I have a few small things to share that I use frequently on my iPad and iPhone. Maybe you know these tips already. They've come in very handy for me!
1. Adding an accent mark or another diacritical mark to a letter: This tip works on all Mac devices. Hold down the letter you want an accent over. A menu pops up. On an iPad or iPhone slide your finger over to select the correct mark. On a Mac computer select the number that appears faintly above your mark on the menu. (á is a/hold down/2) This makes writing out Zoltán Kodály super fast.
2. Page Up quickly on an iPad or iPhone Scrolling through a lengthy blog post or Facebook discussion and want to get back to the top of the feed? Tap the time and you're zoomed back up to the top.
3. Texting or making notes with the microphone OK, I have a confession. I am super slow when typing on the iPhone. (*Insert "all thumbs" joke here!*) I have several friends who would much rather text than talk. Well, I talk faster than I type so I use this work around when I have a lot to say in a text. (And I'm not in public!) The microphone is to the left of the space bar. It does a remarkable job of translating to written text. This is also handy when I have an idea and I'm unable to spend the time typing it out because I'm doing three things at once. I open the notes app and just dictate.
I hope some of my tiny tips might be helpful to you. That's it for now! Thanks to Aileen for the Techie Tip linky party. Great idea!
When I got up Tuesday morning and turned on my iPhone to check the weather the first thing I read was "Pete Seeger has died at 94."
Banjo inscription:“This machine surrounds hate and forces it to surrender.”
The news that we have lost one of our national treasures has gnawed at me all week. He was a musician, a story teller, an activist, and a culture bearer. I consider Pete Seeger the american embodiment of the Kodály philosophy. He understood the power of music and the importance of people embracing their musical heritage. He spoke out against injustice and righted wrongs while unifying people through music. I was a child of the 70s but I grew up on the popular folk music from the 1960s. Pete Seeger, Peter, Paul, and Mary, The Kingston Trio, Gordon Lightfoot, and Bob Dylan were on heavy rotation during my childhood. In my elementary music class we sang Where Have All the Flowers Gone and If I Had a Hammer every year in sing a longs. These were songs everybody just knew, it seemed. When I began my Kodály studies, I realized how many folk songs I had learned initially through Pete Seeger. A little later in my life, Pete Seeger records were on heavy rotation in my house after I had my son. As a new mother I made many playlists for the baby. I wanted my child to be exposed to great music and lots of it!
Here are a few of my favorite Pete Seeger recordings and books and how I've used them in the music classroom.
Jim Along Josie Karla Cherwinski wrote about movement with Jim Along Josie recently at Kodály Corner. (You should definitely check that out!) I love to use Pete Seeger's version of the song. It's just Pete and his banjo and very fun to move to! First I ask students to share ways we can move. Then I sing the song and play guitar adding movements that the students have mentioned. I have the children freeze when they hear "Hey Jim along, Jim along, Josie." Freezing on the "Hey Jim along" shows that they're listening. (It's also a good way to slow them down if their movements are getting a bit out of control!) We move to the Pete Seeger version the next time I see the class. I love to see what they do when Pete sings "roll Jim along...!" You can find Pete's Jim Along Josie many places but I suggest the album Birds, Beasts, Bugs, & Fishes Little & Big Animal Folk Songs. This is a wonderful album and fun listening for children everyone. My kids particularly like the songs Ground Hog and the very short (and shocking!) The Elephant.
Get America Singing and Get America Singing... Again! Songbooks
The Get America Singing books were a project of MENC and Pete Seeger was the Honorary National Chair for the Get America Singing...Again! campaign. There's a lovely Foreword by Pete in which he emphasizes the value of people singing together.
Do you have a stack of these in your music room? What a wonderful collection of songs!
Pass them out, grab your guitar or piano and let the students just sing. Sing for the sake of singing together. It might not fit the melodic or rhythmic concept the class is working on and that's fine.
Pete writes:
"To take a lung full of air and push it out with some kind of song is an act of survival, whether you're singing in a shower, a car, a bar, in a chorus, at a birthday party, at a church, or wherever. Try it- you'll live longer."
Amen to that!
Abiyoyo
This book was such a stable when I started teaching music it became cliché to even promote it. ("Abiyoyo? Of course I read Abiyoyo to my students ever year!!")
