Elementary Music Valentine's Day Activities

Need a quick Valentine's Day activity for your elementary music classes?

Here is a list of activities!

I created this Wakelet that includes multiple activities to use in your elementary music classes on Valentine’s Day. It is labeled in five categories:

• Rhythm play-along videos

• Boomwhacker videos

• Valentine games

• Play-Along Videos with body percussion of iconic notation

• Lessons

Enjoy! And Happy Valentine’s Day!

Encanto Medley Rhythm Play-Along

“Mom…you know what is ironic? When the characters sing the song, “We Don’t Talk About Bruno (no no no)” and they are literally talking about Bruno for the entire song!

And so it begins. This is how I was introduced to Encanto, the movie about the Madrigal family from Disney with music written by acclaimed singer, songwriter, and Tony Award Winner (among other well-deserved recognitions) Lin-Manuel Miranda. After listening to the music on YouTube and Apple Music, my daughters went over every detail of the plot with me and I was hooked. From there, I went down the rabbit hole and read the numerous deep-dives about the movie from how the movie represents dysfunctional families (Arianne Brown, 2022) to how Luisa’s song had to have a cool sound (Julia Dzurillay, 2022).

Decoding the Characters’ Names

Inspired by Cameron Moten’s Elementary Groove Tracks, where he uses words for rhythm patterns and he repeats a phrase numerous times before moving on to another phrase, I decided to use the characters’ names for rhythm patterns and repeat them multiple times before moving on. The result was an Encanto Medley Rhythm Play-Along.

When choosing the songs, I looked no further than my living room. I listened to my daughters belt out, “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” to “Surface Pressure”. When I asked them to sing more, they were happy to oblige. From listening to them more, I added, “Family Madrigal” and “What Else Can I Do”. I wanted one more song and chose the upbeat, “Columbia, Mi Encanto” because I felt it completed the medley beautifully.

Similarities to the Music from In The Heights

I first heard of Lin-Manuel Miranda when I went to Broadway in March of 2008 to see his freshman musical, “In the Heights”. I loved it. I saw it with the understudy playing Usnavi, Javier Muñoz. Javier was amazing (and he went to understudy and eventually play the lead role in “Hamilton”). I came back to see it again with Lin-Manuel Miranda playing Usnavi. From there, I must have listened to the soundtrack over 1000 times. When I now listen to Encanto, I hear so much from “In the Heights”. When they sing “Isabela” in Family Madrigal, I feel like I am hearing “Vanessa” from In the Heights. There are more similarities I hear each time I listen. It reminds me how much I enjoy Lin-Manuel Miranda’s songs and arrangements.

Rhythm Play-Along

My younger students will use the manipulatives to recognize, read, and perform the rhythm patterns. My older students will be given the names to see how they decode the rhythm patterns. Then, they will find their favorite instrument and perform it with the video.

This medley includes five songs from Encanto. It uses the rhythms of quarter and eighth notes and quarter rests, as well as repeat signs because many times the rhythms reflect the microbeat and not the macrobeat. Therefore, it can be a bit challenging to perform. However, with some preparation and practice, it can be achieved.

Enjoy the rhythm play-along and come back for the body percussion and manipulatives in the next couple of weeks.

Songs:

Miranda, Lin Manuel (2022). The Family Madrigal [Recorded by Stephanie Beatriz, Olga Merediz & cast of Encanto]. On Encanto. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtrskpOehdQ.

Miranda, Lin Manuel (2022). Surface Pressure. [Recorded by Jessica Darrow]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErY3eeRFTFg.

Miranda, Lin Manuel (2022). Colombia, Mi Encanto. [Recorded by Carlos Vives]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L74W7Ml9Yww.

Miranda, Lin Manuel (2022). What Else Can I Do? [Recorded by Beatriz & Guerrero]. On Encanto. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBeZSuHI4Qc.

Miranda, Lin Manuel (2022). We Don't Talk About Bruno. [Recorded by Adassa, Beatriz, Mauro Castillo, Rhenzy Feliz, Carolina Gaitán, Diane Guerrero & cast of Encanto]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvWRMAU6V-c.

