Category Archives: Rhythm Instrument Ideas

Timbre Assessments

Are you doing assessments for your end of the year report cards? One of the areas that I want to assess is how well children perform music in choirs, Orff ensemble, on unpitched instruments, recorder, ukulele or guitar.

Types of Voices: Speaking, Singing, Whisper, Shouting, “Thinking”

In most music curriculums, children in K-1-2 are expected to be able to:
1. use each of the types of voices
2. identify each of the types of voices.
I really enjoy teaching about timbre – types of voices, timbre of classroom instruments and timbre of orchestral instruments and orchestral instrument families. For an informal assessment, put the posters on the ledge and say a phrase using one of the voices. Have the children point to the type of voice they hear.

Song #9 This is My Speaking Voice

This is a great lesson in Musicplay for Kindergarten on types of voices. The lesson includes many opportunities to assess informally if children perceive and understand speaking, singing, whisper, shouting and thinking voices.
In the activity, children learn a simple poem, and then say the poem using two kinds of voices – one voice for the first two lines, and another voice for the last two lines. You can do this activity with the PDF printables (the posters shown above) as manipulatives. Or with the Interactive activity below.

The posters are printables on MusicplayOnline (song #7 in Kindergarten)

To purchase:
– Order them in the Vocal Exploration Card Set on TPT.
– Order Vocal Exploration Cards Canada
– Order Vocal Exploration in USA


You can do the activity interactively from the SMART Board	If you want to do a formal assessment, this is a printable assessment on types of voices In Musicplay K (This is My Speaking Voice) – or Musicplayonline, song #7 in Musicplay K

Timbre of Classroom Instruments

In most music curriculums, children in K-1-2 are expected to be able to:

Identify classroom instruments visually
Identify classroom instruments aurally
Classify rhythm instruments as woods, metals, drums or shakes/scrapes

In the Instruments Unit at www.musicplayonline.com there are interactive activities:

Rhythm Instrument Assessments are also available in the following print
products: Rhythm Instrument Fun and Classroom Instrument Bingo

Both of these print products have really fun activities to teach children the timbre of classroom instruments!

Classroom

Instrument Bingo

Order in Canada

Order in USA

Rhythm

Instrument Fun

Order in Canada

Order in USA

Timbre of Orchestral Instruments

In most music curriculums, children in Grades 2-6 are expected to be able to:

Identify orchestral instruments visually
Identify orchestral instruments aurally
Classify orchestral instruments as woods, woodwinds, brass, strings and percussion

In the Instruments Unit at www.musicplayonline.com there is a fantastic unit on Instruments of the Orchestra, and many accompanying worksheets to teach and assess the instruments.

Orchestra Bingo

This resource is a great way to learn about instruments of the orchestra and instrument families. (There is a version of the game at www.musicplayonine.com.) . This game has always been my last lesson before a holiday.

Order either print/disk Or download version

Order in Canada

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Assessment is a big topic and these are just a few of the ways that you might use to assess performance. Share your ideas, rubrics and videos on the Musicplay Teachers Facebook Group!

Purchase Classroom Instrument Bingo Order in USA Order in Canada

Purchase Orchestra Bingo Order in USA – Order in Canada

Purchase our great set of Melody Flashcards
Canada – buy Melody Flashcards
USA and International – Melody Flashcards

Purchase the Print version of Match the Melody, with many printable assessments and projectables:
Match the Melody – Canada . OR . Match the Melody – USA

Purchase our great set of Rhythm Flashcards
TeachersPayTeachers – Rhythm Flashcards
Order Cardstock Flashcards from Musicplay Canada
Order Cardstock Flashcards – USA

Purchase Which Rhythm Do You Hear?

Which Rhythm Do You Hear? Print Version – Canada

Which Rhythm? Print Version – USA

Watch a quick video on Rhythm Assessment!

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Assess Rhythm Reading and Writing

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As we approach the end of the school year for some of our American friends, I wanted to share some easy and quick ways to assess the students’ ability to read and write rhythms.