I'm not sure if it's as well known today.
This is a charming story about an ostracized magician father, his banjo playing son, and how they banish the carnivorousgiant Abiyoyo from their town. You could read and sing this yourself OR you could turn pages and let Pete narrate and sing. (The book comes with a CD.) I almost hate to mention it, (because you really should have this book,) but there is a great video of Pete telling the story on the Reading Rainbow program.
This Land is Your Land 2009 Inauguration Performance I've been showing this sing a long performance of This Land is Your Land at the 2009 inauguration of President Obama to my 4th, 5th, and 6th graders this week. Just seeing 89 year old Pete leading the mass of people in song is stirring. I love that he was true to Woody Guthrie's full intentions and made sure to include those often "forgotten" verses. Pete performs here with his grandson Tao Rodriguez-Seeger and Bruce Springsteen.
The Pete Seeger documentary Pete Seeger: Power of Song is not for the kids but provides a fascinating narrative of his life in music and politics. It's a "must see" for anyone serious about understanding the importance of folk song in the united states. I highly recommend this inspiration film.
Zoltán Kodály said "...only the best is good enough for a child." Pete Seeger was one of our best. May he rest in peace.
Hello! This is just a quick post to highlight some wonderful elementary music education resources. (Several of which you are probably aware of!)
Blogs, blogs, blogs! I'm a bit late to plug this blog but I must point you towards it in case you have not see it. I follow several other music teacher blogs and I am very excited to be included as a future guest blogger in a new collaborative Kodály blog, Kodály Corner.
This a collaborative blog headed by three wonderful music ed bloggers, Aileen Miracle, Amy Abbott, and Lindsay Jervis. I'm sure you've been inspired by these three teachers and their great ideas. If not you're not familiar with these teachers, go now and check out Mrs. Miracle's Music Room, Music a la Abbott, and The Pursuit of Joyfulness. (Well, maybe finish read my post first. Don't stress, it's a short one.) it's exciting to see all the collaboration going on among music educators in the blogosphere. They will be posting a couple of times a week and several guest kodály inspired music teachers will be contributing posts as well. (Don't you just love living in the future?!) If you haven't already, you must see the latest post by Sue Bowcock about part-work in her classroom. She includes a teaching process, a rhythm reading example, and videos of her students in action! I have seen Sue present several times and she is an exemplary Kodály teacher. I still refer to workshop notes I have from Sue's presentations. I was fortunate to see her teach her own students at a class demonstration session at an OAKE conference a few years ago. If you ever have the chance to go to a Sue Bowcock session or workshop, you really must! CMEA! (Colorado Music Educators Education Association) (or must I say Colorado NAFME?) I'm a little blue this week knowing I won't be at CMEA at the exquisite Broadmoor Hotel in Colorado Springs. I just can't attend everything and this year my extra time and money must go to Atlanta, GA for the OAKE conference. HOWEVER, if YOU are going to CMEA, you must attend the sessions presented by my fabulous friend, Amy Abbott. She's presenting Thursday and Friday and is sponsored by our Colorado Kodály chapter, ROCKE! ROCKE is also hosting a Saturday Make and Take where you can purchase and create the manipulatives that Amy highlights in her sessions! Happy blog reading, music making, and teaching! Have a great week,
Have you ever had a song that turns out to be a surprising favorite of a class or grade level? Do you have a song that kids love right away that you thought you would have to really "sell?" Of course, for much of the repertoire we use there are games or activities that are very appealing to children and they latch onto the song because of the game. But there are songs we use that don't have a super fun game already attached. Chairs to Mend is a favorite of my 5th graders this school year. This is a street cry song with vendors peddling their wares and services. We talk as a class about the need for street cries to advertise goods at the market prior to the 20th century. "Yes, kids, there was a time before radio, TV, or the internet." (Oh my!) They initially learned it last September as a dotted quarter eighth note (tam ti in their world) song. The students love the simple harmonies.
There are several ways my students have enjoyed singing Chairs to Mend.
Sing in a 3 part canon
Sing in unison, then each student sings their favorite section and repeats until the conductor signals to hold the last note
Sing with 3 groups of students; the fish mongers, the carpenters, and the quilters. Each group repeats their two measures and watches the conductor for changes in tempo, dynamics, and cut-offs. (This is especially fun to dramatize; students wander the room singing their street cry while others are wandering nearby singing a different street cry. What a fun challenge!)