Resources:

Arianne Brown, K. S. L. (2022, January 15). Parents react to Disney's 'Encanto,' call it triggering and healing. KSL.com. Retrieved January 18, 2022, from https://www.ksl.com/article/50328971/parents-react-to-disneys-encanto-call-it-triggering-and-healing

Julia Dzurillay. (2022, January 13). Disney's 'Encanto': Why it was important for Luisa's 'surface pressure' to have a 'cool' sound. Showbiz Cheat Sheet. Retrieved January 18, 2022, from https://www.cheatsheet.com/entertainment/encanto-important-luisas-surface-pressure-cool-sound.html/

Countdown to 2022: 5 Free Tech Activities for #Elmused (#2) - Free Tools (Reposted from mustech.net)

This past year, many items that are usually paid for, became free for us to use, especially during the lockdown. Some of them were Denise Gagne’s Musicplay Online and MusicFirst. As we started back to school in the States in August and September of 2020, many of us came back to budget cuts or even, teaching a whole new subject. As we now return to the classroom in 2021 (or a concurrent teaching scenario) we find ourselves using and needing free tools more often than not to accommodate the ever-changing learning environments.

There are amazing music education tools that have limited free editions or trial periods, but eventually, give you more bang for the buck with the paid versions. As mentioned above Musicplay Online, MusicFirst (MusicFirst Jr is for the younger grades), Quaver, Noteflight Learn, Soundtrap EDU, and others, fall into that category. Having tried and used all of the products mentioned, they are worth every penny for the elementary music educator who uses them in their classroom often and for supplementing the curriculum.

However, if you need free tools, here is a list that many elementary music educators used this year that can continue to be used in a more traditional elementary music classroom.

Quick Free Resources

• Wheel of Names – Add text, emojis, or pictures to create various wheels to use in your classroom.

  • Uses: You can use it to choose students, or add pictures for students to name notes. You can add pictures of rhythm patterns for whole class assessment. You can also use emojis to promote arioso singing or improvising short melodic phrases.

• Rhythm Randomizer – This site creates rhythm patterns in various meters and note values.

  • Uses: Use this site to assess various rhythm patterns. Or, use this site to take a quick screenshot of a rhythm pattern needed for your manipulative, or Google Slide, or Seesaw Activity, etc. You can change the settings so that your rhythm pattern can be set in various meters and note values.

• Note Image Generator – Bret Pimental created this site to capture pictures of notes on various staves.

  • Uses: This site is wonderful to collect quick pictures on a staff. When you use this site, you can download the pictures that you need and upload them to wheel of names.

• Solfasinger – This site is wonderful as it gives you a digitized solfege Curwen hand signs with a child singing the syllables. It also has moveable Do.

  • Uses: If you are teaching virtual, concurrent, or need a resource for the students to be able to access solfege, hand signs, and a recorded voice singing the syllables, then you can use this site to enhance your teaching or to share with your students.

• Solfege Hand Signs – Ms. Lambert gives you a free pdf of solfege hand signs with the boomwhacker colors as barriers.

  • Uses: You can use these to print out and hang up in the classroom, or add to your virtual classroom. If you do not want the barrier, you can export the pdf file and crop out the barrier in each picture by exporting each picture from the pdf.

• Transpose ▲▼ pitch ▹ speed ▹ loop for videos – This Extension allows you to change the speed and pitch of YouTube videos or online videos.

  • Uses: You could find karaoke videos and change the pitch and speed of them to assist your students’ practices and rehearsals.

Free Virtual Instruments

• Playxylo – This site has been amazing this past year. The creators listen to music educators’ suggestions and improve their virtual xylophone often. It currently has diatonic, chromatic, and pentatonic scales, as well as xylophone, boomwhacker, and monotone colors.

  • Your students’ devices can be transformed into instruments for in-person learning with restrictions, in-person learning with limited instruments available to the students, concurrent learning, and remote learning.

• Bongo Cat – This site is so much fun.

  • Uses: Use it as a virtual instrument for your students since they all might have devices, or use it as a stress relief for yourself.

• Scratch – A free coding website.

  • Uses: Need a virtual instrument? Place the name in the search tool and see if someone has created one for you to use. Level this up by asking older students to code instruments for the younger students to use.

Free Tools for Creating Music

• Chrome Music Lab – At this point, this site is so well-known that it is now a “go to” for music educators and their students. There is so much that one can do to create music and for arts integration.

  • Uses: One can have students create their own music in Song Maker. Arts Integration can be achieved by using Ocsillators to integrate Science with Music and Kandinsky to integrate Art with Music. To see a music and art integrated project we did this year, click here. There is so much more that this site can do. Want to also integrate music making with math? Try Groove Pizza and talk about the angles that are used to create various drum grooves.

