We survived!

We have made it through almost the first half of the school year.  Ahhhhhh, Christmas break is finally here. Most teachers, especially elementary know how crazy the day before a holiday break is.  The kids are excited it's the week of Christmas, classroom parties, sugar highs, etc.....

Today lived up to the hype.  Most teachers were walking around in a sugar-induced stupor with a glazed expression in their eyes this afternoon. I'm sure Excedrin stock rose significantly today.

What adds insult to injury is teachers have a full day of in-service tomorrow.  I'm going to go in with the best, most productive attitude I can muster, but it's going to take everything I have to be productive and make it to 2:30.

One thing I do love about the final day before Christmas break is my 1st grade teachers request a carol time. All 70ish 1st graders join together and we just sing our hearts out. 6 years ago, our secretary, who loved music was undergoing chemotherapy in Minnesota and we called her while we were singing and sang to her. Needless to say we were all in tears including Cheryl over the phone. I wish there was a happy end to Cheryl's battle, but that is a memory that I will always cherish.  It's also one of the reasons I can't say no to caroling with the 1st grade teachers, so they can probably count on that in their lesson plans each year.

Merry Christmas and I'll be blogging in the new year.

Kindergarten Conductors

This absolutely made my day.

Kindergarten spends their morning recess in the gym since there are so many 1st-5th graders out before school.  The teachers take turns on recess duty, and this video was captured by Mrs. Diser this morning.

Apparently, they do pay attention in music class.  Enjoy.

Way Behind #3

I'm almost caught up.  This next post is just a fun one.  My 5th grade band prepared and played 3 songs for their first concert.  They played "Good King Wenceslas", "Jolly Old St. Nicholas", and "Jingle Bells".  The first two are "just" exercises out of their lesson books.  I put the word just in quotes, as yes, it is an exercise, but we do kind of arrange them differently to make them concert appropriate.  Jingle Bells, however, is in their lesson books, but it is arranged for concert bands.  Students are learning separate parts and listening to each other and learning to play like a real ensemble.  It is a huge accomplishment for them to pull these songs off for a concert.  Some of them have only had an instrument in their hands since the beginning of September.  Our concert was Sunday December 6, so most have literally been playing for 3 months.  

They did a wonderful job and I was very proud of them.  We are already preparing for our spring concert where we will play all sheet music and nothing will be from their books.  They are super excited.  Parents often comment on the difference from their first concert to the spring.  The amount of growth they make this first year makes those beginning squeaks and sqwaks totally worth it.  I'm already taking less Excedrin Migraine pills.  :)

Here are two pictures that I took of my band one day for our yearbook.  Getting them to sit still for a formal picture is next to impossible, but we had no problem coming up with the fun poses.

This is what they look like most days, so this is very accurate.

 

I'd also like to finish this post, with what's happening now that the concert is over.  The elementary has been invited by the Iowa Wild Hockey team out of Des Moines, IA to sing "God Bless America" for the opening of one of their home games in March.  After some serious consideration, I said yes and opened it up to all 450 students whoever signed up.  I've ended up with 50 great students and we've started our rehearsals.  We are meeting once or twice a month on Wednesday mornings at 7:30.  That is quite a commitment on their parent's parts.  I haven't snapped a picture of them all in my room, but took a quick picture yesterday of them all trying to gather their coats and backpacks outside my hall. 

It's a lot of bodies to sort through their stuff and get where they need to go.

As we get closer I will record a rehearsal, and then I hopefully can upload the performance video as well.

Way Behind #2

Now that I've caught up with Halloween, it's time to move on to November.

As long as I've taught elementary, I have always started Christmas concert songs on the first Monday in November.  It is just the right amount of time to prepare as our concerts are usually at the beginning of December.

Due to the fact that our elementary is on a 6-day cycle, I work very hard to make sure my classes are even in what they've done and when we transition to a new topic.  For example, on Friday Oct. 30 I was going to have one class of 2nd grade and the rest would fall in November.  That day they sang both Halloween songs and listened to their Christmas concert songs on the same day.  It was a very odd school day.  The only thing I don't like about this setup is that I have no time to do any Thanksgiving-related music or activities.

November seems to be all concert prep.  At the beginning it's mostly memorizing and how to pronounce the Latin words or assigning speaking parts.  As the month continues we begin to work on the details, adding movements, small group singers etc.  The month of November FLIES!!!!

Throw in me gone a day to a music conference, Thanksgiving, and our concert is here.

Crazy!

So back to the conference........

One of my favorite days in November is IMEA (Iowa Music Educators' Association).  It is my favorite professional day ever!  The majority of music teachers across the state of Iowa all convene at ISU campus in Ames and they have amazing speakers, workshops, and vendors.  It's Music Nerds Unite day!  It is an amazing conference and so well-organized.  I always come home with new ideas, refreshed attitude and a renewed passion for my job.  

This year I went to a session presented by a lady whom I use her products.  Nobody but music teachers know who this lady is, but I was in awe.

Now, during these sessions, we are participating, singing, playing, dancing, you name it.  Most of the sessions are like this.  Very little sit-n-get, but doing what we're talking about.

Another session I went to was about how to use tennis balls and parachutes in the music room.  I already use a parachute often, but this was a fun, new way I hadn't thought of.  Very interesting speakers and sessions.

Dr. Susan Brumfield, "First We Sing" session.  Pretty much the only sitting I did as she was introducing herself.

Dan Fee "Listening Fun with scarves and Tennis Balls".  We were up doing a scarf routine.

Dan Fee again "Listening Fun with Paper Plates and Parachutes".  Something as simple as using paper plates could make a fun musical routine.

Way Behind #1

These last two months of school have just been a blur.  Now that my concerts are over, I am trying to find my desk, my lesson plans and my sanity.

The week of Halloween seems like forever ago, and that was the last time that I thought of updating this blog.  I intentionally took picture to share and now that Christmas is a week away, I better get my Halloween blog up-to-date.  :)

I'm not a huge fan of Halloween.  For no particular reason, I just have other holidays I spend more time on than this one. I do, however, have a game that I do every year and the kids love it from Kindergarten up to 5th grade.  They request it every year.

"Who Is In This Forest" is a game that I learned when I observed another music classroom and watched that teacher.  I simply wrote the words down and the melody on my own so I can't find it printed to give anyone credit for the song. 

  Who is in this forest on this Halloween night?

  Tell me who......Who?  Is singing tonight.

That's it.

The melody is very simple, easy to teach, easy to learn and easy to play in d minor.

The game is basically another version of playing "hot and cold".  We hide a laminated, paper owl around the room.  One student hides it, another finds it.  We lead the "finder" to the owl by singing louder as they get closer or softer if they are far away from it.  It's a very basic way of introducing dynamics (louds and softs) to my younger students, but a way to introduce the term crescendo and decrescendo (gradually louder and gradually softer) to my older students.

The only rule with hiding the owl is that some of it has to be visible.  Without that rule they make it impossible to find.  Kindergarten tends to be very repetitive with their hiding skills.  5th grade can get very creative and often like to challenge me to find it.

An example of the wing showing while hiding the owl.

Students look high and low.

Found the owl!

The whole room is available to hide it.

The owl hides in the strangest places.

The owl was trying to make a phone call.

They think they are super cool when they get to go behind the piano to look as that is an off-limits area.

Owl feet.  Technically visible, so it counts.

Trying everywhere around the room.