Fact #2: Most, if not all, teachers spend their own money on resources and supplies for their classroom.

Wouldn’t it be great if a store existed where you could buy a lot of things for your classroom and spend very little money? With just a little creativity, your local dollar store just might be that place! I’m here to share many of my own dollar store finds and ideas.

No Assembly Required:

• Office supplies
• Tools
• Paper lanterns (usually only available in the summer)
• Foam placemats that can be used in place of poly spots for some activities (for example, they could mark lines for longways sets, but they’re not great for actually dancing on)
• Plastic spiders to use with “There’s a Spider on the Floor” (you could also use a variety of the little toys as rhythmic buiding blocks)
• “Prize Box” items, such as glow stick bracelets, party favors like tops, pencil sharpeners, pencils, bead necklaces, and others
• Teaching Supplies, including stickers, poster letters, sentence strips, and so much more!

Dollar store finds featured: borders, bulletin board cutouts, and plastic tablecloths covering the board (I had to use two because they are thin and these were technically 3 for $5) 

Dollar store finds featured: window cling graphics and window cling border (these worked great on my whiteboard, too)

Some Assembly Required:

• Popsicle sticks (colorful or plain) – use them to divide students into small groups or choose students to pass things out (I number the sticks and then assign a number to each student in a class)

Dollar store finds featured: bulletin board cutouts, bulletin board month headers, velcro dots/squares (this saves a lot of work if you change posters frequently)

 
Dollar store finds featured: paper plates (these particular ones aren’t from a dollar store, but they do have plates!), poster letters [I made the starbursts, but I just saw some pre-cut ones at the dollar store recently]

Dollar store finds featured: plastic shoe boxes, packing tape [labels were free from Teachers Pay Teachers]

Dollar store finds featured: contact paper, packing tape [containers were from home, labels were free from TPT]

Dollar store finds featured: hula hoops, foam noodles cut into thirds [tie was from home, but they have some at the dollar store]

 
Dollar store finds featured: googly eyes, colorful Popsicle sticks [great for following sheet music or beat pages]

Dollar store finds featured: coordinating bulletin board cut-outs, computer paper, packing tape, pencil bag

Dollar stores finds featured: foam circles (technically from Target’s Dollar Spot, but there are similar things at dollar stores), permanent marker

Dollar store finds featured: dinner spoons, duct tape [foam in between spoons is from my art teacher, but I’ve heard you can use erasers too]

There are many resources out there for free supplies, lessons, and ideas – Pinterest, Facebook groups, music teachers’ blogs, Teachers Pay Teachers, and, of course, Teaching with Orff!

How about you – What are some of your favorite dollar store finds?

The post Creative Classroom on a Budget first appeared on Teaching With Orff.

Classroom management – it’s a phrase we are all very familiar with and yet I feel like I still don’t quite have a grasp on it. I am finally starting to think my lessons are solid, but I have trouble delivering them due to behavior issues. If you’re like me, you look to the teachers with the most well behaved classes in the school to see how they do it. Many times though, it feels like I’m comparing apples and oranges – we’re both teachers, but our classrooms are run completely differently. I’ve read a few classroom management books, but I always run into that same problem – I see 400 students, including every single behavior issue in the school, only once or twice a week. How do I manage a classroom like this?!

Enter Michael Linsin, the author of Classroom Management for Art, Music, and PE Teachers.

Linsin was an elementary classroom teacher for many years, but when he switched to teaching PE, he realized he needed to revamp how he managed his classroom. In this book, he goes through the basics of what he believes specialists need to do for classroom management, in six parts.

Part I – Leverage and Influence

This part of the book essentially covers all the things you have complete control over – especially the lessons and yourself.