1. Flashcard Attendance ~ Rhythm Reading Assessment
In the Musicplay teacher’s guides I sometimes suggest starting your class with flashcard attendance.  We don’t always have to take attendance, but in schools where you do, make taking the attendance into an opportunity for a quick evaluation.
In flashcard attendance, I would take the pile of cardstock flashcards that the students were working on.  I’d call a child’s name, hold up the flashcard and the child would read it.
4 – student accurately and fluently claps and says the pattern
3 – student is mostly accurate and mostly fluent in clapping and saying the pattern
2 – student is somewhat accurate and somewhat fluent in clapping and saying the pattern
1 – student has many inaccuracies clapping and saying the pattern and is not able to keep a steady beat
Themes & Variations publishes a set of 100 rhythm flashcards that are printed on colored cardstock.  The color coding indicates the patterns included in the set and helps you to quickly find the set that each class is working on.
Purchase our great set of Flashcards
TeachersPayTeachers – Rhythm Flashcards
Order Cardstock Flashcards from Musicplay Canada
Order Cardstock Flashcards – USA

At www.musicplayonline.com, we’ve taken the flashcards and made this into a very quick and easy to use movie – just press play.  There are 25-35 patterns in each set.   There are fewer patterns for very easy sets as younger classes are usually smaller (we hope!) and more patterns in the harder or longer sets for your older students.  In the easier sets, we’ve given you both 4 beat assessments and 8 beat assessments. You can choose the set that you want to assess.

The Rhythm Practice Menu is on the left menu (on computers). Select Rhythm Practice, then select Assessments. There are 15 levels for rhythm assessments from K all the way to Grade 8.

Rhythm Reading Assessment at www.musicplayonline.com. To make this really easy, line your students up or seat them in class list order. Student 1 on your class list will read the first rhythm pattern, then student 2, etc.

For the first 2 patterns, the voice says “ready go.” After the first 2 patterns, “ready go” is replaced with “click click.” There is a 2 beat pause at the end of the pattern, where you can say the name of the next student. If your students need the “ready go” prompt you can say it with the clicks.

This graphic illustrates where I think that rhythm assessments fall on Blooms taxonomy. Naming the rhythm as ta or ti-ti would be remembering. Reading rhythms with a steady beat would fall into understanding/applying. When you do rhythm dictation, this is even higher up the taxonomy – this is applying/evaluating. When you have students create their own rhythm compositions, you’re at the highest level.

Rhythm Dictation Assessments

You can do this with the videos at www.musicplayonline.com or you can do this by clapping the rhythms yourself.

Scroll past the Rhythm Reading Assessments in the Assessment Section to Rhythm Dictation. A PDF is given with the answer key, and it has a printable 4 Beat Rhythm Dictation worksheet for students to complete. (If you want to save paper, use recycled paper and have students write their names at the top and number from 1-5.)

Play the question and pause. Drag the video back to repeat, or clap it again for students if they need to hear it a second time. Five questions are given. The Answers follow. I like to have students exchange papers and grade them in class, then I check them over and enter them into my gradebook.

Which Rhythm Do You Hear? Another tool that’s available online and as a print product is Which Rhythm Do You Hear?

There are many levels to select from. Choose your level, and you have 10 questions. Press “play” and students choose the rhythm that they heard. If you have a SMART Board, students can select the answers on the board. Or you could have them hold up 1, 2 or 3 fingers to indicate which answer they choose.

If you want to use these as your assessment, Just press play, allow students to write down their answer, then go onto the next question without showing the answer. I’ve found 5 questions are enough for a good assessment – I don’t need to do all 10. There are printable answer sheets in the print product.

Which Rhythm? Print Version

Watch a quick video on Rhythm Assessment!

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Boomwhackers? What do you do with them????

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LINK TO New Online Resources! Musicplayonline will be free for the rest of this year and very affordable when we go to a subscription model. Try it now! If you have any trouble registering, be sure to let me know so we can get signed up. denise@musicplay.ca Link to site: www.MusicplayOnline.com

Artie and Denise – Shakin’ it Up in Chicago July 6-8, 2016 Join Artie Almeida, Denise Gagne, Thom Borden and Dan Fee for a 2 day elementary music conference that will give you a wealth of ideas and inspiration for teaching elementary music classes. Close to Chicago airport – affordable hotel-GREAT workshop! LINK TO REGISTER USA SITE LINK TO REGISTER – CANADIAN SITE

Teach Music Reading with Boomwhackers

I remember the first time I saw Boomwhackers – it was at an MENC conference in Phoenix almost 20 years ago. They looked like fun – and they are! But what do you do with them?

