The Music Teacher's Almanac- A GREAT resource

I wanted to review this book because I think it is a wonderful/necessary tool for every general music teacher!!

The book is split up according to months in the year and there are activities for every holiday and other days as well. They are not all holiday activities though. I really love that they give you worksheets and resources throughout the book to accompany every single lesson plan. The lesson plans are simple and easy to follow and do not require very many additional resources.

The book contains the following activities:

• Chants, cheers
• echo activities
• listening activities and maps
• composition activities
• circle games
• rounds
• composer worksheet and listening
• music trivia
• holiday bingo
• Opera plays
• other plays

It's just a really really great book! I'm thrilled that I have it as I make all of my plans for classes next year. CLICK HERE to purchase on Amazon. 

Rhythm Train

This is a great warm up activity! It only takes about 5 minutes.

Rhythm Train    Grade levels- 1-5

• Sit the class in a circle
• create 4 beat pattern doing the same motion, have the class mirror you. 
• After doing this several times invite someone in the circle to make up their movement for 4 beats. Repeat with several other students. 
• Beginning to teachers right have the first student to 4 beats, the class repeats. 
• The next student does a new movement. The class now does students 1 and 2 movements. 
• See how far the class can get, adding on a new movement each time! 

Adding music can help to keep a steady beat. This is tricky for 1st grade, but the older grades love it! 

The Magical Circle of 5ths- will solve all of your problems.

Recently I have been teaching ALL of my piano students and my older grade classes the circle of 5ths. I tend to get scared of it because opening that door is like opening a closet with all kinds of goodies that never end... the one you usually hide from little kids. Sooooo I gave it a try with some of my students and had mixed results. While some were extremely confused and can't wrap their minds around it, it made PERFECT sense to others! Wallaaa!! A few of my students were like, "Miss Porter why didn't you explain this sooner! I'll actually enjoy playing my scales now!" Other's in the 5th grade were so excited that they now knew what all of the black keys are about.

It is VERY important that any student learning an instrument or in music study the circle of 5ths. I would say it's safe for classroom setting of 4th grade and up. It might a be a little difficult for the younger grades, unless they are in a private lesson. 

So first I ask a few questions. 

• What is the purpose of learning a scale on the piano? 
• How many notes are in a scale?
• Why can't we just use whatever notes we want in a scale?
• Is there are rhyme or reason to how scales are formed? 
• What is the meaning of a "key" and what is it's purpose?

Asking these few questions are extremely important to gage where the class is at and where you need to start as a teacher. I then explain that learning what a major or minor key is, is the base foundation to all music theory. It is ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY! BUT there is a solution to this dilemma/impossible task of learning the notes for 12 major and 12 minor keys! It is called.... da da da the magical Circle of 5ths, which solves all of our problems and turns us into music whizzes in no time! 

Now, as you take them through the circle of 5ths make sure each of them have their own sheet of staff paper as well as blank paper, or a circle template. Here is the circle template that I created and use. 

On the board I draw my own circle and we begin with C. Have the students draw C and then on their staff paper write C Major, underneath they can fill in the notes for the C major scale, the teacher should also draw the scale for them on the board. 

Next, we will start on C (on the scale) and count up 5 and land on the next major scale which is..... G! Write G in the circle. On the bottom of the page have them write the phrase Fat Cats Go Down Alleys Eating Birds. (They love the saying and try to come up with their own). Explain that in G we begin with the first sharp which is FAT or F. Write F# in the middle of the circle next to G, then go to your staff paper and help them write a G major scale! 

The kids love figuring out the next scale and make sure to ask them to help you the entire way, DO NOT just write everything and have them copy it down, this will not help them to comprehend or remember what the patterns are. 

Continue the process until you finish with C# and you run out of sharps! 

To make it simple I go back to the top of the page and let them know that we will now be going counter clockwise and going down 5 notes from C to find our flat keys. Have them write underneath their sharp phrase BEADGFC (bead greatest common factor). You can also tell them that flats are simply the sharps going backwards, (they love all of these connections). 