Linsin states that one of the biggest advantages of being a specialist teacher is that the subject is something the kids can genuinely get excited about. We, as lovers of music, have a responsibility to share our subject area with enthusiasm – “Keeping that passion in the forefront, and not being afraid to express it, is a powerful first step in creating a class your students will look forward to and buzz about in the days leading up to seeing you.” Not only do we need to express our passion, but we have to create lessons that have something worth getting excited about. Linsin also suggests previewing the “best” part of the lesson before the class even enters the room, so they are reminded of what they get to learn and do when they behave.

Obviously, the most important component of the classroom management equation is YOU, the teacher. Linsin encourages specialists to “care without caring” – desire the best for your students, but do not take misbehavior personally. If a student talks back, don’t let her goad you into an argument. Don’t get angry, or sad, or sarcastic – just keep your cool. The most important thing is to constantly be calm, no matter what happens.

Part II – Routines and Procedures

“For everything repeatable, there should be a standard and highly specific way of doing it.”

Routines are paramount in Linsin’s classroom management philosophy. They keep students busy and help your classroom run smoothly. Linsin suggests to first explain the procedure simply and in detail, sometimes adding an extra step or two to keep things from becoming mundane. Model the routine exactly as you expect, show what you do not want to see, and finally have individual students, then the whole class, perform the routine. Always hold your classes to the highest standard – if they miss a step, make sure to do it over until they get it right.

The most important routine to develop is how to enter the classroom. Once this procedure is established, it sets the tone for the rest of the lesson. If your students enter the music room exactly how you instructed, you have pressed a reset button – this is not their regular classroom, this is the music room and things are done differently here.

Part III – Listening and Following Directions

Linsin’s process for giving directions can be broken into three steps:

1. Be sure you have the students’ complete attention.

2. In a calm voice, “paint a complete picture for your students” of what you want them to accomplish.

3. Pause frequently and check for any confusion that still may remain.

Once these three things are done, just stand back and let everything unfold. Try to observe, intervening only if there is utter failure. In that case, follow the three steps above and have them start again. Allow students to work their way through the directions on their own and they will be invested in the music process. This makes your students more confident, self-sufficient, and excited to come to your class where they are given this opportunity to succeed.

Part IV – Rules and Consequences

If there is one thing Michael Linsin says in his books and weekly emails it is that you need a set of classroom rules, consequences for breaking said rules, and you have to follow through. This part of the book details his three rules and three consequences, how to teach rules, and how to deliver consequences. The big point he makes is that if your classroom management plan is logical and has been explained thoroughly, then all you have to do is follow it to the letter – with every single student. “You can relax in knowing that a calm, even clinical, approach will always work better in the long run.”

Part V – Bad Days and Tough Classes

I think of this section as the Troubleshooting part of the book. And, just like with a computer, many times all you have to do is restart the activity and it’ll work much better the next time around. Stay calm, slow down, and restart when needed – solid advice.

Part VI – Final Words

This part is mostly a call to action and reminders of the important points from earlier sections. It’s not very long, nor should it be, just enough to conclude the book.

——–

My personal opinion about Classroom Management for the Art, Music, and PE Teacher is that is a quick read to focus your energies before the school year begins. This is probably not a book that will completely change everything about how you run your classroom – it will just remind you of how you should act and give a few hints for getting there.

As for my complaints, they are minimal:

1. Linsin speaks in generalities and rarely uses concrete examples. When he does use examples, it becomes apparent that he never taught music.

2. There is a lot of repetition. Linsin drives his main points home by repeating them throughout the book many times, which can get a little boring at times. I’m glad he’s highlighting his most important points, but I got them the first four or five times.

3. There are times when statements are too idealized. I felt like Linsin was saying if you do things like he says, your class will be perfect and no one will ever misbehave. I sometimes wanted to yell at him and say “Kids will still have bad days!”

