Flip Four

Have you ever taken fun 12"x12" scrapbooking paper and cut it down to 8.5"x11" to feed into your printer?

You can print on either side! That's what I did tonight to make a rhythm game called Flip Four. This game is inspired by a math game I've seen played in one of the elementary schools where I've previously taught.

The concept is simple! Find 4 different colors or patterns of paper. You can either print on both sides (some fancy printers can do that automatically.....mine is having trouble just printing ONE side right now!!!) or you can print one side and hand-write the other. I printed my musical rhythms on the blank side and my beat/column number on the pattern side.

Arrange your four colors or patterns into four columns like the picture below.

Then simply flip one over in each column and read from left to right:

I've made this a freebie on my TpT store, so head over there to download it!

Stop motion

I love experimenting with different crafting styles and combining these ideas with technology. My favorite technology in my office/craft room (besides my Macbook, of course) is my die-cutting machine called the Silhouette Cameo. I make all kinds of things for my classroom with this machine such as flash cards, bulletin board letters and decor, manipulatives and so much more.

I recently made a Powerpoint for Five Little Pumpkins that is in my TpT store....it's one of my favorite fall activities in the music classroom! I decided that I would try to make this into a stop motion video by combining some crafts made with my Cameo and an app that my son had put on my phone. The timings are warp-speed.....if I weren't going back to work soon I'd sit down and work on it more, but I thought it was pretty cute for my first stop motion video!

Enjoy!

BOY craft preview

I am loving how these are turning out!

Though I won't be in the music classroom this fall, my mind is still set on helping others prep for the new school year. Continuing on the vocal exploration idea, my students have always enjoyed using owl masks to practice their "hooooo" sound. Imitating the owl hoot really helps get those low voices up higher.

More to come.....

old idea, new product

For those that know me, I am an avid crafter. Maybe even a little obsessed? I am always trying to learn some sort of new craft and even though I'm not an expert in all, I enjoy trying my hand at various genres. My latest ventures have been stamp carving and this:

Alexander Pegilton.....I mean, Hamilton

Bob Ross....a request from my brother (a huge fan)

...hand-painted peg people! You may remember that I even combined the two crafts recently with this idea:

Although, to be fair, I did not carve that stamp.....I cut it out of foam. A shortcut of sorts. 

Anyway, after hours spent on Pinterest, I got the nerve up to try painting an entire set for the elementary classroom. One of my favorite beginning-of-the-year objectives in Kindergarten is vocal exploration. It's so much fun to vocalize rollercoasters, sirens, and best of all, animal sounds! So what better way to get the animal sounds going than to use Old MacDonald? So I painted a set to go along with the classic song. It's not comprehensive, of course.....that song can go on for lots more verses, but this set would get you going. 

You could pass out the peg dolls and have the students raise them up when their verse is sung (and let those willing sing it as a solo) or it would make a great play center for them to sing the song in small groups to each other.

If you're interested in purchasing my playset, head over to my Etsy store. While you're there, look around for some other great vocal exploration masks and manipulatives!

Some crafting

I've been working hard on my TpT store this summer but I'm without a computer most of this week. So I'm spending some time in the craft room instead! I'm not an expert, but I'm having fun with carving my own stamps. The stamp above is partially made by me.....I did not make the tiny little letters! But the pennant was pretty easy and I think I'll get a lot of use out of that one. Here's some others that I made:

The next step is to work on getting better pictures of them actually stamped (most of them need some cleaning up) but I thought I'd share up to this point.

Musical Boggle

I'm blogging today to link up with Lindsay Jervis and her Dollar Days of Summer! Lindsay has one of the best blogs around and is a great source of Kodály knowledge. I thoroughly enjoy reading about her classroom and her TpT products are top quality.

To get some great $1 deals from Lindsay and others, head over to her blog and check out all the contributions! Mine is #19, which is one of my favorite activities.....Musical Boggle, Level 123! Think of the classic word game (you probably play a version of it on your smart phone) and change the letters into rhythms. BOOM! Musical Boggle! Connect four rhythms in a row to form a motive. Go horizontally, vertically, diagonally or even backwards.....all the traditional rules are thrown out the window! It's a fun challenge for your advanced students needing a challenge in rhythm-reading. 

Level 1-2-3 now includes the option of playing with or without noteheads!

Inspired by Pinterest

I don't think I have to tell anyone that Pinterest is a great resource for teachers. Whether you're looking for ideas for your classroom, your home or just for yourself, it's the best and most convenient window shopping there is. When I need ideas for my teaching, I often find myself searching general education boards, not music boards. I find so many great ideas from primary teachers that are easily translatable to music.

This inspiring pin comes from a math board and uses rolling dice to show students how they will answer their math problems for the day. (Thank you to Beyond Traditional Math!)

Instead of math though, we'll be using it for practicing the five voices: talking, singing, whispering, calling and thinking. The sixth roll of the dice gets to be student choice. So I made up this quick printable in legal size:

There's so many ways to use this in practice.....I love combining this type of activity with a game that has multiple rounds. You know how Lucy Locket seems to go on and on and on and on? Roll the die in between rounds and now you're practicing several skills at once and the kids are still getting their play time. Put the kids into small groups after they've mastered a nursery rhyme and let them practice with each other. Put two dice together, two kids/groups together and see if the groups can maintain two different voices at the same time. Use it as an assessment......

Anything else? Leave me a comment!

Go to my TpT store to download it for free. :)

Some updates

This entire website is fairly new but I've been hard at work making changes! (And will probably make a million more!)

I'm excited that I was able to make my own clickable header thanks to Jennifer of The Yellow Brick Road! Her beautiful blog is full of great music information as well as useful blog tutorials. I have also gotten lots of great feedback from some new friends on a Facebook group that I just joined. I'm still working on some general resolution issues (the background looks especially fuzzy to me and I'm feeling as if I should change my social media buttons to the official ones) but it's a work in progress. Just like life, I suppose.

Thanks to all who have taken the time to give input and opinions on my little beginner blog and business!

Keeping the Beat

The steady beat is a fundamental skill that musicians need and can be practiced in a million and one ways. Pat your legs, tap your head, walk around, use an instrument, pass a ball.....those are just a few! Many years ago, before getting a fancy projector, I printed out beat sheets for each student in my class. The fun part they liked was that each paper had different hearts. Something as simple as getting a different sheet each time made it interesting to the kids every time we pulled out the beat sheets! I wish I had some pictures of this, but I don't.....here's what some of them look like from my TpT file though:

You can have the students point and touch the hearts while singing which is great for hands-on, tracking left-to-right practice as well pre-reading practice skills.

When projectors were installed and technology was encouraged, the hearts got animated. When you tap the space bar to the steady beat, the hearts appear automatically to show that you've kept the beat. If they go too fast or slow, just press the back arrow and try again.

To get 20 slides of hearts for printing or using as interactive animated beats, follow this link to my TpT store!

Keeping the Beat

My Intro

Hello everyone!

I've been trying to figure out how to start this blog and I guess the best way is to just say hi and introduce myself. My name is Kelly and I'm a music educator in Texas. I love to craft, create beautiful things (that don't always come out so beautiful), play around with technology (PPT and Photoshop come to mind) and help others in the classroom. I am currently taking a break from having my own classroom full-time, though you can usually find me substituting in one somewhere in town.

I currently have both an Etsy shop and a TpT store with educational materials suited for the elementary music classroom. You can also visit RhythmicallyYours on Facebook and Pinterest.

I have a variety of products from digital paper to posters to hands-on manipulatives, but for an example, head over to TpT to download this dynamics poster for free.