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Like every other Music teacher, December has been CRAZY! Especially crazy this year as concert time and report card writing fell at the exact same time! I'm back to the blog world now and I would like to join in with Mrs. Miracle's Five Favorite Pins of December (I love this monthly Linky party!) Check out her favourite pins too! These are my favourite Music related pins from Pinterest this past month! 1. Beethoven Image Love this image of Beethoven! I will be using this for our next composer of the season! 2. Jolly Old St. Nicholas I did this with my grade 5 students this year and they loved it! I also have a swing version from All Aboard the Recorder Express  by Janet Day that comes with an awesome audio track! 3. Note Name Matching Game This looks simple and fun! I will be using this as a centre! 4. FREE Rhythm Worksheets I haven't used these yet, but they look great and they are FREE! 5.  Pretty Bird Art I love pretty stuff, watercolour paintings, music and birds. So, t...

I am going to do video reviews with my grade six students tomorrow! We are going to compare covers of Drummer Boy! Share these great videos with your students! Including an excellent video made by a Winnipeg student in our school division!  Sean Quigley- Drummer Boy Pentatonix- Drummer Boy Great videos to share with your students at this time of year!

Welcome to another 2/4 Tuesday (or Wednesday)! Better late than never!  Thanks to those of you who created a 2/4 Tuesday post already. It's much appreciated. Please link up at the end of my post! 1 . Winter Rhythm Manipulatives I saw these at Dollarama as soon as the Christmas stuff came out. Thanks to my awesome student teacher Lauren for writing out the rhythms!  Snowflakes for grade 1/2 (I am going to trace and cut out royal blue rests). Snowmen for grade 3. They will also be given snowflakes to mix and match rhythm compositions. 2. Arf on the Housetop! This is the musical I have chosen to do with my grade 1-3 students this year! I am so excited! It looks super cute and it just came out this year. We will be having auditions on Friday and will be starting our songs next week. Yippeee!

It's 2/4 Tuesday! Link up and share your ideas! See below for the linky party deets! Yup- fun with glowsticks!  1. Barred Instruments and GLOW STICKS  Last week my grade 4 students played "Skin and Bones" on the barred instruments. To make it extra creepy and Halloween-y, we played the instruments with glow sticks instead of mallets! Woohooo! 2. Glow Sticks for Singing Warm-ups Last week I also used glow sticks with the kids for vocal slides. A student leader would wave a glow stick around and the rest of the class produced a vocal slide accordingly! Yeehaw! So fun! 3. Glow Stick Freeze Dance Another hit! We danced around to "Thriller" with our glow sticks. When the music stopped, kids had to freeze or they were out of the game. FUN-tastic! Whoop whoop! Hope you save these fun extras for next Halloween or when you are in the mood for glow-in-the-dark fun! Join my link party! And check out the other blog posts!

At our school, students with special needs come to Music with their class, but come to an extra music on top of that where we focus on non-music goals through doing musical activities. I found these videos on Youtube and they are great!  These would be useful in Music classes as movement warm-ups and I will be using them to reinforce gross motor goals in our extra music classes. Walking Song Hopping Skipping Song

I hope everyone enjoyed their day! I have seen great pins and posts about fun Halloween activities. Check out some my favourite  Halloween ideas from fellow bloggers! Save them for next year! Lindsay's Halloween Favorites at  Pursuit of Joyfulness Halloween Rhythms at  O For Tuna Orff Laura's Must be Halloween at   Make Music Rock Aileen's Vocal Exploration Ideas at  Mrs. Miracle's Music Room And… if you haven't saved or printed them yet, don't forget to grab my 10 free Halloween rhythm cards!  HERE ! Let's hope the kids aren't too sugared up tomorrow! Ugh, who's kidding?! HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Welcome to another 2/4 Tuesday! Today I would like to share 4 books that I am using in my classroom.  Check out the other bloggers listed below! Bloggers- be sure to post about 2-4 teaching ideas that you love and want to share! And link up below! 1.  The Composer is Dead Perfect for the older kids for Halloween spooky time! They LOVE it! Comes with a CD recording of the story and includes high-quality orchestral excerpts that represent the characters in the story. 2.  The Castaway Pirates My grade 4 Orff club is working on an Orff composition with this book.  There is AMAZING artwork in this book that just happens to be pop-up! 3.  Doing the Animal Bop This is a great one for vocal exploration for the Kinders. Comes with a CD. 4.  Punk Farm This is super fun! A punk rock rendition of Old MacDonald. Perfect in conjunction with Kriske and Delelles' Kindergarten Game Plan farm animal theme unit.