• Incredibox – “An oldie but goodie”, as I heard a music educator describe this site the other day. This site has four demo versions that you can use with your students for free. They can arrange the cartoon beatboxers to make music, as well as unlock some new grooves within the site.

  • Uses: I love to use this site with my students to integrate writing with music. My students will write a poem as a part of their poetry unit and then turn it into a rap that they use Incredibox to create the background accompaniment track. We have also created the classroom expectations and used this site to create the accompaniment when rapping those expectations.

• Beepbox – This site is a wonderful way for older elementary students to create music that can be shared and saved.

  • Uses: It is a wonderful tool to use to create video game music (especially ones from a few decades ago). This site can also promote creating music with guided form and instrumentation.

• Bandlab EDU – Bandlab EDU is a digital audio workstation (DAW) that is web-based and promotes collaboration as students can create music together while working on multiple devices. Soundtrap EDU and GarageBand are very similar as Soundtrap EDU is a web-based DAW that allows collaboration, but is not free. And GarageBand is a DAW, but only accessed with Apple devices and is not web-based.

  • Uses: Explore this tool to create accompaniments and record students’ performances for assessments and to create a virtual performance audio recording. Plus, if you can, create accounts for your older elementary students to make music together when they are not in the same class, grade, or school.

Miscellaneous

• Pear Deck – Pear Deck, and it’s Chrome Extension, can turn your Google Slide presentations into interactive student assessments, exit tickets, and more. It is similar to Nearpod, but Nearpod has more items. Both have free versions.

• Loom – Loom is a screen recording tool, much like Screencastify and Screencast-O-Matic. These screen recording tools can be used in our traditional classrooms as they are great ways to create play-along videos. By creating rhythm or melodic patterns in Canva, you can bring those patterns into Google Slides, Powerpoint, or Keynote, add the soundtrack to the slide show, place the slide show in present mode, and record yourself moving the conducting tool across the screen. From this, you are creating your own play-along videos that enhance your curriculum as opposed to using one on YouTube which might not follow the curriculum you teach.

• Wakelet – Wakelet is free and allows you to create a list of links to share with your students. If you are lacking any sort of Learning Management System like Google Classroom, Schoology, Seesaw, Canvas, or others, then Wakelet can help you share many of your items with your students in a safe way.

• Canva – Canva for educators is a game changer. To see more, check out Episode 2 of this series.

Virtual Performances/Assessment Tools

• Flipgrid – Flipgrid is free and can be a wonderful tool to capture assessments, capture videos of students performing, promote digital citizenship, and learn more about students, their interests, and how they pronounce their names.

• Seesaw – Seesaw is a game changer, especially for an elementary student. To check out more, click here.

• Easy Virtual Choir – Creating a virtual choir when you lack the tools or experience is challenging. Easy Virtual Choir is an alternative. You can upload the accompaniment track and have students privately login to record themselves with the accompaniment track. Once all have done that, Easy Virtual Choir creates the video for you so you do not need to access or learn a video editor. For some educators, this was a viable and successful alternative.

With our current teaching atmosphere in an ever-changing status, these free tools can be so beneficial for this coming year.

Check back as we count down to 2022 with #1 tomorrow!

Countdown to 2022: 5 Free Tech Activities for #Elmused (#3) Google Slides or Seesaw Retrieval Practice or Assessment in Rhythm Literacy

Here in the Northeast of the States, the holiday started with an outbreak of the Omicron variant of Covid. This caused schools to pivot their current plans and weigh the options of remote learning, concurrent learning, or live learning with more restrictions. This week, to bring us into 2022, I am going to blog and share daily activities that can be used in your adapted #elmused classroom when returning from the holiday break.

