Question: We are about to start recorder with 4th graders. I don't know if we'll do Recorder Karate belt testing. Of course, they will want to, but it was a challenge last year. We have big classes - 33 students - and haven't had consistent, sequential music ed for their school lives. So, how do you handle classroom behavior when someone is belt testing?
Suggestions: When I first tried Recorder Karate, I chose 7 songs from Recorder Resource Kit 1 and offered belts in 7 colors. This was WAY too much testing! The second year, I cut the number of belts down to 4, and arbitrarily chose colors based on what yarn in Walmart was the cheapest: white, yellow, blue, black.
White belt Song #8, Hot Cross Buns (theme or variation)
Yellow belt Song #17, Skin and Bones
Blue belt Song #24, Hush Little Baby
Black belt Song #35, Jingle Bells
Many of the students wanted to test early, so I set aside one day a week when students could come in to test before the class testing date. On Tuesdays, they could come to the music room before school, recess, noon or after school to test. There was a signup sheet to limit the numbers. Those who didn't test early, would test in class, on the assigned test date. The white belt test would be 23 weeks after starting the recorder. (This was with music twice a week - if you have music just once, it will be a later.)
Suggestions for In-Class Testing:
1. Have something for the students to do who aren't testing. One day I gave each child a pencil and a blank piece of manuscript paper and told them to write as many musical words as they could - words using only ABCDEFG. They had to write the word underneath the staff, and then place the notes on the staff. One student did 26 words and I gave him a prize. It was very little preparation, but was great note writing practise and I was able to test everyone in the class.
2. I had a video with the Logdrivers waltz and other song/cartoons that I put on one day. That was a big hit during testing. I just moved to a corner of the room to hear individuals while the majority of students were in front of the TV. The composer DVDs (Handel's Last Chance, Bach's Fight for Freedom, etc) are also good to show while testing. Even if the children have seen them before, they are entertaining enough that they’ll watch them again.
Find information on ordering Composer DVDs at: The Composer's Specials Set
3. If you have computer access, have the kids who've tested work on music sites on the internet. These are some good sites:
http://www.classicsforkids.com/
Games are great: Compose your own music, Note Name Game, Rockin Rhythm Master
http://artsalive.ca/en/mus/index.asp
Activities and Games: compose music, identify the instrument
http://www.dsokids.com/
Listen by Composer, Listen to Instruments are good activities
4. Pick out the trickiest section of a piece and test just that. It would be great to hear everyone play everything, but time is limited, so maybe just listen to one line.
5. Make up activity booklets of reproducible worksheets to have students complete before and after they've tested.
There are great reproducibles in these 3 collections:
Know your Note Names, Know Your Rhythms and Know your Terms and Symbols.
6. Do testing as one center - set up other centers in your room that students rotate through. We've published Music Centers Kits that are great - also really good as centers in Note Name Battleship and Rhythm Dice Games.
If your classroom is too small to allow half of your students to be playing different songs at the same time, go outside to do this. (If and when winter ever ends!) Give the students a recorder scoring sheet that each peer reviewer must complete.
Peer Recorder Review
Name of the Recorder Player: ___________________________
Name of the Peer Reviewer: _____________________________
Date of the test:_______________________________________
Classroom Teacher’s name/grade: _________________________
Song played: _________________________________________
Perfect (3 points) Pretty good(2 points)
Sometimes is correct (1 point) Not yet (0)
Rhythms ____
Notes/fingerings ____
Tone quality ____
Articulation ____ (tonguing/slurring)
Add up the numbers: ___________ If you have scored 8-12 you’ve earned a belt. Bring this to your teacher to receive your belt. If your score is below 8, you need to keep working on this piece.
I agree with the peer reviewers assessment: Yes __ No __
Name of the Recorder Player:
___________________________ (*sign)
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