KIZZ DANIEL

I have several sets of bowling pins at my house.  I know that sounds weird, but I've been working on and then perfecting a bowling workstation for several years.  The set that I used in the pictures is a wooden set.  It is a nice size and weight and the pins make a lovely sound when they fall down.

This set was on sale for 75% off when I picked it up.  Music teacher WIN!  I've picked up some at discount stores and yard sales too.

From experience with Layton Music's Music Yahtzee, I knew that putting a single eighth not or a dotted quarter note would up the difficulty of this game to the point where not all of my students would be able to play and successfully record their score.  I decided to use notes that would not utilize fractions, or their mathematical brothers, decimals.  I used quarter note, barred eighth notes, 4 sixteenth notes, half note, dotted half note and whole note.  I drew one of these on each of the six pins.  I used a permanent marker, but you could also use a paint pen.

I have a plastic set of pins.  I used a white paint pen and a silver Sharpie to draw on the notes.  They have held up quite well.  Although you could store the pins in their original box or container, I haven't found a set that holds up well.  I buy plastic storage containers and place everything in them.

Before introducing the game to students I spent some time practicing.  (Turns out I'm a pathetic bowler!)  I experimented with how far apart to place the pins and how far back I needed to stand to roll the boll.  If the pins are too far apart, they won't all fall down even with a perfect throw.  If they are too close together, they will all fall down every time.  I ended up finding the perfect distance for my set of pins and marking their placement with a piece of masking tape,  I also drew the note on the masking tape to help them set up as quickly as possible.

After much experimentation, I decided that my students needed to stand 4 floor tiles away from the pins.  (That's somewhere between 4 and 5 feet.)

If you don't have a bowling set, you can create your own pins with 20 ounce soda or water bottles.  You could even use empty 2-liter bottles.  Spray paint them before drawing the notes on and add about a third of a bottle of beans or sand to steady them.  Small Nerf balls would work great with these DIY pins. 

To complete the workstation, I include a score sheet on a clipboard and a pencil.  One version of the score sheet contains a "cheat sheet" and shows students the note value of each pin.  The other version does not.  My goal in using this workstation is to reinforce note values, so I don't mind if students use the score sheet with the references.  They still gain practice in adding them all together.

You can download both of the sheets by clicking on the picture above or by clicking HERE.  I hope that your students enjoy this activity!

Like most teachers I am such a fan of dollar stores.  I can shop there to organize my classroom, create new workstations and add a little flair to my bulletin boards.  I'd like to share with you just a few of my favorite finds!

My kids are always a little in awe when they see my collection of flyswatters. (This pictures shows most of my collection.)  I sometimes use them as pointers when projecting things on my white board, but most often these are used for Swat the Staff or Swat the Rhythm games.  With Swat the Staff, I use masking tape to create a large staff on my board.  Two students (from two different teams) stand at the board.  I call a pitch name and the first person to correctly swat where that pitch should be gets a point for their team!  Fun!  You can check out some of my Swat the Rhythm games in my store.  

I try to do all of my singing assessments with my primary students in a game like setting.  "Doggie, Doggie, Where's Your Bone" and other singing games help them relax and I can assess their ability to match pitch, sing in head voice or whatever we are assessing that day.  The plastic fruits, veggies and food are great for this kind of thing.  

The teacher sings "Who has the lemon?" (sol mi la sol mi)

The student with the lemon sings back "I have the lemon!" (sol mi la sol mi)

At one time I'm pretty sure I had a thousand of these little cars in every nook and cranny of my house!  It wasn't quite that many, but it certainly seemed like they were constantly multiplying.  Now, they are a music workstation!  I added stickers to them and used the Music Town Parking Center file to create an interactive activity that my kiddos really enjoy.  I've used this fabulously with 2nd and 3rd graders.  At some dollar stores you can get 3 little cars for $1.  Score!

I love using clothespins for assessment.  Yep.  Assessment.  I painted some wooden clothespins, drew rhythms in various meters and had students pin them to a piece of paper that I had drawn a 2, 3 and 4 on.  If the pattern had four beats, they pinned it to the side of the paper with the 4 and so on.

Another GREAT activity for assessment is Clip It.  I have several of these sets that you might be interested in:  Animals,  Camping, Careers, Christmas, Presidents, Thanksgiving and Instruments.

Students match the syllables of each picture with one of the rhythms by clipping them.  

I like to use balls to bounce to the beat and for workstations like Note Toss (click to learn more) and Snowball Scoop (click for more details).

These inexpensive alphabet puzzles are great manipulatives for Kindergarten and First Grade.  We sing the alphabet song while touching each letter.  Then I'll pick a letter and we will all remove that piece.  Next we sing through the alphabet song again but when we get to the missing letter we say "shh".  Later this knowledge translates to a quarter rest.  

In first grade, the students can handle this activity on their own in small groups and I set it up as a workstation.

Craft sticks are handy for many reasons.  Two of my favorite uses are creating groups and rhythmic dictation.  To learn more about how to create classroom groups with craft sticks read THIS post.

For rhythmic dictation, I show students how to create quarter notes and barred eighth notes with the sticks.  I clap patterns and the students "notate" them with the craft sticks.  When they have mastered that we figure out how to create a quarter rest with the craft sticks.  I've found that students are really creative with this!

My pal, Kristin Lukow, introduced me to this idea and I LOVE it!  The kids do too!  We listen to some soothing music while fashioning pipe cleaners into different notes.  For some notes or symbols students really have to use their problem solving skills to create them with only a pipe cleaner.  This activity gives students a chance to identify notes and symbols in a new way.