Overall, I would definitely recommend grabbing a copy of the book and quickly reading it before the school year starts back up. It will get you thinking about your classroom management plan again and maybe even help you modify a couple of things to be more effective. You can even read some of the chapters online on Amazon’s website: http://amzn.com/0615993265

If you aren’t up for reading his book, or want a supplement to it, Linsin sends out weekly classroom management emails. They are all available on his website: http://www.smartclassroommanagement.com/

Have you read any books or found any classroom management techniques that work well in your music classroom? Please leave your comments below!

The post Classroom Management for Art, Music, and PE Teachers – Book Review first appeared on Teaching With Orff.

This is a real series of lessons I did with my first graders starting at the beginning of April and they performed the end product on their concert, May 15.  Believe me, if I can do it, so can you!

Here was my teaching process, but please feel free to adapt it however you want to fit your needs:

Day 1

Using the Smartboard, show the four “railroad rhythms”, and echo-speak them with the accurate rhythms.  Then challenge the students to say it together when you point to one.

Cover up the railroad rhythms, then reveal four two-beat rhythm patterns.  Have the class read and clap these patterns together.

Get rid of the screen shade and invite students to come up and connect each railroad rhythm with its matching two-beat pattern.

On the next page, the teacher picks four railroad rhythm boxes from the bottom and has the class read and clap the pattern together.  Don’t forget to introduce the repeat sign, if students are not familiar with it yet.

Repeat the step above, but this time allow for one or two boxes to be repeated.

Invite each student to come up and pick a box then read and clap their rhythm patterns together.  I then saved these patterns to use for the next lesson.

Day 2

Teach the class a simple song about trains.  (I used “A Peanut Sat on a Railroad Track” from the Wee Sing series, but “Engine Engine Number Nine” would work well or any other short train-related song)

Perform the sixteen-beat railroad rhythms from last time in rondo with the train-related song (ie – song, rhythm #1, song, rhythm #2, etc.)

Day 3

Print off a page with two of each rhythm box, then cut the boxes out and put them in a plastic bag (make enough for half of class).

Have students work in pairs to create their own four-box pattern that they can clap and read aloud.

Have the class perform a grand rondo of the train song and partners clapping and reading their patterns.  This is a great way to assess the students and I recorded two or three favorite railroad patterns to save for the next lesson.

Day 4

The teacher picks out a few untuned percussion instruments and has students vote on which ones are best for which sounds.  My students chose sandpaper blocks for “chugga chugga”, hand drums for “whoo whoo”, maracas for “tsss…”, and just voices for “all aboard”.

Perform a rondo with the song and their favorite patterns from last time on instruments.  Don’t forget to allow them to switch instruments a few times!

Day 5

Teach a simple bordun and other tuned or untuned percussion parts to go along with the train song.  My bordun was a simple half-note beat on bass xylophones, contrabass bars, and sandpaper blocks.  I also added pentatonic tone clusters on soprano xylophones and untuned percussion on word cues from the song.

Perform the song with instruments in a rondo with the rhythm patterns on the untuned percussion instruments.

Day 6 and Beyond

Keep rehearsing the different instrument parts and make sure all students get a chance on all the parts.

Eventually pick which students will play which instruments for the concert.  For my school, I had only one class play instruments on this while the other two sang and two or three weeks before the concert, assigned each student in that class a specific instrument.

Add a train whistle played by the teacher to start off the song each time it happens in the rondo.

Side note:  I originally wanted to have the song and patterns have a faster tempo every time (reinforcing our fast/slow tempo discussion earlier in the quarter), but it didn’t work out this time – I still think it’d be a fun performance idea though!

——————–

I hope this example of how I was able to take simple rhythms and a short song and turn it into a concert-worthy piece helps you realize that an Orff style of music-making does not have to be limited to the classroom.  A program does not have to rely on simply singing with a CD to have long enough songs – allow your students to compose and use the rondo form to your advantage!  Show the parents what your students are doing in their music classroom – we are not simply “singing teachers”, we are facilitating musical creation and challenging students to work together to make music!

What is your favorite way to take something simple and make it worthy of a concert performance?  How do you showcase what actually goes on in your classroom for parents and families?