#3: Puzzle Rhythm Play-Along Patterns

In November, I created a “Be Thankful” Rhythm Play-Along Activity. This Seesaw and Google Slides Project accompanied the video to serve the purpose of retrieval practice or assessment.

https://docs.google.com/presentation/u/1/d/1XWZYsa-Mu7-Qcb7rT3u8h7dWxxDrOzJ0R19dU-nQsPg/copy

Google Slides: Be Thankful Rhythm Play-Along Retrieval Practice or Assessment

This google slides activity involves a puzzle for the students to solve. Once they solve the puzzle, they are to use the Mote Extension (https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/mote-voice-notes-feedback/ajphlblkfpppdpkgokiejbjfohfohhmk?hl=en-US) to record themselves performing the rhythm pattern. Once they have completed eight slides, they can press play and perform with the Be Thankful Rhythm Play-Along. Although this video was from Thanksgiving, it can be used throughout the year.

https://app.seesaw.me/pages/shared_activity?share_token=-163i544RUCMX3aV1K7nAg&prompt_id=prompt.a6088603-e514-4177-9e60-d06a771c261e

Seesaw: Being Thankful Rhythm Play-Along Retrieval Practice or Assessment

Very similar to the google slides activity, this Seesaw Activity uses the microphone tool to record themselves performing the rhythm pattern that they create from piecing the puzzle together. Once finished, they can press play on the ninth slide to perform all of the rhythm patterns with the rhythm play-along video.

Resources

Google Slides: https://docs.google.com/presentation/u/1/d/1XWZYsa-Mu7-Qcb7rT3u8h7dWxxDrOzJ0R19dU-nQsPg/copy

Seesaw: https://app.seesaw.me/pages/shared_activity?share_token=-163i544RUCMX3aV1K7nAg&prompt_id=prompt.a6088603-e514-4177-9e60-d06a771c261e

Check back as we count down to 2022 with #2 tomorrow!

Note: At the 5 min mark I say that google slides is much easier. However, Seesaw is what was supposed to be referenced at that 5 min mark.

Five YouTube Musical Activities for the Last Friday of October!

Here is the YouTube episode to accompany this post: https://youtu.be/SEaRPVOe0Qg

In the States, the last Friday of October is usually one close to Halloween, or close to a full moon. In many areas, either of these events is bound to cause your elementary students to have extra energy, especially if they are having some sort of celebration right before your music class.

If that is the case, here are five YouTube musical activities (plus a bonus) you can do to promote the following concepts:

• Ensemble playing

• Listening

• Following a conductor

• Learning how to trill on a boomwhacker

• Pitch

• Rhythm reading

• Accidentals or key signatures

• Finding patterns in music

• Performance skills

• Melody

• Harmony

• Bass lines

• Tempo

• Coordination

• Cross-curricular connections of reading words and how syllables relate to rhythm

• Compare and contrast thinking map

• Triplet rhythm patterns

• Moving to music

• Comparing body percussion to rhythm patterns

• Fun!

Musication YouTube Channel

Musication

Musication has become a staple in many elementary music classrooms. From their popular boomwhacker play-alongs to their percussion videos, my students find them so much fun. I like that I am having them experience and practice skills mentioned above. Two of my students’ favorites are Skeleton Dance (they loved the melody and learning how to trill on a boomwhacker with a triangle) and Ghostbusters (learning the difference between melody and the bass line).

Rhythm Recess

Rhythm recess came out this week with two videos involving the song, I Want Candy by Bow Bow Bow. One is for body percussion and one is for rhythm reading. Both emphasize steady beat, coordination, and creativity. If your students cannot stop talking about candy, these will be beneficial and fun.

Elementary Groove Tracks

Cameron creates wonderful play-alongs that involve him conducting the music as he plays it. This is amazing as it includes multiple modalities for your students to perform. They can watch him play, or follow his conducting, or perform rhythm patterns by reading notation or the words. He updated his popular Halloween Percussion Play Along and just added an Autumn Themed Percussion Play Along. All with originally scored music by Cameron.

Pequeño Mozart

Back in 2017, Pequeño Mozart created a rhythm practice (Lectura rîtmica) video to Grieg’s In the Hall of the Mountain King. To this day, my first and second graders (current and previous) ask for this video and a pair of rhythm sticks. When I use this in my classroom, I take screenshots of the five rhythm patterns and have the students perform a retrieval practice with that before they perform the song. This play-along is basically the students performing the rhythm of the melody, which I believe, is what they like so much about it. Level it up by having them compare and contrast the song with Trolls Hair Up (found here), and then watch the line rider video to reflect on how that video showcased the song.

Music Class with Ms. Watson

Abby Watson is an elementary music teacher who created her YouTube channel for her students at the beginning of the pandemic. She loved creating the videos so much, that she created more for any teacher to share with their students. What I love about Abby’s videos is that she teaches the musical concepts throughout the video and then ends with the play-along portion. Her bucket drumming videos are excellent. They are wonderful to leave as a sub plan.

