What do I do the first day of every music class to talk about the important things but not make it boring and the same every year? This year I used the website prezi to interact with the student. I didn't read the slides verbatim ( that is too boring!) and I didn't do all the talking. The students read some, asked questions and some Asked how they could make one!
Here is the link for the prezi that I made for our first day!
http://prezi.com/ksrmcdugvplm/welcome-to-music-class-2013/
Friday, August 30, 2013
Third Grade - First Week
In the first week of school, students began learning mallet technique, reviewing one of their favorite folk dances from second grade and establishing norms. I used prezi.com to present expectations as well as to give information about new things in our class. Several new jobs are in the works and the kids are loving it. They are very excited about the jobs they get to do in class.
The folk dance we did today was called Sasha. It is a mixer and allows for students to be paired up with several classmates during the song. I love to have students work together and to learn to accept others that they may not interact with as much outside of the music room. Acceptance and respect are big deals for our class!
In this short clip, students in Mrs. Morris' third grade class are performing Sasha! (I loved when one of the students said at the end of the dance "That was so much fun!!") I also had so much fun that I lost track of time and we were five minutes late getting out of class and they were sad to go. I sure love teaching them!
The folk dance we did today was called Sasha. It is a mixer and allows for students to be paired up with several classmates during the song. I love to have students work together and to learn to accept others that they may not interact with as much outside of the music room. Acceptance and respect are big deals for our class!
In this short clip, students in Mrs. Morris' third grade class are performing Sasha! (I loved when one of the students said at the end of the dance "That was so much fun!!") I also had so much fun that I lost track of time and we were five minutes late getting out of class and they were sad to go. I sure love teaching them!
Fifth Grade Plays Xylophones!
The first week of school is always spent reviewing, preparing students and giving expectations as well as practicing these expectations. It was an exciting week as we now have twenty xylophones instead of seven!!! The students were able to learn some new patterns and practiced keeping the beat while others improvised their own melodies.
Thursday, August 22, 2013
Alan November
Today's inservice was spent reviewing what we read this summer (our TC Nation book "Who Owns the Learning" by Alan November) with teachers in The Colony Cluster. The afternoon was spent listening to two and a half hour speaker: Alan November. So it was definitely a November day!
Key notes I took away from the learning today:
A. IMPORTANCE
Two important items this year:
1. Finding the right information at the right time
2. How to get the right people
B. GOOGLE OPERATORS
What are Google operators? They help narrow your search in google to the real items that you are actually trying to find. Amazing!!
Examples:
If you type in site:gov after a topic you want to find, it brings up government sites that will give you information on it. Ex: economics site:gov
If you type in site:ac, google will search for sites associated with colleges overseas.
If you want information on a certain country or want to find out certain sites from that country, first look up country codes in google. Then use the abbreviation for that country like this: site:uk (will bring up information from United Kingdom
Or like this: site:uk flowers
C. JAMIE MCKENZIE
Questions?! This is an awesome site for helping kids ask different kinds of questions.
http://fno.org/nov97/toolkit.html
D.WOLFRAMALPHA
Oohhh... wow. What can't this site do?
E. POLL EVERYWHERE
Great resource for having the class take a short poll about what you have been teaching. Great way to start or end class!
F. POWERPOINTS
Don't spend time making your own! Google it this way:
filetype:ppt (then search what you want the powerpoint to be about)
For example: Filetype:ppt The Civil War
G. TASA
iTunes store
find iTunes U
k-12
TASA
Lots of tutorials!
Check them out!
Key notes I took away from the learning today:
A. IMPORTANCE
Two important items this year:
1. Finding the right information at the right time
2. How to get the right people
B. GOOGLE OPERATORS
What are Google operators? They help narrow your search in google to the real items that you are actually trying to find. Amazing!!
Examples:
If you type in site:gov after a topic you want to find, it brings up government sites that will give you information on it. Ex: economics site:gov
If you type in site:ac, google will search for sites associated with colleges overseas.
