Winter Games

I was hoping that my next blog would be linking up with Aileen's "Five Favorite Pins Linky Party" but I just can't get ahead this year and have barely been on Pinterest lately.  I've made a New Year's resolution to work out more (which, I've done a really good job keeping) and to spend more time with my kids.  That includes making these for their Valentine's Day Parties (okay, this was a Pinterest thing but I don't think that's what Aileen meant, lol):

And making this for Noah's Heritage project, his name is Sven and he's from Sweden (this is before he got his mouth, lol):

So, hopefully next month I can join Aileen's party!  Be sure to head over and check it out!

I have been playing some "Winter Games" in my room.  I mentioned these in the blog post I did about the Facebook Free For All.  There are a variety of games included and since I've created it I came up with more ideas of how to simulate the Olympics through these files.  

Here's one that I did with my fifth graders.  We talked about how there are multiple events going on at a time during the Olympics.  So, the kiddos divided into groups of 3-4 and each were given a set of cards representing different sports, here's a sample card from each set:

The students were told that the people in their group were their fellow competitors.  They spread the cards out, so that all the members of the group could see the cards, like this:

I showed them a flashcard, written in stick notation (so it was a stick to staff solfége practice), like this:

The object of the game was to be the first person in their group to identify the staff card in their stack that matched the stick notation.

It was really sweet to see how some groups, even though they were competiting against each other, really helped each other out.  They loved it and I was able to make some assessments on who could identify the patterns and who was completely guessing.  The benefit of this was that they were in really small groups so they all were engaged and taking part in the activity.

Here are the links to the files, if you're interested in them and you can read more about what the files contain on blog post mentioned earlier in the blog.

Melodic files:

1. so-mi
2. la
3. do 
4. re (mi-re-do only)
5. re (pentatonic)
6. low la
7. low so
8. high do
9. fa
10. ti

Rhythmic files:

1. ta ti-ti
2. rest
3. half note
4. tika-tika
5. ti-tika
6. tika-ti
7. syncopa
8. tom-ti
9. ti-tom
10. tim-ka
11. 6/8 meter

I hope that you all are enjoying your long weekend!

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Snowball Fight in the Music Room!!!

New Year's Resolution: starting blogging more like I did last year. Um.. . . . that's not going so well for me!!!  I can give you excuses but I'm not going to.  But I will tell you one: I'm presenting at the Colorado State Music Educators conferences this week so if any of you Colorado friends are going I have two sessions: one on Thursday at 11:30 and one on Friday at 3:00.  I hope you can make it!!!

Around Christmas I purchased some plush snowballs from Oriental Trading.  Unfortunately, like a lot of Oriental Trading's products, it must have been seasonal as I can't find them on their site anymore.  

I've used them a lot in the music room with almost every grade.  With the younger grades and with choir we used them for vocal exploration and warming up our voices.  I toss the ball up and as the ball rises and falls they make their voices follow the snow ball.  I've also tossed it to students and they follow it with their voices.

Before winter break, with first grade, I used them as solo singing incentives.  Once they echoed me in an echo song they got a snowball out of the bin.  They hung onto it as they went back to their seats on the rises.  Then, we got out the rhythm blocks that I made for tika-tika, but I used only the rhythms they know: ta & ti-ti.  I wrote a mystery song from the fall ("Miss White") with the blocks.  They read it a few times from the blocks:

Then some individual students who were at the "top of the chart" (from my Behavior Charts File) got to throw snowballs at the blocks.  They students had to remember and perform the rhythm that was written on the blocks before another snowball could be thrown.

After a few repetitions, they all threw their snowballs that they had earned at the wall and said the who chant on rhythm from memory. They loved it!

I've been using the balls with 4th and 5th grade since Winter Vacation for melodic decoding.  Working in sets of 4, they receive a stack of 14 cards.  I sing a pattern (we started out with me singing the patterns on solfége, then we moved to me singing it on "loo" and finally, now I'm playing the patterns on the piano).  Every group must work cooperatively to find the card that matches the performed pattern.  I give each group ONE chance to answer and we go over that this is a group effort so please check with all your teammates before you raise a card because the first card I see counts as their answer.  If their group is correct, the earn a snowball.  

My fourth graders came up with the idea to put the snowballs on the cards that they have earned so they remember which patterns have been sung already:

Here's an example of a student showing me her group's card.  I do challenge them to have different students show me the answer each time.

I allot an amount of time for this activity: usually 6-7 minutes.  Once I see that every group has enough cards for everyone in their group to have at least one snow ball, or when there are no snowballs left, I collect all the teams' cards and they get 15 seconds to have a snowball fight.  Bonus points go to the team that helps clean up snowballs and are back in their seats first.  They really love it, even though, for me, there's nothing musical about throwing snowball!!! They do work really hard to earn those snowball!

I also use these cards for a relay race!  If you're interest in the cards, I sell them, along with flashcards and 6 other game directions for how the relay and flashcards can be used at my Teachers Pay Teachers store for the following melodic elements:

1. so-mi
2. la
3. do
4. re (mi-re-do patterns only)
5. re (pentatonic)
6. low la
7. low so
8. high do
9. fa 
10. ti 
11. BUNDLE

Speaking of my TpT store, I'm currently running a give away!  If you follow me on Facebook you know that my team, the Broncos, are going to the Super Bowl!!!  So, for every $7 you spend in my store between now and tomorrow night, you're entered in the drawing for $24 of FREE product from my store!  All you have to do is email me, once you've made your purchase, with your TpT user name!

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