I have just started to experiment with using flashlights as manipulatives for listening activities and movement.  I've used them in performance before (see THIS rendition of "Fireflies") and I've been in workshops with the aaahhhmaaazing Artie Almeida who used them during listening activities.  Artie calls if flashlight painting and it is an amazing way to keep 100% of your students engaged.  Here's a video that might explain a little more.

There is just something about play dough that makes me smile.  The kids love to have the opportunity to use it in music class.  I use THESE play dough mats as a workstation.  The mats name each symbol or note and contain and brief definition.

Weird, right?  These little coolers are PERFECT for creating the Snowball Scoop workstation I've described in a previous post.

They are also great for decorating a winter/snow themed concert.  At a buck each you can by dozens and create a wide variety of "snow" structures.

Once I started creating workstations with these dip and veggie trays it was pretty hard to stop!  Check out:

Dip Tray Workstations: Instrument Families and Note Values (freebie here!)

If you are a regular reader of my blog, you know that I am a big fan of using pool noodles in creative ways.  Noodle ponies, steady beat swords and unique bulletin board displays are just some of the ways that I have used them.  You might like to check out these pool noodle posts for more information:

I love projects.  Just ask my husband or anyone that knows me.  I love projects.  Small projects, big projects, craft projects, tech projects...I love projects.  This means that back to school time is full of them!  Today I'm going to share with you one of my favorites from this school year.  I hope that you will love these rock star hall passes!

Why rock star?  Well, for me it always seems to work in a music classroom and specifically it matches my rock star themed classroom this year!  Each of the CD covers is designed to fit in side a traditional CD jewel case.  The slim ones that are often sold with blank CDs or DVDs will work with some adaptions, but the traditional ones work better.  

I like to use hall passes that I don't have to fill out each time a student needs to use them.  Actually, I prefer NOT to use the 50 tiny minutes that I have each week for student errands, bathroom breaks, or whatever.  I love these signs that David Row from Make Moments Matter has posted in his store. This freebie reminds students (and their teachers!) to take restroom breaks BEFORE special area classes start.  Click the picture to grab one for yourself!

These rock star passes go great with my classroom theme that you might have seen in my last post, Music ROCKS!  You can get that bundle by clicking on the picture below.

To get started you'll need to download the free printable hall passes from my Teachers Pay Teachers store.  I printed my on standard weight paper with a color printer and then trimmed them.

After they were trimmed, I folded the spine so that it would fit inside the CD case.

If you were going to create a lanyard or some kind of strap for hanging these, you should attach it to the inside of the CD case, secure it with hot glue or tape and then close the case.  I tape it closed, because students always want to open it to see inside.  

On the back of each case there is a list of fictitious song titles related to that pass.  The restroom pass has song titles that remind students to wash their hands, hurry back to class and put things in the trash can.

The nurse's office pass contains silly songs with themes about not feeling well and some things they might hear in the nurse's office like "Weren't you just in here?" and "Catch you cough!"

I hope this is a DIY project that you will enjoy!  Don't forget to grab the free hall passes HERE.

I am such a big fan of working in a paperless classroom.  It is not completely possible, but I love to find ways to save paper AND save myself from hours at the copy machine.  For the last 10 years or more I've been using lap packs.  Lap packs are copies of the treble staff in various sizes, a blank piece of paper and other sheets that I used every day in class.  I pop these into a thick page protector and students can use these with a dry erase marker.  Because I've copied everything on cardstock, they are firm enough to use without a clipboard or table.

This led me to thinking about other ways to save paper and eliminate stacks to grade.  If we are doing a simple assessment, I can walk around the classroom and quickly mark the seating chart with a score while students are working.  This is MUCH faster than grading stacks of paper.  I started using dry erase pockets for such activities.

You've probably seen the pockets on Amazon, Oriental Trading or even in the dollar spot at Target.  LOVE them, but since most of my classroom budget comes out of my grocery budget, I needed a less expensive option.  Project time!  I was able to make an entire classroom set for six dollars.  WAHOO!

Here's what you'll need:

Thick report covers (I like the kind with that little plastic binder edge that you slide on.)  This pack was $ .97 at Walmart.

Duct Tape -I prefer to use the smaller roll so that less of the cover is covered with the tape.  The larger rolls work, but may cover some of the sheets that you put in them.  You can also use clear packing tape.  It isn't as pretty, but it works well.  I had several rolls on hand as I assume most teachers do.

I rolled the tape out flat so that I could set the report cover on it.  This let me line it up a little better than putting the tap onto the report cover.

Place the report cover so that it covers about half of the tape.  Fold the tape up to seal the edge.  Trim the edges with your scissors.

I only taped three of the sides (including the side that isn't open).  At the top I wanted to create a little flap so that my youngest learners would be able to load the pocket themselves.  Instead of running the tape all the way across, I just created a tab that is a couple of inches long on ONE piece of the report cover.  In this way, students can use the tab to open the pocket without my help.  It is much trickier than it seems for some of my younger students.

LOVE the way they turned out!  I popped some handwriting sheets in so my daughter could try them out.  They were definitely easy to use and pretty durable.  I had tried using page protectors for this project but did not like that they had holes in them.  The holes are for using in a binder, which is handy, but my students liked to poke their pencils in the holes and they tore and looked bad.  The report covers keep this from happening.  

I like to use these small dry erase markers that have an eraser on the end.  When I don't have them available for workstations I put regular dry erase markers and paper towels or cotton balls there for students to use to erase.

I've seen teachers that hot glue a pom pom on the end of the dry erase marker lid and students use those for erasers, but haven't tried that.  If you have, I'd love to hear any tips or ideas you might have for keeping them usable all year.

These worksheets are from my No Prep Music Worksheets -Summer.  They are great examples of worksheets that I would use in workstations.

I hope you enjoy this teacher hack and can use it to save some money and create a more functional classroom! Enjoy!