I'm always on the look out for things for my classroom- Halloween is coming up soon. ..  . then Thanksgiving. . . you get the picture, lol!)

Today at Walmart I found this eraser:

It's about a foot long: 

 And look how cool the end is!!!:

 They not only had dogs, but there were stars, frogs, hearts, cupcakes, baseballs. . . . I didn't get them all but I stocked up on the dogs, frogs and cupcakes.

Using a knife, I cut off slices and I was able to cut them pretty thin.  In fact, I averaged over 100 pieces on one eraser (cheap manipulative as it was $.88 per eraser!)

 Here's one of the ways I'm going to use it.  (Please forgive my carrot stained cutting board):

Can you guess the song?  If you guessed Doggie Doggie you are right!  Fun for melodic writing, right?!  Since I'm not at school I didn't have a staff, but they would fit great on a staff or writing the melody out spatially (although this is pretty hard for first graders.  You can get around this by giving them a piece of yarn.  Have them lay it horizontally in front of them.  Then they place so above the line and mi below the line).

I also plan on using this for ta/ti-ti preparation.  I have beat strips (I haven't posted about these yet, it's on my to-do list).  The beat strips are long pieces of paper that have 4 beats on one side and 3 beats on the other.  (Obviously the 4 beat side is for 2/4 and 4/4 songs and the 3 beat side is for 3/4 songs).  Using the 4 beat side they will derive how many sounds they hear on each beat and place that many dogs in the heart.  (I'll post a picture soon, I promise).

So, if you have a Walmart in your area hurry over and stock up on some "Twist It Erasers"  for a fun, easily manipulative!!!