Teaching Aids and Ideas

[Lauren Krothe]

This thread is for teaching aids and ideas. Please feel free to contribute links, excerpts and/or notes that could prove enlightening to us music teachers, anything from teaching strategies to potential group lesson activities.

[Jeane Goforth]

I'd like suggestions for the worksheet packages. Do you want me to follow a certain progression? How do I deal with the wide age ranges? Any ideas of coloring pages that are of some instructional value? (I did find that there are some great woodcuts of music-related historical subjects that make great coloring pages at Project Gutenberg.)

[Lauren Krothe]

The first things I always start teaching are the musical alphabet, lines and spaces of the treble and bass clefs, and rhythms. Do we have worksheets that deal with those specific topics?

We should go through all of the worksheets and group them according to appropriate age-groups. I'll have to brainstorm on ideas for color pages, Friendship House might also have some solutions.

[Kayla Sealy]

There is a worksheet that I found/used last week that deals with lines and spaces of the treble and bass clefs that went over pretty well. Even though it was very close to what I'd given them the week before, the fact that it asked them to color something seemed to make it into something they'd actually consider doing. There may be other useful things on the MakingMusicFun website as well, but I haven't had much time to look into everything that is there.

[Jeane Goforth]

Thanks, Kayla. I will look at that website today.
Lauren, that worksheet book that you have: should I get the sequel?

[Lauren Krothe]

from Music Teacher's Survival Guide: Practical Techniques & Materials for the Elementary Music Classroom by Rosalie Haritun

Preparation Skills
- Include AURAL, VISUAL and PERFORMING activities in each lesson (separately or combined into one activity)
- Ensure activities are suitable for age-group
- Have an attainable goal that requires effort; don't set goals that are too easy or too difficult to attain
- Activities that simulate play can be very successful with kids
- Don't be boring and predictable; add an element of intrigue that will keep the kids guessing
- Plan out the mechanics of each activity; think through [not necessarily write down] every sequential detail before teaching, and address sequential details while teaching (including verbiage, instructions, comments, procedures, directions, details, etc)
- Try out activities before committing them to your lesson plan, and be prepared to let go of activities that don't work out in the way you anticipated
- Musical examples should be appealing and appropriate and also make specific concepts obvious; ensure they are an appropriate tempo if class participation is expected
- Criteria: terms used to evaluate class response and define whether or not a standard has been met and an activity needs to be repeated before moving on; Teacher determines performance standard, then implements activities and evaluates performances based on that criteria
- Plan back-up activities to maintain momentum and continuity of lesson in the event that original plans fall through

[Lauren Krothe]

the following website is an EXCELLENT resource: The Lesson Plans Page - Music Lesson Plans, Music Ideas, & Musi...

[Lauren Krothe]

I have created a set of Rhythm Cards. All of the cards are laminated. The set includes notes (whole, half, quarter, eighth, sixteenth, and dots to make dotted notes), rests (whole, half, quarter and eighth), measure lines and meter signatures (4/4, 3/4 and 2/4). They are found in a manilla envelope labeled "Rhythm Cards" that will be in either my or Jeane's possession.

For this activity, you can take anywhere from 2 to 6 kids. Gather them around a table or on the floor and spread all of the cards out in the middle of the workspace. Have each child pull 3 or 4 measure lines and a meter signature. Then have them fill each measure with rhythms of their choosing, so long as they add up to the correct amount of beats in each measure. When the kids have successfully created measures that fit the meter signature appropriately, have them clap their newly made rhythms one by one. Then have everyone stand up and move clockwise or counterclockwise one seat, and then have everyone clap the new rhythm in front of them one by one.

This is a really cool activity, and I put a lot of time into making it so must say I am rather proud of it! Any of the teachers are welcome to borrow the cards at any time. It will be helpful for all music students, but I can see them coming in handy with the drum students at Hill, especially when they are broken up into smaller groups.

[Jeane Goforth]

Will you please write this down to include with the cards?

[Lauren Krothe]

you got it :)

[Jeane Goforth]

Here's a website recommended by Angela Maiers:
"Tons and tons of teacher and web resources"
http://larryferlazzo.com/Thebestwebsites.html

and this:
"Learning A-Z Free Access THIS WEEK ONLY for teacher appreciation week!"
http://www.learninga-z.com/

[Lauren Krothe]

Blank Sheet Music - Print any kind of blank sheet music FOR FREE!

[Kayla Sealy]

Some things I've found over the past couple days:
Music Tech Teacher
-This is the website created by the music teacher at Central Park Elementary School in Birmingham. It has all sorts of information about their music program (primarily music technology, their band program is mentioned). There is a page of links that looks like it could be pretty useful (I haven't had time to look through all of them yet). There is a page of music theory worksheets she created that look pretty good. The worksheets are available to see in Scorch and as a PDF.

Free beginner method book for winds (PDF) - The Habits of Musicianship
-Created by professors from University of Texas at Austin and LSU. This looks like a pretty good method book, and I also like that the only cost for this is the paper and ink it takes to print it. I think I may try to use this and see how students like it. At first I thought it may need to be bound as well, but since the students have their own binders for Scrollworks, I could just punch holes in this and they could put it in their binder.

FJH Music Activity Books - Games for Music Reading by Christine Davies
-The book says the games are "two-player games at the piano to teach Primer-level reading," though most of the games look like they could be easily modified for use with more than two students.

These last two are primarily for piano students, but I found a couple pages in each I thought I could use:
FJH Music Activity Books - Fun and Games by Wynn-Anne Rossi
Phonics4Piano by Marie Price and Flora Arnold