The post Do It Yourself: How to Take Something Simple and Make It Concert-Worthy first appeared on Teaching With Orff.

Stop learning and start thinking and creating – it is such a simple concept, but one that is so often ignored.  How many famous artists, musicians, scientists, and other historical figures can you think of that changed the world by just learning and doing things the way they were told?  Few names come to mind.  On the other hand, there are a slew of movers and shakers who stopped learning for a while to start thinking and creating and that is when they managed to change the world.  Go back through your knowledge of music history and you know this to be true – the most innovative and memorable music is not a simple compose-by-numbers (except in the case of Arnold Schoenberg, I guess).  If I was talking to an administrator, I could even put it in this Bloom’s Taxonomy inspired way: eventually one has to stop learning and put that knowledge to work by applying and synthesizing it.

That’s great Erin, but what does all this have to do with Orff?  Everything!  As Orff teachers, we are supposed to give our students knowledge then get out of their way so they can create something all their own with it.  I know I can easily get caught up in wanting to teach all these different musical concepts, talk about important composers and musicians, and make all those interdisciplinary connections.  I get so caught up sometimes that I forget to let the children think for themselves by creating their own music.  We have to stop being teachers and start being facilitators in music-making.  Only then will students truly make long-lasting connections and have a vested interest in their music education.

The post What I Learned from a Fourteen Year Old Mathematics Genius first appeared on Teaching With Orff.

        1)      Being an Orff teacher takes time.

Teaching in the Orff-Schulwerk style requires educator mastery of the material, which can be time consuming.  You need to know every note, every rhythm, every ostinato, every dance move and that takes time and effort.  You must be prepared for Orff lessons and that doesn’t always happen quickly, especially if you are adding visuals or using the SmartBoard.

Not only does it take a lot of teacher preparation time, but now the time spent working on one song or one concept is a lot longer than in the past.  This is not necessarily a negative thing – we are now working for depth of knowledge rather than breadth!  It is tough for me to spend more time on fewer activities, but mastery is an important life skill that I’m now instilling in my students!

Lastly, preparing for an Orff concert takes so much work and stress, but it is so worth it!  I could see the sense of pride in my third graders this December knowing they had performed all three of their songs without any outside accompaniment and the parents really appreciated it, too.  Your first Orff concert will be exhausting and also incredibly rewarding.

        2)      You will become a better teacher.

Like mentioned earlier, Orff teaching requires mastery of the material, but there also needs to be an internalization of the whole Orff teaching process.  I absolutely love the “do something, change one thing, change one more thing, etc.” type of teaching and it keeps the students much more engaged because the process moves quickly with less teacher talk.

Also, although I still plan my lessons out, if there is extra time at the end of class, I’m now much more comfortable improvising extensions for whatever we are working on.  Perhaps this is due to this being Year 3 for me and I’m “hitting my stride”, but I think that internalizing the Orff process has helped tremendously.

One of the amazing surprises I’ve found after taking Level I is that I can now pick up books or check out ideas on Pinterest and know how to teach the lessons.  I know the process and can see how the pieces should be taught step-by-step, even without reading the details of the lesson.  I even know how to successfully modify some of the more complicated lessons to fit with the abilities of my students.  This has made me much more confident when teaching new lessons – and there have been many this year!

        3)      It is totally okay to take baby steps.

My feeling with being an Orff teacher is that you should only do what you can do – a little Orff is better than no Orff at all!  For me, some things stayed the same from last year, especially because I wanted to do activities I loved last year that weren’t particularly Orff-y.  Some days I feel like a total convert to the Orff-Schulwerk style but other times I know that I’m not, and that’s okay!  There is nothing wrong with slowly working in Orff to your curriculum – baby steps are fine!

