Mrs. King's Music Class: Dabber Activities in the Music Room

How to Use Dabbers in Your Classroom - They keep students engaged (and smiling!) and are perfect for quick assessments. Read about how to use them with no fuss and no mess. Ideas for workstations or centers are also included. Let's get dabbing!

Dabbers, dotters, dot markers, daubers or bingo markers. Whatever you call them, they certainly make showing what you know fun! I’ve recently added some dabber activities to my classroom. For the most part, I’ve used them as part of workstations or centers. As soon as I can buy a few more dabbers I will use them for whole group activities and for assessment.

In this activity, students are asked to identify line and space notes. I’ve used this with 1^st and 2^nd grade. For second graders this was a little easy, but first graders found it challenging and fun. I plan to use it with Kindergarten at the end of the year. This set includes activities for naming notes on the treble clef staff too. My 5th and 6th graders will use some of those.

In this activity students are identifying different notes (whole, half, quarter and barred eighth notes). Later we’ll do dabber activities that ask students to dab the note that gets the most beats or to dab the notes that add up to equal a specific number of beats.

These activities are fun to do and provide a nice snapshot of what students know. Third graders are working on their instruments of the orchestra unit right now. The instruments set will be perfect for identifying instruments and what family they belong too. Formative assessment in a quick and colorful format? I’m in! I strongly encourage students to spell instrument names correctly from the first time we learn about them. One of the activities in the instrument set has them check for misspelled instrument names. They are going to love it!

Another activity that would work great with the dot markers is this Dot Composing. Check out this blog post to see how I use dot stickers to reinforce quarter notes, barred eighth notes and 16th notes. This would be a great way to use dabbers and stop buying thousands of those little stickers!

Although they are fun and keep students engaged in learning, there are a few things you will need to think about before you begin. Here are some tips:

1. If you have bought a new set of dabbers, they are NOT ready to go. Before letting students use them, take time to dab them yourself and get the ink flowing to the sponge tip. Sometimes this take a few tries and sometimes it makes a puddle of ink. If you do this before they are in the hands of students, you’ll save yourself a headache or two.

2. Speaking of ink puddles…it happens. If you squeeze too hard on the markers, ink flows faster and big puddles form on the paper. If you press down too hard it happens. Sometimes if you are just having a bad day it happens! Plan a way for the papers to dry. Perhaps that means setting them on or under a chair, laying them against the wall in the hall or borrowing some drying racks from the art teacher.

You may want to keep some baby wipes handy to keep students from running to the restroom. I explain that if they are careful, this won’t happen. If they keep their hands away from the ink until it dries it won’t happen, but….well…sometimes it happens.

3. Buy washable dot markers. The kind that I have are not washable so they are a little tougher to scrub off skin and clothing. It comes off, but just not as easy as the washable kind. I found several dot markers on Amazon and know several teachers that recommend these from Do-a-DotArt.

4. Dot markers are great fun for melodic dictation, exploring lines and spaces or working on pitch names on the staff. They make perfect noteheads! Print off large staff paper and you are ready.

5. Plan to use a bin or basket for storage. I use a small basket for the 5 or 6 that I leave out at workstations and use a larger one to store the classroom set. This makes them easy to pass out and collect. You could also find a shoe storage bag to hang in your room and store them as well.