Mrs. King's Music Room

Bearytones!

2012-02-06T22:30:00.001-06:00

What is a Boomwhacker?

2012-01-27T17:59:00.000-06:00

Thanks to the funding of a project on Donors Choose, we have added more Boomwhackers to our classroom collection. Boomwhackers are tuned percussion tubes that allow us to play melodies and chords by whacking them on our hands, thighs, the floor or even our heads! Students have played rhythms, scales, melodies and accompaniments with the Boomwhackers.

Play Boomwhackers online at Music K-8.com

Martin Luther King Jr.-A Tribute in Music Class

2012-01-12T07:47:00.001-06:00

Next week we celebrate MLK Day. In music class this week our Song of the Week is "Free at Last". This song based on Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I have a Dream Speech" is by Teresa Jennings. You can hear it and download it here.

In addition to singing this song, some classes watched a very clever version of his speech. A student from Brooklyn, NY used video clips of the speech and ran them through auto-tune. Auto-tune is technology that alters voices to be more in-tune. It was originally designed for singers, but this student used it to create a song from a speech. Watch his final project below.

Swat the Staff

2012-01-12T07:38:00.000-06:00

This week students in the upper grades have been practicing their ability to read music by playing a game called Swat the Staff. To play this game we create a staff on the wall or a board. Students choose one of Mrs. King awesome flyswatters and take their place in front of the staff. With their backs to the staff and flyswatters down students listen to hear what letter they need to swat. This fun game has been a great way to review the letter names of the staff and has really brought some music reading rock stars into the limelight!

Lines and Spaces on our new Lines and Spaces

2012-01-10T19:55:00.001-06:00

Hurray! Our new carpet is here! Many thanks to those of you that have donated to our Donors Choose projects. We love it! It has spaces for 30 students and is cleverly formated in five rows...just like the musical staff. What fun we are going to have!

This week Kindergarteners are creating patterns that show up/down/same patterns. We are also learning how notes are placed on the staff. The staff is the five lines and four spaces that music is written on. Using bottle caps we experimented with creating our own patterns.

Sticky Songs

2012-01-05T20:44:00.000-06:00

This week, many classes have discussed the idea of "sticky songs". You know what sticky song are! They are those songs that get stuck in your head. You hum them, sing them in the shower, and even find yourself replaying them in your head over and over. What's the stickiest song right now? Most classes agreed that "Red Solo Cup" was one that was hard to shake. Others mentioned songs like "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" and several commercial jingles.

This week our song of the week is kind of a sticky song. It's called "A New Year" by Teresa Jennings. Listen to it here. Kids-ask your parents for permission to download this song for your iPod or MP3 player.

Learn more about the Science of Music: Why Do Songs Get Stuck in Our Heads at this link.

Do You Know an Old Lady?

2012-01-05T20:32:00.002-06:00

First Graders are working on a composition project that involves re-writing the lyrics to "I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly". Here are a couple of fun videos:

12 Days of Christmas-The Teacher Version

2012-01-01T21:21:00.003-06:00

Many thanks to Mrs. Barfield for photos and videos of this event!

Thank you! Our Magic Musical Carpet Ride Will Begin Soon!

2012-01-01T21:16:00.000-06:00

Thank you for your contributions to our latest Donors Choose project. The new rug for the GES music room will arrive soon! HURRAY!

Another grant is posted. Your donation will help us hear the music just a little better. CLICK HERE to learn more.

Christmas Assembly

2012-01-01T21:13:00.000-06:00

LOVE that we had an opportunity to join together as a school community and sing! The Christmas Sing-Along assembly was so much fun! There was singing and smiling and great performances by students and staff. Take a look:

Candy Cane Ponies and Musical Form

2011-12-08T06:12:00.001-06:00

This week students in the younger grades listened to a "March" from the Nutcracker ballet. After deciphering the form we discovered that there was a repeating A section. That means "March" is in rondo form. Then we added maracas and jingles to indicate galloping and marching sounds in the music. It wasn't enough to just play the different parts, so we pulled out our Candy Cane Ponies and marched and galloped to show the form of the song! During the B and C sections we took short breaks to feed our ponies carrots from our pockets and to give them drinks of water. What a hoot!

You can download the recording we used from Tchaikovsky's ballet here. Teachers: This activity is from Parachutes and Ribbons and Scarves, Oh My! by the talented Artie Almeida.