For my school, I’ve had to go back to basics with my students since they had a lot of transitions with music teachers before me.  For example, I’ve had to accept that my students won’t be able to read music in la pentatonic right now because we need to learn the basic do, re, mi, so, and la first.  Lay the groundwork with your students now so later they can get to all the challenging plans you have in your idea bank!

Miss C’s Baby Steps to Improvisation:

I’m not going to lie to you, improvisation is scary.  You are giving up the reins and hoping your students can make music on their own.  Not only does it scare the teacher, but the students are nervous about messing up, too.  To get kids used to performing alone, I’ve taken a few baby steps that I want to share with you:

At the beginning of the year, name games were a great way to get students used to the simple idea of performing alone without having to create their own musical ideas.  Later, I had students (especially the younger ones) create movement solos that the class “echoed”.  This soon turned into an activity my kindergarteners loved – every day I’d have three or four kids lead the class in keeping the beat to a song in a variety of ways.  This was a great way to get them focused at the beginning of class, lay the groundwork for improvisation, assess the students, and incorporate a wide variety of listening examples!  My older students have done a little bit of rhythmic improvisation with clapping and soon I’m hoping to transfer this to percussion instruments.

See?!  Improvisation doesn’t have to be scary; just take baby steps!

The post Life After Certification – Three Things first appeared on Teaching With Orff.

     Hello, my name is Erin Clevenger, and I am a planner.  I know many very successful music educators who can’t tell you what they’re teaching next month, or even next week, but for me that uncertainty would drive me bonkers.  I think my biggest challenge is the overwhelming amount of choices I have and the freedom to make my own decisions on which activities and songs to use.  In comparison, one of my good friends teaches second grade and has a set math curriculum she has to follow with lessons and worksheets already decided for her.  I sometimes have a love-hate relationship with this freedom I’m given as a music teacher – I enjoy making my curriculum my own, but it is also a lot of responsibility and work to pick the right songs and activities!

To help me keep my head from exploding, I have adopted a long-range planning system that helps me basically plan out how my year will unfold.  Let me, as briefly as possible, explain how my long-range planning works.

• First, break up the year into half-month chunks (usually 3-4 lessons for my three day rotation schedule).
• Second, assign each chunk an over-arching topic, creating units (some units may need to last for two or more chunks).
• Third, write down all the ideas you can think of for each unit.
• Fourth, when it comes time to start planning for the next week or two, choose your lesson ideas from this list.

Wow, when written like this it seems so easy, but in reality it takes me quite a lot of time in the summer to create my year plan (especially those two middle steps).

This summer I took Orff Level I and after the course was over, I realized my previous year plan was no longer going to be sufficient.  This plan included units such as: transportation (K), insects (1st), fall (K – 2nd), patriotic (all), treble clef (3rd), jazz and blues (4th), and bucket drumming (5th).

Previously if a song had the thematic qualities I was looking for, especially in the younger grades, it could be part of my plan.  Sadly, many other great songs had to be pushed to the side since they weren’t about the right topics.  Fortunately, Level I showed me that many of these thematic songs and activities, while adorable, had no musical reason for being in my curriculum.

After Level I finished, I spent the summer revamping my year plan.  I didn’t want to get rid of the units idea altogether, but the question now became: How do I make units out of this new hodge-podge of ideas?  One of my fellow Level I students had an idea which I quickly adopted and adapted – she plans units based on rhythmic concepts, melodic concepts, form, tempo, etc.

This is what my basic year plan looks like now (bear with me, it is a lot of stuff!):