If you want information on a certain country or want to find out certain sites from that country, first look up country codes in google. Then use the abbreviation for that country like this: site:uk (will bring up information from United Kingdom
Or like this: site:uk flowers
C. JAMIE MCKENZIE
Questions?! This is an awesome site for helping kids ask different kinds of questions.
http://fno.org/nov97/toolkit.html
D.WOLFRAMALPHA
Oohhh... wow. What can't this site do?
E. POLL EVERYWHERE
Great resource for having the class take a short poll about what you have been teaching. Great way to start or end class!
F. POWERPOINTS
Don't spend time making your own! Google it this way:
filetype:ppt (then search what you want the powerpoint to be about)
For example: Filetype:ppt The Civil War
G. TASA
iTunes store
find iTunes U
k-12
TASA
Lots of tutorials!
Check them out!
Wednesday, August 21, 2013
School Supply Drop Off Night
Welcome to our new Ethridge Music Class Blog! Most (or all) of you reading this post probably attended the School Supply Drop Off Night at Ethridge and scanned the QR code outside of the music room. Thank you for checking out this site and I hope that you'll come back to it regularly to find out all of the fun activities that are going on in your child's classroom!!
In this blog, you will find several tabs at the top of the page. When you click on the tabs, you will find more information. Some of the tabs at the top of this blog are: Choir Orff Events Quavers.
As you move your mouse over the word on the tabs, it will change color to grey and you can click on it to take you to another page of this blog. There are several events already listed in "Events" as well as some information listed under "Choir" and "Orff."
There are a lot of new things coming to our music classroom this year!! I'm excited to get started and to teach and collaborate with your children as we create music. Orff is one of our newest additions to our classroom. Orff is a method of teaching and uses xylophones in groups to allow children to perform, create, compose and work together to create incredible music. Movement, dances and stories are also used.
Another new addition to our classroom is called Quaver's. Quavers is an online website that allows students to experiment with music in a very technological way and there is an amazing amount of material on the web. I attended training this summer on it and will have more information after September when the materials are at our school!
A third addition to our classroom are student roles in the class. Students have always had opportunities to lead, direct, work together and to assist with Smartboard, technology, instruments and daily help like holding the door and turning on/off the lights. This year it's getting bigger!
1. ROCK STAR: Students will have the opportunity to be a "Rock Star" and help lead vocal warm-ups, xylophone warm-ups, singing games, and many other exciting roles.
2. LIGHTING DIRECTOR: Students will be in charge of the ambience of the classroom. This can change often depending on what activity we are doing. They will be in charge of the lights going on/off.
3. GUEST WRITER: Students will have the chance to send me a short or long article about what they are learning in class, how we are learning song material, giving information about instruments, how they are played, the rules in our classroom and other fun topics that they will help choose. After the students send me their article, I will post in on this blog for others to see and comment on. It will be exciting to hear what students are doing from the students perspective!
4. VIDEOGRAPHER: Students will use the iPad in class to record their class performing, dancing, moving, reading rhythms, and doing everyday music activities. These video recordings will be posted on this blog in the "VIDEO" tab at the top.
These are some of the roles that will be available for your students as they go through our year together.
Thank you for the privilege of teaching your children and I look forward to a great year at Ethridge!!
Mrs. Grant
In this blog, you will find several tabs at the top of the page. When you click on the tabs, you will find more information. Some of the tabs at the top of this blog are: Choir Orff Events Quavers.
As you move your mouse over the word on the tabs, it will change color to grey and you can click on it to take you to another page of this blog. There are several events already listed in "Events" as well as some information listed under "Choir" and "Orff."
There are a lot of new things coming to our music classroom this year!! I'm excited to get started and to teach and collaborate with your children as we create music. Orff is one of our newest additions to our classroom. Orff is a method of teaching and uses xylophones in groups to allow children to perform, create, compose and work together to create incredible music. Movement, dances and stories are also used.