Continue the same process as you did with the sharps, writing the scales in on staff paper as you go. When you come to the scale of Db you will need to explain ENHARMONICS, which can be a bit tricky. So when the flats overlap with sharps we have enharmonic keys, I write the flats in underneath the key instead of inside of the circle since they probably have now run out of room. Right? 

This whole process is rarely done in one lesson. I usually do the sharps one week and the flats the next week. I then have them play the scales on keyboards with a partner, or my fancy glockenspiels, which have really come in handy. 

Here is a great worksheet they can fill out which will also reinforce scales and adding sharps and flats in each one. 

I have loved the results of teaching the circle of 5ths to all of my students, even beginner piano students. It builds a great base for theory and if they study it, they are able to learn scales much quicker! This really is the foundation for theory and opens so many doors. Getting the scales learned and in their brain is never a waste of time, but extremely necessary to their music education. 

zzzzzz- unit plan template

I'm so so tired and really should go to bed, but I'm crazy excited about these simple templates that I finished today and can't wait to use for all of my units! I just finished my first year of teaching and I've been trying a million different ways of organizing my lessons and ideas. I like the simplicity of using a unit plan to help guide my lessons.

Here is an example of what a full year curriculum might look like, assuming you have 4 quarters in the year. This is for a 1st grade class.

Here is the blank template that I started with for building my individual unit plans from my bigger curriculum plan.

Here is one filled out for the first unit or quarter. 

Here is a sample lesson plan within the unit. 

I hope that these are helpful! I'm sure I'll modify them as I continue organizing my lessons into unit, but I'm really excited to be totally organized. I promise to share all of my lessons with everyone, because I love getting ideas from others. Teaching rocks. 

Journal time- Thoughts on recital and future plans

I was journaling the other night about how much fun I had at our piano recital. The parents loved it and only had good things to say about it. While there were great things about it, there are also things that I would like to keep in mind for the next recital.


Successes:

• Most of the students had their songs memorized and performed flawlessly, probably 2/3s of them. 
• Timing worked out great with having half of the students go first and the second half begin an hour later. It was nice to have the little ones all together in one recital, I think those parents have the patience for the beginner songs. 
• Most of the families brought something to contribute for refreshments, which really worked out well! I always like having left over cupcakes :)
• We used The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints for the recital. I had permission from my bishop to use the chapel and it was really a perfect location for families and the students. I will most likely use the chapel again in the future. 
• The students had plenty of time to prepare their recital songs and have them memorized in time. 
• A parent commented that the level of difficulty in music seemed very appropriate for all the students, not crazy hard, but that they seemed to be challenged. 

Plans for future recitals:

• I've thought about having a recital "theme" or something like that, so that all of the students have songs that center around something. It might make for a fun summer or fall recital? 
• Some of the students were already sick of their songs by the time the recital came, have to figure out which students learn quickly enough to not have to start super early OR have them learn more challenging pieces. Finding the perfect song is always a challenge! 
• Hire a photographer. I'd love to have a friend or something there to take pictures of each student and then give them all to me, this way parents aren't mobbing the front of the room with their cameras during the performance. WAAAAAY to many camera crazy people. I don't mind iPhones, but all the clicking of the other cameras was starting to drive me crazy. 
• I'd like to prepare my own piece a little sooner, I was scrambling the last week to try to get mine ready and it just added to the stress of the recital. 
• Have more helpers (siblings or friends) around to help me with clean up, handing out certificates, etc... this would be good, yes it would be good. 

All in all it was GREAT. I'm excited to improve future recitals. Here are a few pictures from the afternoon. 

Spring Recital success!

I wanted to share my recital program from this last saturday. It couldn't have gone better. I really love teaching piano and watching my students perform is always a delight! I decided to do the program all on one page and include both recitals on the same program, this way parents could see what other students are learning, especially since many of the families know each other.

I also included the Performance Award that I gave each student after the recital. I try to change it up for each recital and I really liked this one. Enjoy!