• August – Name Games/Songs and Rules/Procedures
• Beginning September – Classroom Instrument Activities
• End September – Instrument Categorization (ex – tuned versus untuned for 1st and instrument families for 3rd)
• Beginning October – Rhythm (concepts broken down by grade level, such as quarter rest for 1st and sixteenth notes for 3rd)
• End October – Halloween
• Beginning November – Rhythm Continued
• End November – Thanksgiving/Winter (K – 1), Concert Prep (2 – 3), Recorder Review (4 – 5)
• December – Winter (K – 1), Concert Prep then Winter (2 – 3), Recorder Karate (4 – 5)
• January – Melody (concepts broken down by grade level, such as up and down for Kindergarten and la pentatonic for 4th)
• Beginning February – Concert Prep (K and 5), Patriotic (1 – 4)
• End February – Style/Form (concepts broken down by grade level, such as AB form for 2nd and jazz/blues for 4th)
• March – Expression Markings (concepts broken down by grade level, such as crescendo/decrescendo for 2nd and accent for 3rd)
• April – Concert Prep (1 and 4), Movement (2), Recorder (3), Folk Dance (5) [unit for K is still undecided]
• Beginning May – Mallet Madness (all)
• End May – Watch Musicals

As you may have noticed, I still have a couple of those cutesy units where we do things that aren’t necessarily curriculum based, but I pared them down to the ones I love most (usually seasonal).

Now every new song or activity I encounter, I have to think “What will my students learn from this?” then write it on my master list under that topic.  While the list of potential lessons is still a bit overwhelming, it is much more manageable now that they are broken down by concepts.  Also, I feel that planning my lessons based on curricular units will ensure that I teach all the things they should be learning instead of missing something in the shuffle.

I do not believe that this way of planning is the only way to be effective; like I said, there are many successful educators who cover everything and plan constantly throughout the year.  For me as a relatively new teacher, long-range planning keeps my head on straight and helps me stay on track throughout the year.  Now the trick will be actually executing this beast of a plan!

The post Life After Certification – Long-Range Planning first appeared on Teaching With Orff.

Friday marked the last day of my Orff Level I certification and the day was bittersweet; it was wonderful to look back at all we learned in our two weeks together but sad knowing we wouldn’t see each other and keep learning on Monday.

The course culminated in a performance where we were able to demonstrate our ability to combine singing, playing, and dancing to make our own creations.  While this performance was made by us students, it would not have been possible without our movement instructor, Kate Williamson.  She allowed us the freedom to create how we wanted, but was able to tweak our performances to improve transitions and more clearly express our intentions.  I loved watching her teach over the past two weeks – she gives students guidance but encourages free-thinkers, even when the students want to be told what to do.  I believe in acting this way she showed us a very beautiful example of an Orff teacher – twirly skirts and all!

Back to the last day of Orff Level I – we had a “Kumbaya Time” after lunch where people were able to discuss what they learned about: 1) music, 2) learning/teaching, and 3) themselves.  I’ll first delve briefly into my answers:

1)    I learned several things about music this week, but the one of the things that stuck out was how music can be created horizontally rather than vertically.  Rather than finding a melody and putting chords to go with the notes, you can compose ostinati that are interesting on their own and happen to line up well with the melody.  I love the way the music we worked on these past two weeks was created by layering on different ideas – it offers so much room for individualization depending on your classroom and students’ needs.

2)    Learning about the process of teaching music in the Orff style was the most important thing I took away from this class.  I feel like my lessons will be so much more engaging in the future because each step in the process is interesting – no more “I sing, then you sing”!  Knowing how to spend more time on a quality song and pull many things out of it is a huge reward for me.

3)    I found out these past two weeks that I still have things to work on as a musician.  I know that I’m not an awesome teacher yet – I’ve only been doing it two years – but I thought I was done having to learn how to sing or play an instrument.  Now though, it seems that I need some work on my vocal and recorder improvisational skills and solfa syllables.  It’s nice to know that I still have room to grow in this way and that when my students are struggling, I will be able to easily relate and empathize.

Before getting to my last edition of Roger’s Nuggets of Wisdom, I want to share a couple of the wonderful things some of my fellow students shared (paraphrased):

Two weeks ago I didn’t have a problem with what I was teaching my students – So many of the teachers in this class were discussing how much their plans have changed for the coming year based on what they have learned in Level I.  It’s not okay anymore to just give worksheets or sing songs without a purpose – we know what our students can achieve if we just work hard to help them get there!

