Smartboard Orff lesson

     A while back (last year? Maybe the year before?) I was at an Orff Mini Conference at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. There I was able to attend a session where the presenter did a bunch of Orff lessons based around children's books.  I love to read, and I love to see kids reading, so these kinds of lessons are super fun to me.  I loved learning them, and I've loved doing them with my kids.
     One book she used in a lesson was He Came with the Couch by David Slonim.  I immediately went out and bout the book, and I've done the lesson for the past two years. (I guess at clears up the mystery of when the conference was, huh?).
     This year, I had my 3rd graders doing melodic dictation of the first phrase before they picked out the rest of the phrases on glockenspiels.  The whole time I was writing notes on the board, I was thinking, "Wouldn't it be cool if I had a little icon of the guy on the couch to use in place of notes?"  So I got to work with my smartboard software, and here's what I came up with.

     The little guy at the bottom is an infinite cloner. The original slide comes up with nothing on the staff, just the lone guy at the bottom. On this page, I was showing it to a few of my friends this morning, and from what I can figure out, there's no way to delete an image using the Smart Notebook App for iPads.
   In any case, if you want to see more of this lesson, come to our session at OMEA. There's a good chance it might be part of our presentation!

Star Spangled Banner Jumbles

     For the beginning of the school year, I do an intensive unit on the Star Spangled Banner with my 4th & 5th graders. We read the poem of the Star Spangled Banner from the book The Star-Spangled Banner by Peter Spier. We talk about the story behind the poem, and how it became a song. We discuss what it means (and I "translate" it from 1812 American into current day American).  We sing it with the lyrics, then we remove vital words and sing it again. We watch people perform it. We discuss how much it annoys me when people sing it incorrectly. We watch mistakes and see if we can figure out where the mistake is and what the correct words are.

     In the end, I divide the class into groups and give each group a ziplock bag full of little yellow card stock pieces. Each piece has one word from the National Anthem, and the students have to work together to put the entire song together.

     I start them off by telling them nothing more than, "Put the words in order. The first word is Oh."  From there they get started. I walk around as they are working. Depending on how well ey are working, I play an instrumental version of the song while they work.  I tell them to sing it quietly in their group if they are stuck. 
     
     I do have to make sure I always tell them that if they can't find a word or they think one is missing, they should leave an empty spot and come back to it later. It's amazing how many empty spots get filled when there are less words to choose from!  

     It's also amazing how many little yellow pieces get in the wrong bags!  In order to help keep the words straight (for the kids and for me), I printed each set in a different colored font. Unfortunately, the colors didn't all come out as different as I expected when they were printed on yellow card stock!

     The students enjoy this activity because it's like a puzzle. I love it because it helps them learn the words. They have a hands on way to put the words together. They work on literacy skills when reading the words individually and in the song.  

First post!

Okay, after introducing myself to Pinterist, I found lots of awesome blogs by music teachers where they share lesson ideas. It inspired me to create my own blog so I can share ideas. Typically, when I come up with something awesome, I email it to the other music teachers in my district and to a few friends from college. I'm excited to think that someone may come across my ideas on here and be able to implement them in their own classroom, too. I just don't know how anybody will find my blog! 

I guess it's time to get to it, while I'm excited about the idea of sharing.  

On to post #2!