Teaching With Musicplay

Canadian Thanksgiving falls on Monday, October 10th. For my American friends, save this newsletter until November!

Staff Lesson

There is a new interactive staff lesson attached to Songs 1-6 in K-6 at www.musicplayonline.com.  When I teach the staff, I use several tools - the floor staff games, hand staff, cookie sheet staff, and now there's an interactive tool to help students learn about the staff. If you have a SMART Board or IWB, you or your students can drag the lines to make the staff or drag the treble clefs to the staff.  If you don't, you can do this with the mouse on your computer or on an iPad. The first four activities are suitable for all grades - even your kindergarten students can learn that the staff has 5 lines.

In teaching music, assessment of the student's knowledge is relatively easy. There are a multitude of ways that you can use to determine if your students know that forte means loud.

Easter and Mother's Day are closer together this year than I can ever remember. This lesson is from Musicplay for Kindergarten, but you can teach the song to Grade 1-2 as well.

Find the Basket

With Easter weekend coming up soon, I’d like to focus on a dynamics lesson from Musicplay 3, that uses the game, “Find the Basket.” There are similar games in Musicplay 1 and 2. If you teach Grade 4, 5, or 6 play the game with them. They still love to play games, and this is a great way to review dynamics.

Game Directions:

Create some kind of a bridge. You could lay down two skipping ropes, you could use rubber dots, or or use painter’s tape to mark a bridge on the carpet.

Write new words for a Holiday Song:

#42 Musicplay 3 - Santa Claus is Coming OR  for PreK - 1 new words for Ring Ring Ring the Bells Learning Goals: I can write new words to a song. I can describe many different holidays that children in North America celebrate.

Fun PreK Activities

Beat Beat Feel the Beat:
Beat, beat, feel the beat!  
Say your name, then take a seat!

Beginning Recorder

For many teachers, January is when the students in Grade 3, 4, or 5 start learning to play the recorder.  While the recorder may seem like a simple instrument, there are many skills needed to be successful.  Students must be able to: *tell which is their left and right hands* hold the recorder with the left hand at the top, right hand at the bottom* cover tiny holes with finger pads - not finger tips* start the note with the tongue * continue the air stream between notes to create a legato sound* breathe in appropriate places* demonstrate correct fingerings for notes* read the names of the notes * read and perform rhythms * understand meter * follow a conductor* demonstrate appropriate rehearsal skills* articulate:  slur in some places, tongue in others* develop good intonation* develop a beautiful soundThis list is daunting for an adult!  Breaking the skills down, islolating and teaching one skill at a time will help all of your students become successful recorder players.In this newsletter, I’ve got some tips for teaching students to read the names of the notes. Tip #1.  Start teaching note names well before you order the recorders!Your students in K-2 should learn about the staff as part of their music classes.  They should learn how to number the lines and spaces from the bottom to the top, and you can teach them that the treble clef circles the note G.I like to use the floor staff and the hand staff to teach letter names.  In a previous newsletter floor staff games were discussed. (visit www.christmasconcert.com to download a copy)   In this newsletter, I’ll discuss the hand staff. If you hold your left hand in front of you with your thumb up, palm facing you and your fingers spread out, it’s easy to imagine that your hand is a staff.  You have five fingers, just like there are five lines on the music staff..  In K-2 have the students point to each finger starting with the finger that is closest to the floor.  Number the “lines” of the hand staff.  Play a pointing game.  Call out “line one” or “line five” and have the students point to the correct “line.”  Have a student be the leader and call out the line number.Then, point to the space between the fingers.  This is the “space.”  Call out “first space” or “third space” and have the students point to the correct “space.”  Students like to be the leaders of the pointing game.  When they are successful at just lines or just spaces, include both lines and spaces in the game. Starting in third or fourth grade, teach the letter names of the notes.  I use these poems to introduce the line and space notes.The notes on the line spell Every good boy does fine.The notes in the spaceSpell your face!Then you name the first line E, second line G, third line B, fourth line D and fifth line F.  Play the pointing game having the leader call out E, G, B, D or F.