Blog Posts

Music Manipulatives

Denise Gagne

In this newsletter I'd like to give you some ideas for manipulatives for the music room that you could make over the summer break.

Rhythm Bags - Rhythm bags are ziplock bags that contain 4 foam hears, 10 popsicle sticks and several pipe cleaners.

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If you have a lot of time, you could cut some craft sticks in half to put on top of two long sticks to make ti-ti. (I just have kids put two sticks on the heart to represent two sounds on a beat) This versatile manipulative can be used for:

- notating phrases of a reading song such as Snail Snail, Lucy Locket, Apple Tree, etc.
- rhythm dictation: clap a rhythm to your students and have them reproduce it on the hearts
- create rhythms: have students create their own rhythms using the manipulatives and use them as ostinato, B sections, or variations in a rondo. I put only 4 hearts in each bag. If you want a composition that is 8 beats long, have students work in pairs with 2 bags.

Cookie Sheet Rhythm / Staff Tool: I LOVE my cookie sheets and the kids do too.

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The side with the hearts can be used for rhythm dictatation or creating rhythms. I've drawn one line on this side so it can be used as a one line staff. I go right from the one line to the five line staff, so when we go to the full staff students can use the back side for many activities:

- practice putting notes on lines and in spaces
- learning the numbers of lines and spaces
- notating simple solfa patterns
- creating simple solfa patterns Older students can use it to:
- practice naming notes on lines and spaces
- spelling musical words
- creating simple melodies