Little Mermaid Jr. Costumes, Costumes, Costumes

Tomorrow night is opening night for our spring musical, The Little Mermaid Jr.  This is an after-school activity for any 5th and 6th grade student who cares to participate.  I have an amazing co-director who is a fabulous sewer (well, she's one of those people who is amazing at whatever she does).  She is responsible for most of the costumes.  She even does it without a pattern sometimes!  A-Mazing!  I think the kids look great.  I found a few of the fun hats and wigs to top off the costumes online.  Here's a sampling of a few of my favorite costumes from the show.

Flotsam, Ursula, and Jetsam

Sebastian

Scuttle

Flounder

Ariel

Prince Eric

The Fish

Frogs

Mersisters

Jelly Fish

Little Mermaid Jr.

The recent lack of posts has been due to the craziness that is the life of a music teacher leading up to a musical.  Tomorrow night is our opening night of "The Little Mermaid Jr."  Here's a sneak peak of the fun.  Check out some of our awesome set pieces. . . more details to follow. . .

Triton's Throne

Boat for Lagoon Scene

Sea Backdrop

Underwater Doors Open to Ariel's Grotto

Ariel's Grotto

More Grotto

Prince Eric's Ship

Superhero BAGC'D' Stations for Recorder Players

I just finished my newest set of recorder stations in time for the next cycle I have starting tomorrow.  This set's theme is Superheros.

The following four activities are included:
Superhero Melodies: For this activity, students use the rhythms of superhero's names, to write a melody using BAGC'D'. They then create a melody for their own musical superhero character, determining a special musical superpower for their hero!

Superhero Note Names: During this activity, students complete the spelling of superhero's names, using musical spelling. Missing letters from the character's written name are to be notated on the musical staff. A recorder fingering chart is included.

Superhero Soaring: Students identify note names on short skipping (soaring) melodic patterns. Then, they color in the fingering for each pattern on their recorder. Lastly, they practice playing the soaring patterns, helping to improve their switching between notes. A fingering chart is included.

Superhero Self-Reflection: During this station, students decide upon a super power that would improve their recorder playing. They write about how they could improve their superpower recorder playing.

Download this in my Teachers Pay Teachers Store today and have your next round of recorder stations taken care of!

Time Signature Practice

It's the time of year where I introduce my second graders to bar lines, measures, and time signatures.  We have been practicing as a class on the Smart Board, but I wanted a way for them to independently practice this week, but also wanted to assess their practice. 

I created a worksheet that mimicks what we have been doing as a class on the Smart Board.  Students look at the rhythm example, determine how many beats are in each measure, and then assign the corresponding time signature.  Since this is second graders, I have them write a quarter note instead of the number four on the bottom, since it simplifies the difficult theoretical concept of writing a four below the number of beats/measure.

Download this quick and easy assessment tool today!   

New Picture Book in my Repertoire: Coat of Many Colors

I was looking for a picture book from my library to end this week's first grade classes with.  I almost always end my 1st grade music classes with a picture book song to calm everyone down from the moving, shaking, singing, and playing we have been doing.  They love it and look forward to which song tale they will hear each class.

I found a book I've had on my shelf, but never used.  It is called "Coat of Many Colors" by Dolly Parton and Judith Sutton.  The song by the same title is available for download on iTunes.

The message of the song is beautiful!  It talks about being rich in love and family, not in material things.  I can't wait to share it with my little tikes tomorrow!  Enjoy this gem!

Celebrating 30 by Adding Followers by the 30's!

My thirtieth birthday is a little over a month away, so I thought it'd be fun to create a contest on my blog to correspond.  My goal is to add Blog and TPT followers in groups of 30.  For every 30 that follow both my blog and TPT store, I will give away one combo pack of my Monster BAG stations and my Fairy Tale BAG stations. 

To enter:
Go to my Teachers Pay Teachers Store and click Follow Me at the top. 
Go to my blog at www.trebleintheclassroom.blogspot.com and click join this site or follow by email (these can be found on the bar on the right side of your screen.)
Then, comment on this post, with your first name and email address where you'd like the BAG recorder stations sent if you win!

Winners will be announced at the beginning of May.  1 winner for every 30 followers added, so tell your friends!

Peanut Butter and Jelly BAGED Recorder Stations

I have kids anxiously awaiting testing for their purple belts this cycle, so I needed to prepare another round of engaging recorder stations for my recorder masters to work on!

This new set is peanut butter and jelly themed and has some really nice activities for station or individual work.

The following activities are included:

Mystery Picture:  Students are given a grid worksheet.  Inside each grid box is a note on the staff (D, E, G, and B).  Students are given directions on what color to fill in each note.  When they have completed coloring in the boxes, a mystery picture will appear.

Peanut Butter and Jelly Match-Up: Students are given slices of bread with jelly on them and slices of bread with peanut butter on them.  The jelly cards have a two measure melody written out.  The peanut butter cards have the letters of the notation patterns written out.  Students must match the notation with their letter names.  Then, they practice playing one of the patterns for their group mates to guess after all patterns are matched.

Peanut Butter and Jelly Performance and Composition: Using the famous poem about PB and J, students will compose a two measure melody for the repeated peanut butter peanut butter jelly jelly phrase.  They will write the music notation for their repeated pattern using the notes B, A, G, E, and D.  Then, they will write the repeated melody each time it occurs in their poem.  After writing their melody, they will practice performing the chant, inserting the repeated melody every time it occurs.

Stick to It Recorder Goals: Here, students will reflect on their recorder playing, set a goal for themselves to improve in some way, and write out a plan for how they can make their goal happen.




These sets are ready to print and run with.  Download them today at my Teachers Pay Teachers Store.