KIZZ DANIEL

"You want me to teach music QUIETLY?" I said in disbelief.  "Is that even possible?"

One of my favorite quiet activities for teaching pitch is to use my bottle cap staff sheets.  I have them laminated and use them for a variety of lesson.  For this lesson I pass out the sheets and a hand full of bottle caps.  I will say a word that can be spelled on the staff and students "write" it by putting their bottle caps in order.  In the picture, we just spelled "cafe".

 There are many ways to work on rhythm quietly.  Consider using chopsticks instead of rhythm sticks to play on the back of chairs or even on the floor.  The sound is light and intriguing for even 6th graders.

Another great quiet drumming activity (I know...quiet drumming?) is to use drum sticks on  foam garden kneeling pads.  I found purple and blue ones at Dollar Tree and LOVE that kids can really beat on them, but they sound delightfully muted.  :-)

Rhythmic dictation is a pretty quiet activity too.  I use dry erase boards or lap packs (staff paper or blank paper stuffed into a page protector) and dry erase markers.  You might consider using craft sticks, rhythm cards, mini erasers (matching the syllables in the name of the eraser to the number of sounds in the rhythm) and more.  Clap or tap the rhythms on an instrument, students echo and then write it down.  It is a great assessment and requires great listening skills.

Instead of writing the rhythms down, you might consider having students listen to the rhythm that you play and then circling the correct notation from a few examples.  I have an entire set of "What Do You Hear" worksheets that ask students to do just that.  They vary in complexity so you can use the set with multiple grade levels.  Click HERE to learn more.

If you are able to show videos, I highly recommend the Composer Series of movies about the lives of famous composers.  (not an affiliate link)  You probably already have these in your classroom.  

In addition to showing composer videos, you might consider planning time for your students to just listen to, read about and color pictures of popular composers.  I've talked about this kind of thing in a previous blog post: Coloring Composers.  You can get the set that I use HERE.

I also LOVE Jena Hudson's composer flip books.  You can find them in her store, Sew Much Music on TpT, or follow this link to try the American Composers Set for free!  

Another quiet, creative activity is listening and responding.  Choose a piece of music that inspires a story or vivid mental images.  Have students listen the first time.  For wiggly classes you may want to have them lightly tap the beat or follow you as you tap the beat in various ways.  

Next, have students lie down (if possible), close their eyes and imagine what kind of story the composer wanted them to "see" in the music.

Pass out blank pieces of paper and have them illustrate what they have heard.  For K-2, I often use THIS set of writing prompts that already have a few words written and blank writing lines.

"Stars and Stripes Forever" by Sousa (Shh! You might want to turn this one down a little!)

"Ballet of the Unhatched Chicks" by Mussorgsky

"Funeral March of a Marionette" by Gounod

"Minute Waltz" by Chopin

"Hungarian Dance No. 5" by Brahms

If you are able to show videos, I highly recommend the Instrumental Classmates set of videos to introduce the instrument families.  I found my set on Amazon.  Quaver also has a great series of videos about instruments that your students will enjoy.  

If you are unable to show a video, your students might enjoy putting together a book of instruments.  Students can color the instruments, copy their name or add information about the instrument (with the add-on sheets included).  Click the picture above to get the full set of instrument families or click HERE to get the sampler for free.  Although this takes some time to make all of the copies you'll need, it is a great activity for a quiet day in music.

Another great quiet day activity is to read the book "The Remarkable Farkle McBride".  My 5th graders enjoy this story, so I can use this lesson with all of my classes.  At the end of the story, we will review instrument families and I'll pass out these simple coloring sheets.  While students are coloring we will listen to my classical music playlist for some quiet background music.

Quiet games are not usually favorites in my classroom, but over the years I've come up with a few that students will give a reluctant thumbs up.  They would much rather be drumming and dancing and singing, but quiet days don't always allow for that.

Telephone - This traditional game is played by having students sit in a circle and whispering a message to each other until it makes it all the way around the circle.  Hilarity ensues when the message at the end sounds nothing like the message that started.  The same idea can work with rhythms.  Have students tap a 4 beat measure on the back of the person next to them and then pass that around the group.  Students can usually master this in a couple of tries so then we make it a bit more difficult.  Instead of sending one rhythm around in one direction, start two rhythms.  One goes to the left and the other to the right and they all end up back at the same person.  Tricky!

I hope that you are never asked to teach music quietly, but if you are I hope that some of these ideas will prove helpful.  Like these ideas?  PIN THEM for later.