Using Technology with Elementary Music Approaches

Bonus: My students have liked the October Rhythm Play-Along and the October Body Percussion very much. This is a mashup (30-second audio clips) of The Addams Family by Vic Mizzy, Ghostbusters by Ray Parker Jr, The Munsters by Jack Marshall, Hedwig's Theme from Harry Potter by John Williams, Monster Mash by Bobby "Boris" Pickett and the Crypt Kickers, and Werewolf in London by Warren Zevon. This can be used to read and perform rhythm patterns, body percussion, compare the two, and for fun.

I wish you much luck this week if you are experiencing the full moon, the anticipation of a certain day, the sugar highs, and anything else that might come your way this week.

Mind Brain Education: CTTL Elementary Academy Day 1

For the past few years, we have explored and studied Mind Brain Education (MBE) through reading Neuroteach, written by Glenn Whitman and Dr. Ian Kellener, through various webinars and conferences, took online Neuroteach Global (NTG) courses, and participated in a four-day deep dive provided by The Center for Transformative Teaching and Learning (CTTL). The latter is one that I have not had the opportunity to take. Many of my colleagues, who have taken all of the above, had advised me that once I took the four-day intensive training, all of the other pieces of the training would fall into place. I hesitated on participating in the four-day course for two reasons: 1) It is a four-day course in the summer that makes it challenging for a working mother of school-aged children to attend. And 2) I felt that a focus on elementary MBE would be more applicable. When I learned that this summer the CTTL would provide online elementary-focused training, I jumped at the opportunity to attend.

Some Takeaways from Day 1 of MBE

After the morning session focused on the learning environment and student well-being, I began to immediately see how the four-day deep-dive in MBE would fill in the gaps of my studies. Some quick takeaways from day one as an elementary music educator:

• Cognition and emotion are Interdependent.

• When children feel safe, they learn better. I think about this alot, especially if music was the subject that made a child feel safe, gave them a sense of belonging, and their school took out the arts due to the pandemic. I am proud to say that most schools where I am located understood the importance of the arts and kept them offered and running all this past school year.

• Pleasant emotions are where we strive our learning environment to be, versus unpleasant emotions (like students feeling judged, they notice others progressing and they feel that they are not, the nonverbal body cues from teacher, etc). In music class, how do we correct a student who makes a mistake and plays a song incorrectly? Do we tell them how to correct it or do we give them opporunities for them to own the song and correct it themselves?

• “Promising Principle 1: Understand the link between emotion and cognition – dedicate time to activities that are shown to increase well-being, such as read alouds, singing, journaling, art, and movement.“

  • I love that singing is included in this!

• When students who don’t feel like they belong are questioning if they are safe, then their active, working memories and their executive functioning skills are attacked first.

From The Center for Transformative Teaching & Learning ©2020 https://www.thecttl.org/

• One of the best quotes to hear from your student is, “My teacher gets me”, not “my teacher likes me”. Though the latter is a nice feeling, the former means that the student understands why your music classroom is a place where they feel safe and will thrive.

Memory is the residue of thought – Prof. Dan Willingham

• Lessons – who is doing most of the thinking? Me or the students? Am I taking away of their memory being fully functional if I am doing most of the thinking?

• Learning happens when you think hard. So where in your lesson will your students think hard? And how do you get thinking hard at the top of your agenda? In music class, I attribute this to my youngest of students when I remember that when they are learning, I am not to sing with them. They need to have that independence as they learn to sing. When they have mastered a simple song, then I can sing with them.

• What does the research point for the cultivation of habits for lifelong learning?

  • Value – is it worth the student’s time to learn?

  • Expectancy – Can they do it?

  • Costs – What are their barriers when learning and how can they overcome them?

The latter is why we learn how students learn. No matter what subject you teach, having and understanding this knowledge will help your classroom be a learning environment for student well-being as well as helping students develop habits for achievement and lifelong learning.

Want to learn more?

I will continue blogging my thoughts on this deep-dive. However, the best place to begin is to check out https://www.thecttl.org/ and to read Neuroteach. Finally, if you can ever catch a session presented by Dr. Missy Strong about music and neuroplasticity, I would highly recommend attending it. I have attended a few of her sessions on this topic in the past, and it helps me to understand how students learn music from the youngest of ages.