I’m done being a teacher who presses play – This goes right along with what I said above – it’s not good enough anymore to have them always sing with a CD when we know how to layer parts so that they are creating all parts of the music.

It’s not competitive – The Level I class was never about competition – we were reaching for our personal bests and helping each other become the best teachers we can be.  In the secondary music world there is a lot of competition between students and schools to earn the best seat, the best scores, the best solos…in elementary music we are here to support each other on the journey and that is the environment our students should feel like they are in as well.

It’s not our job to push music into our students, it is our job to pull it out of them – What beautiful words!  I love this sentiment that we are here to facilitate student discovery of music, not tell them how to do it.  We can give students the skills they need and advice, but they must create for themselves to truly appreciate what they are learning.

Roger’s Nuggets of Wisdom

(those small phrases that seem to pretty much sum up Orff Schulwerk)

 “How many teachers don’t offer students the bridge?” – This quote was used in reference to giving students a challenge in music class.  So frequently teachers ask students to do difficult things without adequately showing them how to get there and it is our job to offer that support so they can succeed, thereby building a love for music and a love for themselves.

 “Today is a beginning, not an ending” – Even though my class is over and I’m now back to the rest and relaxation of summer, it is not the end of my Orff journey.  I still need to figure out how to implement what I’ve learned and get my students in on this new way of learning music.  I’ve already started to rethink my plan for next year and am trying to figure out how I can begin to morph myself into an Orff teacher.  Over the course of the year I am sure I will learn a lot more about myself and about Orff, so I won’t think of it as a “goodbye” but as a “see you soon”.

The post A Day in the Life of Orff Certification: Day 10 first appeared on Teaching With Orff.

A continuation of the improvisation discussion from Day 7:

First, try and use predictable forms during improvisation pieces.  You want the students to be concentrating on their improvisation skills, not their memorizing difficult form structures skills (remember that whole “working memory” thing from Day 4?).

Second, there are many ways to improvise in your classroom rather than just rhythm patterns, playing on recorder/barred instruments, and singing solfa.  For example, I’ve had Kindergarteners lead each other in keeping the steady beat in different ways and having the class copy.  It’s a great way to help them focus through a whole song and they start to think for themselves and lead each other.  I’ve particularly enjoyed using the song “Everybody” by Ingrid Michaelson, especially around Valentine’s Day.

Roger had us improvise today by singing our own text that went with the song we were singing, which was a great way to get us laughing and stop stressing out about improvisation – creating music should be fun!  We also did scat singing, which was a fun way to know if we understood the pentatonic scale without worrying about solfa syllables or creating coherent text.  If these are too hard for your students, give them options of words they can sing and let them choose their melody.  There are so many options to get kids improvising so we have to try and break out of our routines and habits and keep kids on their toes!

Roger’s Nuggets of Wisdom

(those small phrases that seem to pretty much sum up Orff Schulwerk)

 “Be a really strong ______ grader” – When modeling a skill for a student, don’t play or sing like someone with a college degree in music – sound like a strong musician a grade ahead of them.  For example, if I want to show third graders how to improvise, I should perform like a strong fourth grader would perform.

“Gut singing with skills” – This was said in relation to the scat improvisation we did today, but I think it goes for all sorts of improvisation.  We are trying to teach our students to know the rules of music so well that it lives inside them and guides their creations inherently.  We want them to know how to spot good music and how to make it on their own.  As with any skill, this will take a lot of time to become engrained inside our students, but once it’s in there all the work will definitely be worth it.

The post A Day in the Life of Orff Certification: Day 9 first appeared on Teaching With Orff.