Another new addition to our classroom is called Quaver's. Quavers is an online website that allows students to experiment with music in a very technological way and there is an amazing amount of material on the web. I attended training this summer on it and will have more information after September when the materials are at our school!
A third addition to our classroom are student roles in the class. Students have always had opportunities to lead, direct, work together and to assist with Smartboard, technology, instruments and daily help like holding the door and turning on/off the lights. This year it's getting bigger!
1. ROCK STAR: Students will have the opportunity to be a "Rock Star" and help lead vocal warm-ups, xylophone warm-ups, singing games, and many other exciting roles.
2. LIGHTING DIRECTOR: Students will be in charge of the ambience of the classroom. This can change often depending on what activity we are doing. They will be in charge of the lights going on/off.
3. GUEST WRITER: Students will have the chance to send me a short or long article about what they are learning in class, how we are learning song material, giving information about instruments, how they are played, the rules in our classroom and other fun topics that they will help choose. After the students send me their article, I will post in on this blog for others to see and comment on. It will be exciting to hear what students are doing from the students perspective!
4. VIDEOGRAPHER: Students will use the iPad in class to record their class performing, dancing, moving, reading rhythms, and doing everyday music activities. These video recordings will be posted on this blog in the "VIDEO" tab at the top.
These are some of the roles that will be available for your students as they go through our year together.
Thank you for the privilege of teaching your children and I look forward to a great year at Ethridge!!
Mrs. Grant
Tuesday, August 20, 2013
Inservice
Day 1 - Teacher Handbook, Thinking Maps with Writing
Day 2 - Compliance, Health, Procedures, Dismissal, Teams
You can be assured that Ethridge teachers are learning, working very hard and planning for a very exciting and fantastic year for all of our students! It has been great to be back with all of my coworkers and to see all of the new things they have planned for their classrooms.
Our Fine Arts Team is made up of four classes: Music, Art, PE, and Science Discovery. Since we use Thinking Maps as a way for students to organize their ideas and put together information, our rotation is four days long and all teachers follow it as "MAPS" (Music Art PE Science). We see our classes on a continuous four day rotation and have each class for 50 minutes. This is a new change as we have always had students for 45 minutes. It will be great to have a little more time with them each day.
I'm still putting details into the classroom. Getting closer to being done!! I am planning out roles for my students in my classroom. Really excited about the "Rock Star" Leaders in class as well as videographer and guest writer for the blog about music. Other jobs will include Orff Managers (students who are in charge of making sure the instruments are clean, have the bars in the right places, and take care of mallets), Lighting Director (in charge of light switches in our room for when we need different ambience for seeing the Smartboard), Conductor (in charge of leading warmups in class) and others.
Tomorrow night is School Supply Drop Off and I can't wait to see all our former and new students as they come to prepare for a fun filled year!
Day 2 - Compliance, Health, Procedures, Dismissal, Teams
You can be assured that Ethridge teachers are learning, working very hard and planning for a very exciting and fantastic year for all of our students! It has been great to be back with all of my coworkers and to see all of the new things they have planned for their classrooms.
Our Fine Arts Team is made up of four classes: Music, Art, PE, and Science Discovery. Since we use Thinking Maps as a way for students to organize their ideas and put together information, our rotation is four days long and all teachers follow it as "MAPS" (Music Art PE Science). We see our classes on a continuous four day rotation and have each class for 50 minutes. This is a new change as we have always had students for 45 minutes. It will be great to have a little more time with them each day.
I'm still putting details into the classroom. Getting closer to being done!! I am planning out roles for my students in my classroom. Really excited about the "Rock Star" Leaders in class as well as videographer and guest writer for the blog about music. Other jobs will include Orff Managers (students who are in charge of making sure the instruments are clean, have the bars in the right places, and take care of mallets), Lighting Director (in charge of light switches in our room for when we need different ambience for seeing the Smartboard), Conductor (in charge of leading warmups in class) and others.