Christmas Centers

2011-12-08T05:52:00.003-06:00

There are so many great activities to do in December! This week 5th and 6th graders at WES and GES worked in Christmas Centers. Working in small groups, students moved from learning station to learning station to demonstrate their knowledge, listen to some seasonal music and have a great time!

The Listening Center (above) featured: "Sleigh Ride" by Ella Fitzgerald and "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" by the Brian Setzer Orchestra.

Frozen Instrument Families Station (above) challenged students to find and sort instruments. Tougher than it sounds!

(Above) Christmas Counts Center-Write it, rap it, count it, play it and then...make your own! :-)

Trim the Tree with treble pitches! At this stations students got to "trim" a Christmas tree by color coding the notes on each ornament.

Candy Land! Well...sort of. This classic board game was altered just a bit so that students played the game while demonstrating their knowledge of music symbols and by singing when they drew special cards. What fun!

Other centers included a SmartBoard center where students matched syllables of words to music notation and a reading station that featured a variety of musical stories. Students enjoyed working in this style. We couldn't believe it when class time was over! It went so fast!

Teachers: You can get the Christmas Centers here.

Rudolph the Silly Reindeer-Here's the Scoop!

2011-12-06T16:21:00.000-06:00

Last week's Song of the Week was "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer". We replaced some words in the song with actions and sound effects. The words in RED contained motions or sound effects.

You know Dasher and Dancer and Prancer and Vixen, Comet and Cupid and Donner and Blitzen
But do you recall the most famous reindeer of all?

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
had a very shiny nose
And if you ever saw it
you would even say it glows.
All the other reindeer
used to laugh and call him names.
They never let poor Rudolph
join in any reindeer games.

Then one foggy Christmas Eve,
Santa came to say
“Rudolph with your nose so bright,
won’t you guide my sleigh tonight?

Then all the reindeer loved him
as they shouted out with glee
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,
you’ll go down in history!!!

Here's what they looked liked as posed by Mrs. Sides' 4th Graders:

Download MP3 of Mrs. Pence's class singing "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" the traditional way.

Download MP3 of Mrs. Sides' class singing "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" the new way!

Gingerbread Listening Glyphs

2011-12-05T06:43:00.000-06:00

What a sweet way to listen to music! First graders have used gingerbread glyphs to record their observations about music. Glyphs are pictorial representations of data. Often glyphs are used as part of math lessons. Students recorded tempo, dynamics, tone color (what instruments they heard) and their personal opinion of the listening example by color coding their gingerbread man.

Teachers: You can get the Gingerbread Glyph HERE.

Thank You!

2011-12-01T08:04:00.000-06:00

Many thanks to the donors who contributed to our project "We've Got Rhythm" on Donors Choose. It has been funded! HURRAY!

You can still make contributions by clicking on the "Donate to Our Classroom" button in the sidebar. Your donations will go towards our next project which should be up soon.

Other donations to help our classroom:
hand sanitizer
Kleenex
empty plastic coffee cans with lids
poker chips
new clothespins (plastic or wood)
Candy Land (They are really cheap right now! We need 3 more for a special music project.)

Rudolph the Silly Reindeer

2011-12-01T06:46:00.000-06:00

Hurray! Its finally December! This week our song of the week is a favorite of music lovers young and old, "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer". We are not only singing the sing, but adding some silly movement and sound effects to it!

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
You know Dasher and Dancer and Prancer and Vixen, Comet and Cupid and Donner and Blitzen
But do you recall the most famous reindeer of all?

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
had a very shiny nose
And if you ever saw it
you would even say it glows.
All the other reindeer
used to laugh and call him names.
They never let poor Rudolph
join in any reindeer games.

Then one foggy Christmas Eve,
Santa came to say
“Rudolph with your nose so bright,
won’t you guide my sleigh tonight?

Then all the reindeer loved him
as they shouted out with glee
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,
you’ll go down in history!!!

Ask your child how we changed the words in red. I'll post the directions later this week for those readers who don't have students in class.

Donors Choose Update

2011-11-29T15:22:00.000-06:00

WOW! We are only $51 dollars away from having our Donors Choose project completely funded! Hurray! Click HERE to make the donation that allows us to bring more instruments into our classroom!

Stand Up and Sing-A Celebration of American Education Week

2011-11-21T22:02:00.000-06:00

Many thanks to the 5th and 6th graders who volunteered to stand up and sing last Friday! In celebration of American Education Week they led the school in singing "You're a Grand Old Flag". We are so fortunate to have music in our school and even more blessed to have such great singers! Way to go!