I think it’s time to address the “c word”: concerts (get your head out of the gutter!).  For the past two years, preparing for concerts has gone in a very predictable way for me: pick a theme, find songs with CD accompaniments that fit with the theme, and then spend the month or so before the concert learning the songs (unless I happened to sneak some of them into earlier units).  I had fourth grade play recorder with CD accompaniment, did one simple whole-class composition with third grade, and had first graders help re-write the lyrics to “Ants Go Marching”, but other than that my concerts are almost exclusively singing with a CD and doing motions that go with the given lyrics.  This process has worked well for me so far – I think I’ve had some pretty darn adorable concerts so far!

Please indulge me while I delve into an analogy for a moment…Those cutesy songs that were so easy to program are kind of like the Harry Potter books – they are definitely entertaining, but they might not be the most effective for teaching curriculum.  There is a place for novelty songs in a concert, just like there’s a place for the Harry Potter series on my bookshelf, but they shouldn’t be the only thing there!

But Erin, what am I supposed to use for my concerts then?!  Great question!  You use the stuff that you’re already doing in class anyway.  Of course, you may have to beef up the arrangements by adding borduns, ostinati, repeat signs, canons, rondos, composition, and dancing, but all of that is going to fit into your curriculum!  You can still do songs that are more difficult than your students could analyze (who really wants to hear a bunch of do, re, mi songs the whole time first grade sings anyway?), but use them sparingly.  These songs are a great way to get students hearing how music should function, because, if your students are anything like mine, they’re probably not hearing quality music at home.  This kind of concert is going to be a lot of work to prepare, but, when all is said and done, I won’t feel like I’ve lost a month of instructional time to learning all those pre-packaged songs.  As an added bonus, the parents and staff will get to see what all the work that happens in music classroom and hopefully the music program will gain more support!

Roger’s Nuggets of Wisdom

(those small phrases that seem to pretty much sum up Orff Schulwerk)

 “Use your curriculum to put on a good show” – Do you really need me to explain it all again?  Put the music you use in your room on the stage for the parents!

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Today’s topic: improvisation!  This is a core skill in an Orff classroom (remember, it’s all about creativity) so I wanted to review some of the things we talked about in class today.

One big things Roger discussed was making sure we start improvisation really easy with the students and make sure they feel comfortable improvising simple rhythms.  After that is solid, you can move students onto barred instruments so that they can then apply the rhythmic improvisation to melody.  If you set the instrument up in a pentatonic scale, you also prepare the students to be successful and confident creators because whatever they play, it will sound good.  Next you can have students improvise using just a few notes and later the entire pentatonic scale on the recorder (a skill I’m still working on myself).  Finally, after using instruments the students will be ready to create their own vocal improvisations now that they have a clear understanding of the available pitch set and rhythms they can utilize.  This process takes time – lots of it – so take it slow; it’s better for students to succeed at the basics than fail at the complicated skills.

Roger’s Nuggets of Wisdom

(those small phrases that seem to pretty much sum up Orff Schulwerk)

 “Start with it, end with it, play it a lot” – This is a very easy phrase students can use once they start trying to create a sense of tonic with their improvisation.  If you are in the key of G pentatonic for example, then you start with G, end with G, and play G a lot.  Simple and to the point!

“Keep It Simple Sweetie (KISS)” – When creating music or lessons, it is best to keep things simple.  Sometimes that complex ostinato and really challenging xylophone part are appropriate, but most likely your students will need something simple and accessible.  This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t push your students to try new and difficult things, but work with what they know, not what you know.  There are several examples of things I did with my students last year that were way beyond their comfort zone – namely asking them to improvise or compose with difficult rhythms without first having them create using ta and ti-ti.  Keep it simple and work for mastery of the basics before moving on to the tough stuff!

“I don’t teach monkeys, I teach musicians” – We’ve all seen it: we ask students to improvise and there’s that one kid who decides he can play ten zillion random notes in those 8 beats you gave him.  Roger told us today that he tells that kid that he could train a monkey to play like that but he wants musicians, not monkeys.  I loved this image and I think it’s an effective way to communicate the difference between noise and music to the students.

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