Tomorrow night is School Supply Drop Off and I can't wait to see all our former and new students as they come to prepare for a fun filled year!
Sunday, August 18, 2013
Classroom Set Up
Tomorrow is our first official day of inservice. Though all music teachers in LISD met on Friday for our inservice with Shirley LaCroix. She was incredibly knowledgeable about technology and was extremely helpful in showing us ways to use our Macbook Pros.
During the last two weeks, I've gone into my classroom several times to prepare my room and get everything settled. The only part that was complete when I walked in were the wall-sized bulletin boards. I put paper up at the end of the year to save time. My bulletin boards are all 8' tall and several are between 10' and 15' wide. That's a lot of board to prepared!
1. Borders
I read a post on one of my all-time favorite classroom style blogs about using double borders in the classroom. I love the idea of color schemes and patterns in the classroom. The blog: schoolgirlstyle.com. After almost 4 hours, my double borders are up on my boards and a triple border is up on my largest board. It really adds a great texture and depth to the board. Doesn't look wimpy!
2. Interactive Bulletin Boards
A new idea that was shared at the end of the year was to have bulletin boards that were not so prepared and finished. This would give students the opportunity to add to the boards and make it interactive throughout the year. I took the idea of organizing clipboards on one of my front boards so that I can hang written work from students, activities that we do in class and pictures of our musical experiences. Check out a great example at:
clutterfreeclassroom.blogspot.com.
Mine is still in progress. I found a great way to hang the clipboards straight and I'm very pleased with how orderly and neat it looks. Can't wait to get students pictures and work up on it! Plus it's easy to change the look by simply unclipping old work and clipping up new work.
3. Color Scheme
Again, took the idea from schoolgirlstyle. I wanted things in my room to coordinate as much as possible. There are certain things I can't change the color on so I decided to use the color scheme: black, white, green and blue. Working on a budget (my own personal budget) meant that I only had the opportunity to impact the larger items in the room. Would love to paint the carts and change the color of the bins that hold my small percussion instruments, but that will come in time. I could afford to coordinate border, paper, and decorations.
4. Poofy Poms
For my niece's birthday party two years ago, we were looking for a fun way to decorate our play room at our home. We needed something that was more tween and less little girl. We spent some time looking up ideas to decorate when I came across the idea of using tissue paper to make poofy poms. Website: http://www.marthastewart.com/265163/pom-poms-and-luminarias-how-to. It looked great in the playroom for the party and I got to thinking about how I could use them in the classroom.
I have a long pull-down screen from the 'old' days at Ethridge when I used to pull the screen down so students had a flat surface to see what was being projected. The screen is still up above where my SmartBoard now hangs on the wall. To cover up the rolled screen, I have several poofy poms hanging to add some color and take away from the bland roll.
Last year I had them in multiple colors and my room was more rainbow. It was too much color. This year I stayed with my color scheme and hung the poofy poms using fishing line.
At the end of the year last year, fifth grade students that wanted a poofy pom to take home put their names in a bucket. I drew their names out and they were able to take one home!
5. Word Wall
I have an overly large board on the side of my room where I have my computer center. I've tried multiple ways of decorating it. Last year I took an idea from an iPod billboard that was used by Apple. Coming out the of the iPod was musical screen shots of artists, album covers, songs. I changed it a little bit and put iPods on the side of the board and had music pictures coming out of it. It was time consuming to put up, but I also found that the scale of everything needed to be large which became difficult to do as most everything I had was on a smaller scale.
This year I am using this board as my word wall. I looked up several images online to get ideas. I found many, many variants of word walls. Some are full of words that are tilted all over the place with no order. It was a decorative board, but I don't know how students could learn from a board that just has words sideways, diagonal, and straight. Too much for the eyes.