Stand Up and Sing Friday

2011-11-16T15:26:00.000-06:00

This week is American Education Week and Friday is "Stand UP and Sing Friday"! Hurray! 5th and 6th graders will lead the school in "You're a Grand Old Flag" first thing in the morning.

Links for Teachers:
You're a Grand Old Flag
This PowerPoint file contains the lyrics to this song for you to project in your classroom. You or a student will need to click along as we sing the song. Click on the link to download or right click and choose "Save As".

You're a Grand Old Flag-single slide
This PowerPoint file contains one slide. No clicking along. Just singing! Click on the link to download or right click and choose "Save As".

You're a Grand Old Flag-MP3
One of my favorite renditions of this song can be found here. You can preview just a bit of it or purchase and download for your use. You don't need this for Stand Up and Sing Friday, but thought I would link you to a great version for kids.

Thanks and then Giving

2011-11-15T10:15:00.000-06:00

Thank you for your continued support of our music program! Whether you are a family member clicking in to visit our classroom, a student viewing pictures and listening to music from class or another music teacher logging on to be inspired by what happens in our classroom, we are thankful for you!

You can support our classroom endeavors by donating to our project on Donor's Choose. Click here to read about it and make a donation. We're already half way there! Can we fund this project this week? With your help we can!

1st and 2nd Graders get Smart with November Rhythms

2011-11-10T20:28:00.000-06:00

Students in 1st and 2nd Grades used their knowledge of rhythms and their love of SmartBoards in music class this week. Students read the names of pictures of several November things like pumpkins, pilgrims, turkeys, voting and more. Then we decided the number of syllables in each and matched them with the note that best represented them. Eighth notes (or titi) worked for all pictures with 2 syllables and 1 syllabled words like "leaf" sound closest to quarter notes (or ta). By rearranging the pictures we created many new rhythms!

Teachers can download the PowerPoint version of this activity HERE.

A Musical Celebration of Veteran's Day

2011-11-10T20:25:00.000-06:00

Music has the power to evoke powerful emotions. This week we used music to express our pride in our veterans and in our country. During the last two weeks, students sang patriotic songs like God Bless America, Yankee Doodle Dandy, You're a Grand Old Flag and God Bless the U.S.A. Students were introduced to "Thankful for the U.S.A." and one of my favorite songs about America, "American Tears". We discussed the important jobs our service men and women do every day and students had an opportunity to share stories about members of their families that have served in the military.

You can listen and download some of the songs we've worked on in class at the following links:
American Tears
Thankful for the U.S.A.
You're a Grand Old Flag

ABC Chart Singing

2011-11-10T20:08:00.000-06:00

We LOVE using manipulatives in music class! This week Kindergarteners and some First Grade classes used ABC charts to learn about sounds and silence in music. This also provided a great opportunity for me to hear their beautiful singing voices!

Here's what we did:
Students sang the "ABC Song" and touched each letter on the chart as they sang it. Then we took a chip and placed it over a letter. Instead of singing the letter we replaced it with "shh!". We added more chips (and more rests) to the song and thought of ways to make it even more challenging. Students did a great job of "reading" their music and singing and resting at the right times.

Pumpkin Patch Singing Game

2011-11-04T22:24:00.000-05:00

Students in 1st grade loved learning the poem "Pumpkin Patch". After learning the song we added actions and then performed with a partner.

Pumpkin patch, pumpkin patch.

Looking for a pumpkin in a pumpkin patch.

Here is one. Nice and fat.

Turn into a jack-o-lantern just like that!

Ask your first grader to teach you this fall time favorite!

Pass the Pumpkin

2011-11-03T22:19:00.000-05:00

Students in K-2 have been working on moving rhythmically and demonstrating steady beat with a game called Pass the Pumpkin. Students learn the simple passing pattern and then work together to keep a continuous steady beat while passing the pumpkin, counting and throwing in a few smooth dance moves.

I'm Baaaack!

2011-11-02T00:00:00.000-05:00

Its good to be back in the classroom! This week I will get to meet students at Greenville and Williamsville. Here are a couple of the songs that classes will sing this week:

The Pumpkin March
What kind of dynamics do you hear? Is the surprise at the end loud or soft?

American Tears
This beautiful song celebrates the heroes, the patriots, the soldiers and the pioneers that have made America great!

Learn the Treble Clef Lines and Spaces

2011-08-23T19:34:00.001-05:00

The lines of the treble clef (from bottom to top) are EGBDF. Watch this video to learn a few tricks for remembering this!