Just before winter break, I placed a big order at West Music and took a chance on this book that I had not noticed before:
The book Chairs to Mend was published in 2008 and was penned by an elementary music teacher, Sue McCallum Melton. (I don't now why I had not been aware of it before now!) She tells the (fictional) story of a young girl, Rachel, living in Boston in 1885 and her day as she hears the street cries of the chair mender, the fish monger, and the ragman. There is a CD included with the song and the story narrated (complete with the sounds of Rachel's day! This is a nice option and would be great to leave for substitutes!)
My 5th graders re-visited the song as I read them the book this week.
The illustrations are very appealing to students and they enjoyed the story. Next year, I'll introduce Chairs to Mend through this book.
It's a wonderful addition for a surprising favorite song.
What about you, do you have any surprising favorite songs in your classes? What have your students loved that you didn't expect?
Happy New Year! After a very enjoyable two weeks of holiday time with my family, I returned to teaching last Wednesday. (Yes, I am very fortunate that my district had professional development/work days on Monday and Tuesday. We started our regular school week with students on Wednesday. It was a gentle re-start for the new year!) On Tuesday, I presented a workshop on music performance assessments for the elementary music teachers in our district. This was actually the 4th time I presented this particular session; I've presented assessment ideas at CMEA (Colorado NAFME conference,) a couple of years ago, for NKE (Northwest Kodály Educators) last May, and a neighboring Colorado district last November. I believe authentic assessment is an extremely valuable tool in the music room for many reasons. Primarily: •Assessment shows growth in student learning. •Assessment guides teacher instruction. •Assessment validates school music programs to students, parents, and the community. In most states, teacher accountability is stressed and along with that, student achievement and progress is under the microscope. Of course, I could get very political here and talk about the downfalls of standardized testing in general but this is not the place! Lucky for us music teachers, we still have control over most of the decisions regarding how we assess. I'm very fortunate that my district has an excellent curriculum that works very well with my personal philosophy of music education. I have written many rubrics for performance assessments that have worked well for me. This post is really about assessing folk dancing. I love to spend the first couple of weeks of the new year focused on folk dance; during this time of year, the kids really need to move more and there are more "inside recesses" called due to weather. I incorporate folk dances in my lessons all school year long, but we dance much more in January. (And it looks like I'm not the only one; check out Aileen Miracle's recent post on folk dance.) Like many music teachers, I love the Amidons resources, Sanna Longden's materials, and Phyllis Weikhart's Rhythmically Moving series. I also spend some time teaching some basic Tinikling steps, (I'll post all about Tinikling, the national dance of the Phillippines, later this month.) My 6th graders enjoy dancing and last year I included a student self-assessment for one of the dances they learned. I video-taped them dancing and then we watched it as a class. Each student was responsible for grading/assessing themself. (I make sure to capture every student in action while recording.) I introduce the rubric ahead of time and we talk about each expectation. I also give them the option to revise the rubric as a class, as long as they can provide good reasons. Here is my dance rubric for student self assessment:
Folk Dance
Rubric
A) Student is
focused (present/ “in the moment”,) and maintains consistent effort. Student
performs the dance steps correctly and maintains the beat and phrasing of the
music. Student easily corrects any missteps or unexpected circumstances.
(B) Student is
focused (present/ “in the moment”,) and maintains effort most of the time. Student
performs the dance steps correctly and maintains the beat and phrasing of the
music most of the time. Student easily corrects any missteps or unexpected
circumstances.
(C) Student is not
focused (present/ “in the moment”.) Student performs the dance steps correctly
some of the time. Student sometimes corrects any missteps or unexpected
circumstances.
(D) Student is not
focused (present/ “in the moment”.) Student performs the dance steps correctly
some of the time. Student causes missteps or unexpected circumstances.
If you would like a copy of the Dance Rubric/Student Self Assessment worksheet, it is available (free) here at my Teachers Pay Teachers store. Today I added a few more freebies on my TpT store. (These are items that have been available as free downloads on my website, The Kodály Aspiring Music Classroom, I thought it was time I included them at TpT as well.) I hope you are having a wonderful start to your new year!