I created headings and then wrote down words that fit with the headings. For example, TEMPO would be a heading and Allegro would be one of the words under that heading. Each heading and the words below it are the same color. All of the words are lined up and easily accessible for me to point out to students. My husband formatted the words using the program Pages. We printed them on cardstock that we got from Amazon.
6. Instrument Storage
There are a wide variety of instruments in my classroom so I'll narrow it down to categories of instruments.
Small Percussion: I organize my small percussion instruments into bins at the front of the room. The cabinet was originally in the work room and anyone interested in having it in their room could put their name in a basket. Mine was chosen! I was super excited.
I have labels on the bins and have them organized by wood, metal, shakers, etc... It makes it easy to pass out instruments and students can put them away easily as well.
Drums: Djembe, Tubano and Doumbek drums are stored in the storage room on the right of my room. I have 20 drums that students use and they are stored on shelves.
Xylophones: I have 20 xylophones. I do have stands, but they are for two xylophones to face one another. When they are all on the stands, there is absolutely no room left in the classroom to move. Students are facing one another and it just doesn't work for me. I have my xylophones stacked in three's and while I realize this is not ideal and isn't the absolute best way to store them, it does allow us to easily use them and easily move them back.
Rhythm Sticks: I found these metal containers in the music storage room and they were all scruffed up. I hot glued yarn around the containers and designated each one for a purpose. One for yarn mallets, one for rhythm sticks and another for wooden mallets. Again, easy for students to put away on their own.
7. Choir and Orff Information
One board in my room is specifically for my choir and orff students. I plan to put updates and pictures on the board as our groups are formed.
8. QR Code
Outside of my room, I have a board where I can hang the QR code for my blog. It allows students to access it as they walk home or on their way into school. It's also great for parents wanting more information.
9. Desk
My desk is very simple. I have a board hanging above my desk where I have my main calendar. I still love a paper copy of my calendar so I can see visually what my week and month look like without having to open my phone or computer.
On my desk I have a three file rack from Ikea to hold papers and to-do lists. I also have pictures of my family. I'd love to say that it's neatly organized all the time, but it is often neatly stacked in the rack and I have to dig around the rack to find where I put papers. It's one of my goals this year to actually organize the papers on the rack!
10. Seating Arrangements
Every year my room looks a little different and I try to stay up on the current technologies available. As a result, my room has changed so much in the last ten years of teaching at Ethridge. My first few years students sat on risers on the side. There was no screen or projector and they read music out of books and paper.
A few years later, I had a screen and a projector. It was great! I loved not having to print everything and being able to have students see the projector. The risers then went away and students sat in three rows in chairs. This way they could all see the screen.
Then I got my SmartBoard and students all needed access to come up to the screen to manipulate objects on the screen and write rhythms. I then set up chairs in a U shape with a large space in the middle.
Last year I kept this seating arrangement for when we needed to sit in chairs, but I also added three lines on the carpet for students to sit closer to me. Our seats varied and we would often transition from one to the other.
Of course, we have a lot of transitions: floor to chairs to stacking chairs and sitting in circles or dancing in groups. We move a lot in class and flexibility in seating and moving are absolute necessities.
10. Final Touches
Posters: I have posters from Ikea, Walmart (the music poster that I love with the guitar on it), Thinking maps, and various pictures that my two girls have drawn for me. Or that students have made for me!
Still working on more final touches...
During the last two weeks, I've gone into my classroom several times to prepare my room and get everything settled. The only part that was complete when I walked in were the wall-sized bulletin boards. I put paper up at the end of the year to save time. My bulletin boards are all 8' tall and several are between 10' and 15' wide. That's a lot of board to prepared!
1. Borders
I read a post on one of my all-time favorite classroom style blogs about using double borders in the classroom. I love the idea of color schemes and patterns in the classroom. The blog: schoolgirlstyle.com. After almost 4 hours, my double borders are up on my boards and a triple border is up on my largest board. It really adds a great texture and depth to the board. Doesn't look wimpy!