Now that you've got the lines, lets learn about the spaces with this video:

Classical Music in Commercials

2011-08-23T18:09:00.000-05:00

Can you hear the music in the background of this piece? Its by Aaron Copland, an American composer.

In this funny McDonald's Commercial the little girl is playing "Fur Elise" by Beethoven.

Music Class Rules

2011-08-17T11:08:00.001-05:00

GoAnimate.com: Welcome to Music Class by MrsKing

Like it? Create your own at GoAnimate.com. It's free and fun!

Music Class Expectations

2011-08-14T19:50:00.000-05:00

Classroom Expectations

By Mrs. King

Upon this wall are rules I post

That you must follow here the most

Please enter the room with a quiet smile

And be prepared to learn music for a while

Stay in your seat, whether floor or chair

Make sure your supplies are with you there

Do your best to sing, dance and learn

Then high scores you will always earn

During discussions avoid disruptions

With needless talk or rude interruptions

Please raise your hand before you talk out

So all may hear what your thoughts are about

In the music room there are lots of neat things

But before you touch let the warning bells ring

Take care of supplies, instruments and books

Treat them respectfully. Don’t be a crook!

Put things back where they were found

So Mrs. King won’t have to frown

Keep your papers nice and crisp

Don’t fold or crinkle or wad or twist

Here is something for you to consider

Where is the place we deposit litter?

It’s not the hallway or music room floor or carpet

But in the waste basket is where we drop it

There should be absolutely no gum in this class.

No candy, no food, no drinks. Don’t ask.

If in your shoe rocks or dirt is seen

Dump them in the trash. Let’s keep our room clean.

Never hurl insults or words of hate or fear

“Please” and “Thank You” are better to hear

Do not use language in a negative way

Try “Good job!”, “Keep trying!” or “Have a great day!”

If you think this poem is too long to remember

Here are 3 rules that can make you a winner

Respect the property of each and everyone

Respect others. Respect yourself. That’s three. You’re done.

By treating each other with consideration

Take a Look at the Music Room

2011-08-11T11:05:00.000-05:00

Welcome to the Music Room! Let's take a look around!

Here's a view from the door. The chairs are set up for students in the older grades that will focus on activities on the SmartBoard the first class period.

Books in the music room? You bet! There are so many musical stories, poems and more that I can't wait to share with students.

Partial storage of classroom instruments. The big tubs on top of the cabinet are the most AWESOME bass drums ever! They are on sale at Wal-Mart right now so if you have room the next time you are there pick up a few for the music department!

This picture shows the Music Burger which helps us write creative paragraphs about the music we listen to. Behind the piano is a bulletin board about careers in music. There are so many great careers to choose from in the music industry and it is never to early to think about your future!

This is a view from the back of the room. Below the boards you can see our musical word wall. The words are grouped by categories like "rhythm", "tempo", "expression", etc...

This station contains some of the items we'l l use in class every day like Hungry Harry, Mimi the Muncher and lots of pointers for lyrics and music reading.

Speaking of props, there are lots of times that we'll use fun things like baskets, rubber chickens, tennis balls and cups to learn musical concepts. Fun!

This station holds commonly used manipulatives like bingo chips for listening charts, clothes pins for Rocketship Rhythms, Aloha Melodies, Pin up the music, etc... There are also caps for the bottlecap staves and dry erase markers to use with lap packs. Lap packs contain several different kinds of graphic organizers, music staves and drawing space for expressing our ideas and composing.

The Get it and Go station contains packs of crayons, markers, pencils and other supplies and will house student folders throughout the year by class. The cool sundae in the background displays the national standards in music.

Goodbye!

2011-06-10T18:13:00.000-05:00

A fond farewell to students at my former school. In the fall I will be teaching at another school district in rural southeast Missouri! Be sure to check back for interesting things coming this fall!

Eggcellent Student Work

2011-04-22T20:30:00.000-05:00

After our concert we took a few minutes of classtime to draw about some of the EGGcellent things we do in music class! Here are some of my favorites from our talented group of artists and musicians.

A Few of Our Favorite Things

2011-04-04T13:44:00.000-05:00

Sixth graders wrote parodies of "My Favorite Things" from the Sound of Music. After a discussion on rhythm, syllables and meter students were turned loose. Here are a couple of great ones!

My Favorite Things

by C.B.

Winning at ball games and riding my horses

Encouraging my team and going through courses

Pretty blue jerseys and all sporty bling