Dot Composing

I must confess that I love teaching 16th notes.  That's weird, isn't it?  I know.  I know.  There are so many great activities for these rhythmic wonders and so many great ways to practice them!  My kids also love reading and performing them.

Fourth Graders have recently learned "Chicken on a Fencepost".  We learned the melody, played a fun game with a rubber chicken and then deciphered the rhythm.  In this piece we discovered quarter notes, eighth notes and 16th notes.  Our next activity was to compose with dots.

Students decided how many sounds they wanted to hear on each beat and placed the same number of dots into "beat boxes".  Then they wrote the notation for their creations and we performed some of them as a class.

This was a great way to reinforce the four 16th notes and to get them thinking about cadences and how a piece sounds "finished".

One of my favorite parts of this project is the titles the students create.  I explain that somewhere in their title they have to use the word "dot".  Here are some of the clever ones I saw this year:

Dot Road Anthem

I’m Dotty and I Know It

Dot This Down

We Dot the Beat

The Dot of the Tiger

Party Like You are a Dot Star

Jesus Loves Dots

Just Dot It

Can’t Dot This

What Does the Dot Say?

Dot Me Maybe

Such creative minds!  I just loved doing this project with them.  I think next time I am going to try it with dabbers.  I'm not sure it will be as forgiving as it is impossible to erase the dab marks, but I think it will still be fun.

Teachers: Download the worksheet here.

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There's No Business Like SNOW Business

I love a snow day as much as anyone I know.  Maybe more!  This year we've had 24!  I took this board down not too long ago.  It highlights careers in the music entertainment business like music video director, TV theme song composer, bandleader and more.

Teachers can get it here.