2. Interactive Bulletin Boards
A new idea that was shared at the end of the year was to have bulletin boards that were not so prepared and finished. This would give students the opportunity to add to the boards and make it interactive throughout the year. I took the idea of organizing clipboards on one of my front boards so that I can hang written work from students, activities that we do in class and pictures of our musical experiences. Check out a great example at:
clutterfreeclassroom.blogspot.com.
Mine is still in progress. I found a great way to hang the clipboards straight and I'm very pleased with how orderly and neat it looks. Can't wait to get students pictures and work up on it! Plus it's easy to change the look by simply unclipping old work and clipping up new work.
3. Color Scheme
Again, took the idea from schoolgirlstyle. I wanted things in my room to coordinate as much as possible. There are certain things I can't change the color on so I decided to use the color scheme: black, white, green and blue. Working on a budget (my own personal budget) meant that I only had the opportunity to impact the larger items in the room. Would love to paint the carts and change the color of the bins that hold my small percussion instruments, but that will come in time. I could afford to coordinate border, paper, and decorations.
4. Poofy Poms
For my niece's birthday party two years ago, we were looking for a fun way to decorate our play room at our home. We needed something that was more tween and less little girl. We spent some time looking up ideas to decorate when I came across the idea of using tissue paper to make poofy poms. Website: http://www.marthastewart.com/265163/pom-poms-and-luminarias-how-to. It looked great in the playroom for the party and I got to thinking about how I could use them in the classroom.
I have a long pull-down screen from the 'old' days at Ethridge when I used to pull the screen down so students had a flat surface to see what was being projected. The screen is still up above where my SmartBoard now hangs on the wall. To cover up the rolled screen, I have several poofy poms hanging to add some color and take away from the bland roll.
Last year I had them in multiple colors and my room was more rainbow. It was too much color. This year I stayed with my color scheme and hung the poofy poms using fishing line.
At the end of the year last year, fifth grade students that wanted a poofy pom to take home put their names in a bucket. I drew their names out and they were able to take one home!
5. Word Wall
I have an overly large board on the side of my room where I have my computer center. I've tried multiple ways of decorating it. Last year I took an idea from an iPod billboard that was used by Apple. Coming out the of the iPod was musical screen shots of artists, album covers, songs. I changed it a little bit and put iPods on the side of the board and had music pictures coming out of it. It was time consuming to put up, but I also found that the scale of everything needed to be large which became difficult to do as most everything I had was on a smaller scale.
This year I am using this board as my word wall. I looked up several images online to get ideas. I found many, many variants of word walls. Some are full of words that are tilted all over the place with no order. It was a decorative board, but I don't know how students could learn from a board that just has words sideways, diagonal, and straight. Too much for the eyes.
I created headings and then wrote down words that fit with the headings. For example, TEMPO would be a heading and Allegro would be one of the words under that heading. Each heading and the words below it are the same color. All of the words are lined up and easily accessible for me to point out to students. My husband formatted the words using the program Pages. We printed them on cardstock that we got from Amazon.
6. Instrument Storage
There are a wide variety of instruments in my classroom so I'll narrow it down to categories of instruments.
Small Percussion: I organize my small percussion instruments into bins at the front of the room. The cabinet was originally in the work room and anyone interested in having it in their room could put their name in a basket. Mine was chosen! I was super excited.
I have labels on the bins and have them organized by wood, metal, shakers, etc... It makes it easy to pass out instruments and students can put them away easily as well.
Drums: Djembe, Tubano and Doumbek drums are stored in the storage room on the right of my room. I have 20 drums that students use and they are stored on shelves.
Xylophones: I have 20 xylophones. I do have stands, but they are for two xylophones to face one another. When they are all on the stands, there is absolutely no room left in the classroom to move. Students are facing one another and it just doesn't work for me. I have my xylophones stacked in three's and while I realize this is not ideal and isn't the absolute best way to store them, it does allow us to easily use them and easily move them back.