 

In my music education college classes, way back in the day, it never occurred to me to invest in children's books for my music classroom.  I guess that it never occurred to my instructors either because I didn't hear about it until a few years into my teaching career.  It sounds crazy doesn't it? 

There are so many amazing pieces of children's literature that lend themselves to teaching musical concepts and enhance lessons in history, movement, composition and more.  This is a list of some of the books that I like using with Preschool through 2nd grades.  This list is in no way complete, but hopefully it will provide you with inspiration when shopping for your classroom.

If you are interested in my list of books for upper elementary, you'll want to check out THIS post with a long list of books that I keep for 3rd through 6th graders.

I LOVE workstations!  If you are a frequent reader, you probably have read many of my posts about centers.  If you are just getting started using workstations in your music classroom check out these three posts:

This year I am teaching in a room that is much smaller than the rooms I have been in for the last 20 years or so.  Centers still work perfectly!  This is a picture of some of my groups working on centers this fall.

For some centers I put down a large throw rug.  Students can sit on it or do their activity on it.  Sometimes using the rug just helps define the space you have designated for the workstation.

At this workstation, students say/clap the name of the picture on the card.  They decide with rhythm matches the syllables of the picture and clip-it.  Each set comes with an answer sheet, but most groups use peer checking successfully.

You can get the bulletin board HERE.  It doesn't come with a blank template, but you can find one online or in a bulletin board book you may already have on your shelf.

I found these packs of foam pumpkins at the dollar store about five years ago.  I've seen similar ones at Hobby Lobby and Joann's that might work.  On the back of each pumpkin I drew a four beat rhythm and on another pumpkin the exact same rhythm.  Essentially, this is a memory game.  Students turn over a pumpkin, clap the rhythm they see and then try to find its match.  If they get it right, they keep the match and if they don't they turn them back over and it is someone else's turn.

Rhythm sticks are also a nice instrument to start with because they are not particularly loud and annoying.  With a classroom full of learners in a small space, this is important!  They did a great job and demonstrated a great deal of self control.

I have a confession.  As a teacher who only sees her students once a week for 50 minutes I struggle with assessment.  When 500 students file in and out of your classroom each week it is hard to plan and carryout meaningful assessments.  I would much rather be joyfully making music than testing.  

What I've discovered is so stinkin' easy that I wish I would have known about it twenty years ago!  My secret assessment weapon?  Clothespins.

Yep.  Clothespins.  I usually place these Clip It sets in my workstations rotation.  I include a sheet for students to use and check themselves.  The Clip It sets are quite easy to put together.

I laminate each sheet as a whole on my personal laminator.  Then I cut then out.  This saves me lots of extra cutting time and gives them a sturdy finish.

I keep a basket (or two) of clothespins for activities like this.  I used to buy pretty colored ones, but have discovered that no one fights over the ugly, wooden ones.  

Students take a card and say the name of the object or person pictured.  Then they identify the rhythm pattern that most closely matches the syllables in the word and clip it.  Students can use the enclosed answer sheet to check their answers.  

If I am using this as an assessment activity, I'll walk around the room and take notes.  I usually use a 4 point scale for this kind of activity.  The scoring guide looks something like this:

I printed the cover page of each set at 25% and used it to label the individual boxes.  I can pull out one set to use as a station during our workstation rotations or I can pull them all out and have students work in small groups.

Here are some sets that you might find handy.  Click each picture to learn more.  The Presidents Edition includes sixteenth notes and eighth note/16th note combinations.  The others are mostly quarter notes, barred eighth notes and quarter rests.

  

         

This picture is from Clip It Animals Edition.

Next I attached Velco dots to the fingertips of the gloves and the other part to the bottom of the birds.  There are two great reasons to use Velcro:

2.  The gloves can be used for multiple sets of fingerplay characters.  This saves me money!  Yay!

This is what they look like when assembled.  Here are a few fingerplays to try with your new birdie friends:

These are bottle caps and we pretend that they are frogs.  They also make a delightful sound when drummed on a chair, book or tile floor.  I use them with "Five Green and Speckled Frogs".

The next set of gloves uses these fun foam puzzle mats.  For this project I popped out the numbers 1-10.

Using low temperature hot glue, I attached them to the inside of the gloves.  I wanted to be able to hold my hands with my palms to my students.  Ideally, I'd like to have a set of these for each student in class, but right now I just have a couple of sets.  I may use them at a workstation some day.

Last year I spent my summer posting crafty projects that you may enjoy for your classroom.  You can see those posts HERE.   Join me this summer!

1.  Grab the Summer Project Sundays picture above.

2.  Link to this blog post.  

3.  Add your link below.  

I can't wait to see your projects!