Thanks to Aileen at  Mrs. Miracle's Music Room   for hosting another "Five Favorite Pins" linky party! It's time for October's favorite pins! Check out Mrs. Miracle's blog, along with others who have linked up. 1. Autumn Rhythm Worksheet  This is a great one! Excellent to leave with a sub too. Thanks to  Totally Tuned in Teacher  for creating this! 2. Click, Clack, Boo!  I love this! I need to get this book in my hands...now!   3. Five Little Pumpkins  This would be so much fun on boomwhackers! Thank you Ashley over at  Elementary Music Resources   for creating this. 4 . Music Teacher Font! THIS IS AMAZING! I have been using this font for everything lately! Thank you, thank you , thank you to Tweet Music on Teachers Pay Teachers for offering this for FREEEE! 5. Skin and Bones Video An oldie but a goodie song, updated with this great video. I especially like the good modal children's voices that are heard singing! Bonus Pin! This cutie p...

I love having children create art to inspire or represent creative movement.  Last week I shared a fun autumn song that I am doing with my grade 2 classes.   I thought it would be fun to create autumn leaves to serve as inspiration for movement. The movement ideas will be used in conjunction with a student created soundscape in order to create a B section for "Autumn Leaves". First, students came up with a list of autumn colours. Next, they came up with different examples of line. After the two lists were compiled, I demonstrated and explained our art project. The kids loved this activity and were really excited to see how it related to Music! The next class we talked about and explored different ways to move the lines on our leaves. The kids demonstrated ideas for each other and then came up with a movement that represented their leaf.  We had so much fun and the movement looked beautiful!

Welcome to another 2/4 Tuesday! It's a bit late tonight, so I hope some of you will still link up! Share 2-4 ideas that you are doing or plan on doing in your Music class. Follow the linky party instructions below to link your blog post! Be sure to check out the other bloggers! Here are some ideas I am doing in my classroom this week! 1. October Bulletin Board Yup. Those are paint chips! An idea I got somewhere on Pinterest of course.  I included some vocal exploration ghosts on my board to include in our vocal warm-ups in October! This was an idea I got from Pinterest as well. If you are interested in ghost vocal exploration cards, click HERE   to get some from Lindsay at Teachers Pay Teachers ! I put the Halloween rhythm cards from last week on my board so that classes could create ostinati for our October songs. Super fun. Free printouts of those cards are found HERE ! 2. Great Mozart Biography Videos Our Composer of the Season for Fall is Mozart! I showed this video to my ...

It's 2/4 Tuesday! Teacher bloggers can link up below with 2-4 of their ideas for the Music room! I have 3 freebies of my own to share! 1. Autumn Leaves Song I am doing this with my grade 2 classes at the moment. They are practicing their broken bordun with it on the instruments. The students will be creating a B section with movement inspired by their artwork! "Stay Tuned" for student art and movement ideas! Feel free to use this song with your kiddoes. 2. Grade 2 Rhythm Cards I wanted to create rhythm cards specifically for two students with special needs. They can keep these cards with them and practice verbalizing and clapping their rhythm patterns with their educational assistants. 8 come in the FREE pack! 3. Sound/Word Cards for Fall These can be used as cards, or as a full sheet. I think I will laminate the full sheet and have my students  with special needs use them outside of Music class to practice hearing, clapping and saying the rhythm of words. Some students w...