Rhythm Sticks: I found these metal containers in the music storage room and they were all scruffed up. I hot glued yarn around the containers and designated each one for a purpose. One for yarn mallets, one for rhythm sticks and another for wooden mallets. Again, easy for students to put away on their own.
7. Choir and Orff Information
One board in my room is specifically for my choir and orff students. I plan to put updates and pictures on the board as our groups are formed.
8. QR Code
Outside of my room, I have a board where I can hang the QR code for my blog. It allows students to access it as they walk home or on their way into school. It's also great for parents wanting more information.
9. Desk
My desk is very simple. I have a board hanging above my desk where I have my main calendar. I still love a paper copy of my calendar so I can see visually what my week and month look like without having to open my phone or computer.
On my desk I have a three file rack from Ikea to hold papers and to-do lists. I also have pictures of my family. I'd love to say that it's neatly organized all the time, but it is often neatly stacked in the rack and I have to dig around the rack to find where I put papers. It's one of my goals this year to actually organize the papers on the rack!
10. Seating Arrangements
Every year my room looks a little different and I try to stay up on the current technologies available. As a result, my room has changed so much in the last ten years of teaching at Ethridge. My first few years students sat on risers on the side. There was no screen or projector and they read music out of books and paper.
A few years later, I had a screen and a projector. It was great! I loved not having to print everything and being able to have students see the projector. The risers then went away and students sat in three rows in chairs. This way they could all see the screen.
Then I got my SmartBoard and students all needed access to come up to the screen to manipulate objects on the screen and write rhythms. I then set up chairs in a U shape with a large space in the middle.
Last year I kept this seating arrangement for when we needed to sit in chairs, but I also added three lines on the carpet for students to sit closer to me. Our seats varied and we would often transition from one to the other.
Of course, we have a lot of transitions: floor to chairs to stacking chairs and sitting in circles or dancing in groups. We move a lot in class and flexibility in seating and moving are absolute necessities.
10. Final Touches
Posters: I have posters from Ikea, Walmart (the music poster that I love with the guitar on it), Thinking maps, and various pictures that my two girls have drawn for me. Or that students have made for me!
Still working on more final touches...
Saturday, August 17, 2013
QR Code
Our website now has a QR code! Woo hoo!! I'm so excited to have this code printed and posted on my music board outside of my room so that parents can come on school supply drop-off night and access information about our school's music program. There are so many uses for the QR codes and they are so easy to make. For my QR code, I went to this website: http://qrcode.kaywa.com/
There are different levels you can use. It is a freemium site. Freemium: free access to some content, but costs (premium) to access more advanced features. For this blog, free access is all that is needed! And so worth it.
Use #1: Link to your blog so that students, friends, families and teachers can access your site easily! Students can use their devices in the hall to scan it and then immediately access information to what is happening in class.
Use #2: Send emails to students using their school google emails and ask them to scan your QR code for some fun filled information!! Could be a simple question on the blog and if they are able to answer it, they get to choose their seat for the day or choose their role in class (scribe, light person, SmartBoard presenter for sight reading, card holder for rhythms, instrument cleaner, organizer of instruments). You can access who has read the blog by asking them to respond on the blog post. Keep it simple. Keep it fun.
Use #3: Remind parents of events that are coming up. Fundraiser? Texas Legends Game? Carnival? Give information about performances.
Use #4: Keep kids engaged with technology that will link them to information you could give them in class (and do), but in a way that makes it more interesting to them on their level. They'd much rather do it on their terms. Especially fifth graders whose devices are literally apart of their physical being. They will be more apt to do it at home and come to class excited to share what they have been learning!
Use #5: Put the QR code on every note home. Constant reminder and an easy for parents to stay informed!
