A few days ago, I wrote about 10 strategies for rhythmic reading and writing , in hopes of giving you ideas for your year plan. Today I will blog about 10 strategies for melodic reading and writing! As in the last blog post, some of the ideas I will describe in this blog post, some will link to other blog posts, and some will link to freebies and other products. Here goes! #1: Ghost Melodies In this blog post , I wrote about how to do ghost melody composition on dry erase boards. This is a great precursor to having students listen for and begin writing specific pitches, like sol and mi. #2: Staff writing In this blog post , I wrote about how to introduce the staff to first graders. You could use chips ( math counting chips work well because they are see-through, and students can see the line running through the note) or you could use cute seasonal erasers like I did in the blog post. #3: Whole group stick to staff Once students can sing from stick notation patterns (with only rhythm a......

A few days ago, I wrote about 10 strategies for rhythmic reading and writing , in hopes of giving you ideas for your year plan. Today I will blog about 10 strategies for melodic reading and writing! As in the last blog post, some of the ideas I will describe in this blog post, some will link to other blog posts, and some will link to freebies and other products. Here goes! #1: Ghost Melodies In this blog post , I wrote about how to do ghost melody composition on dry erase boards. This is a great precursor to having students listen for and begin writing specific pitches, like sol and mi. #2: Staff writing In this blog post , I wrote about how to introduce the staff to first graders. You could use chips ( math counting chips work well because they are see-through, and students can see the line running through the note) or you could use cute seasonal erasers like I did in the blog post. #3: Whole group stick to staff Once students can sing from stick notation patterns (with only rhythm a......

Looking for ways to improve your students' pitch-matching? Vocal exploration is such a great way for students to get into their head voices...and it's so much fun! Here are three quick ways to get students exploring their voices, especially around Halloween! #1: "Ghosts in the House" by Kazuno Kohara This is a really fun book, especially around Halloween! For vocal exploration, you could have students make ghost sounds to match the ghosts on the page (for the ghosts on the clothesline, students could just sing one pitch, for the ghosts who are upside down, you could have students sing from high to low, etc.) There is a witch in the book too, so you could connect it to both "See the Old Witch" and "Miss White." #2: Ghost conversations I got this idea from a vocal exploration workshop with Lillie Feierabend. She used ghost finger puppets to have students converse with each other, like the ghost puppet shown here: To find the puppets on Etsy, just cli......

Today, I'm blogging about four great picture books I'm using in my music classroom. Click on the pictures to see the books on Amazon (please note, these are affiliate links.) #1: "This Land is Your Land" by Kathy Jakobsen and Woody Guthrie Since it's Constitution Day today, I sang this to my third graders. Before I sang it, we discussed the holiday, how people sing patriotic music for patriotic holidays, and what the word "patriotic" means (it's surprising how many of them weren't sure!) The illustrations are beautiful, and there is some wonderful information about Woody Guthrie and about the song. #2: How to Speak Moo by Deborah Fajerman I learned about this book at a vocal exploration workshop by Lillie Feierabend and absolutely love it! It's great for grades K-2 (and even third) for vocal exploration. Each page has a different moo (high moo, low moo, soft moo, low moo, moo on trampoline, moo in tunnel, etc.) so after each page, I h......

I'm always looking for ways to include vocal exploration in my lessons--especially with my younger students. Vocal exploration is a great way to help students find their head voices. One of my favorite vocal exploration activities is ghost melodies. For this, you can draw a ghost on the board, and then draw the sound the ghost makes, by drawing a small hill and a big hill, loops, or whatever you'd like. Then you have the students explore their voices by going from low to high for each hill, getting higher as the hills get higher. (If this is confusing, see the pictures below...hopefully it will make sense!) I have uploaded my ghost melody file for the SMART board to the SMART board download section of my website: kodalycorner.weebly.com. You don't have to have a SMART board though--simply draw a ghost on the board and then the ghost's melody. You can change the activity depending on the time of year--leaf melodies for fall, snowflake melodies for winter, etc. After you......

I'm always looking for ways to include vocal exploration in my lessons--especially with my younger students. Vocal exploration is a great way to help students find their head voices. One of my favorite vocal exploration activities is ghost melodies. For this, you can draw a ghost on the board, and then draw the sound the ghost makes, by drawing a small hill and a big hill, loops, or whatever you'd like. Then you have the students explore their voices by going from low to high for each hill, getting higher as the hills get higher. (If this is confusing, see the pictures below...hopefully it will make sense!) I have uploaded my ghost melody file for the SMART board to the SMART board download section of my website: kodalycorner.weebly.com. You don't have to have a SMART board though--simply draw a ghost on the board and then the ghost's melody. You can change the activity depending on the time of year--leaf melodies for fall, snowflake melodies for winter, etc. After you......