I'm excited to put mine to use and test the possibilities!
Happy Reading!!
There are different levels you can use. It is a freemium site. Freemium: free access to some content, but costs (premium) to access more advanced features. For this blog, free access is all that is needed! And so worth it.
Use #1: Link to your blog so that students, friends, families and teachers can access your site easily! Students can use their devices in the hall to scan it and then immediately access information to what is happening in class.
Use #2: Send emails to students using their school google emails and ask them to scan your QR code for some fun filled information!! Could be a simple question on the blog and if they are able to answer it, they get to choose their seat for the day or choose their role in class (scribe, light person, SmartBoard presenter for sight reading, card holder for rhythms, instrument cleaner, organizer of instruments). You can access who has read the blog by asking them to respond on the blog post. Keep it simple. Keep it fun.
Use #3: Remind parents of events that are coming up. Fundraiser? Texas Legends Game? Carnival? Give information about performances.
Use #4: Keep kids engaged with technology that will link them to information you could give them in class (and do), but in a way that makes it more interesting to them on their level. They'd much rather do it on their terms. Especially fifth graders whose devices are literally apart of their physical being. They will be more apt to do it at home and come to class excited to share what they have been learning!
Use #5: Put the QR code on every note home. Constant reminder and an easy for parents to stay informed!
I'm excited to put mine to use and test the possibilities!
Happy Reading!!
New School Year 2013, New Class Blog
As I begin my tenth year teaching at Ethridge Elementary school, I am excited to share what we are doing in my music classroom with the most amazing students that I am very blessed to teach 180 plus days a year.
As a staff we read a book by Alan November called "Who owns the learning." In the book, Alan shares about ways that students and teachers can use technology and roles in the classroom to engage students. One idea shared was a class blog which was one of my goals for this year.
Here is a little bit of information about me, the music teacher.
Where I teach: Ethridge Elementary in The Colony, TX
Who I teach: About 550 students in grades K-5
Why I teach: I love to make music. I love to work with kids. I love to make music with kids and see them make music. I have the best job ever. Period.
What I teach: I teach using a wide range of methods including Kodaly, Orff and Dalcroze. Having taken Level 1 in both Kodaly and Orff as well as a Dalcroze week long workshop in MD, I like to incorporate what I hope is the best from each of these disciplines in learning music to engage my students.
How I teach: I dance, sing, move, act, play instruments, and do all of the things that most music teachers do. And I do it with a smile on my face. Have even had a student ask "Why do you smile so much?" My answer: "Because I love what I do and I love being with you." True fact.
I'm excited to share our daily activities as we as have student scribes write blogs about what they are learning in class. This will be a new adventure for my students and I that I hope will document what happens in the Ethridge music classroom!
Mrs. Grant
As a staff we read a book by Alan November called "Who owns the learning." In the book, Alan shares about ways that students and teachers can use technology and roles in the classroom to engage students. One idea shared was a class blog which was one of my goals for this year.
Here is a little bit of information about me, the music teacher.
Where I teach: Ethridge Elementary in The Colony, TX
Who I teach: About 550 students in grades K-5
Why I teach: I love to make music. I love to work with kids. I love to make music with kids and see them make music. I have the best job ever. Period.
What I teach: I teach using a wide range of methods including Kodaly, Orff and Dalcroze. Having taken Level 1 in both Kodaly and Orff as well as a Dalcroze week long workshop in MD, I like to incorporate what I hope is the best from each of these disciplines in learning music to engage my students.
How I teach: I dance, sing, move, act, play instruments, and do all of the things that most music teachers do. And I do it with a smile on my face. Have even had a student ask "Why do you smile so much?" My answer: "Because I love what I do and I love being with you." True fact.
I'm excited to share our daily activities as we as have student scribes write blogs about what they are learning in class. This will be a new adventure for my students and I that I hope will document what happens in the Ethridge music classroom!
Mrs. Grant
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