Teach Music Reading with Boomwhackers is a new resource, that includes Rhythm Challenges to review rhythms, an introduction to staff and alpha-notes (note names right on the note head, colored Boomwhacker notation, and notation with no hints to have your students reading music quickly and competently! Best of all, projectable PDF files are included. We’ve formatted the projectables to fit the screen – like all of our Digital Resources, the music is large and easy to read. The PDF is interactive:the audio is embedded in the file so you just click on the play button.

Begin with the Rhythm Challenge to review or reinforce rhythm reading. First rhythms are echoed, then the students read them. Students echo rhythms, then have an improvisation section to create their own rhythms. Fun tracks accompany this!

Introduce the staff to the students and how to name notes.

The song is given the first time with alpha-notes: the letter name is printed on the note.

The second time the song is given with colored notes.

All students can be successful!

What a great way to introduce note reading before you begin teaching recorders!

Try it out! We’ve posted free samples at www.musicplay.ca – click the links below to download samples.

Canadian site USA site

You can download Teach Music Reading with Boomwhackers or order the print copy. With each shipped order, we’re given a set of note squares – this helps cover the shipping cost!

COMPOSING WITH BOOMWHACKERS

You can teach melodies, chords, or rhythms with Boomwhackers. When you use the pentatonic set (CDE GA C’) you can use the Boomwhackers as a rhythm instrument, and improvise and compose rhythms with them.

There are many ways that you can have students improvise. Play a steady beat on a hand drum and ask all the students to improvise rhythms. Change meters. Play the beat in 2/4, 3/4, 4/4, and 6/8 meters. Try some improvisation in 5/4 and 7/4. Encourage the students to play the Boomwhackers® in a variety of ways – on hands, feet, shoes, desks, the floor, or elbows. They should use common sense when playing Boomwhackers on their body. I draw the line at playing the Boomwhackers on another student. (They are only allowed to play on their own body.) In the beginning, have everyone play at the same time. Then have students sit down and ask only those whose color is shown, to play. This is detailed in the collection, Composing with Boomwhackers. In this collection several songs are given with places in the song to have students improvise. This is one of them:

Composing with Boomwhackers includes note squares to help students begin composing rhythms. I’ve used these for many years – they are easy rhythm manipulatives to make (unlike lego rhythms which take hours and hours!) The book includes the note squares to copy and cut out. Make up sets of notes for various grade levels. I use ta, ti-ti and rest for K-2, and add more note values as students improve reading and writing abilities.

If I use half note note squares, they are two squares in length. A whole note is 4 squares long.

Once students have created the rhythm using squares, they transfer to a beat chart, then to a staff. The templates for beat charts in 4/4 and 3/4 are included in the resource.

Two, three and four part ensembles are included for students to play, then students write their own. Some melody reading and playing is included in the resource – three note melodies, then pentatonic melodies to play and to create. The final activity in the resource is to have students create their own song.

Recorder Tips:

Teach Music Reading is a great unit to use to introduce notation to your students BEFORE beginning recorder. I like to start beginning recorder in January of 4th grade. The students have better fine muscle co-ordination by 4th grade, and they progress as quickly in 2-3 classes as they would have in 5-6 lessons (or more) in 3rd grade. My 5th grade students played recorder in 4th, and in 5th I like to start them on ensembles. I use the Recorder Resource Kit 1 for 4th, and the Recorder Resource Kit 2 for 5th. The Recorder Kit 2 has 24 songs for 2 part soprano with optional alto. Themes & Variations publishes many additional collections for recorders. The Big B-A-G Book has 19 songs using just BAG, including a theme and variations on Hot Cross Buns. It’s great for years when students have trouble reading more notes than just BAG.

Recorder Links Canada Recorder Links USA

MUSICPLAY K-6 ELEMENTARY MUSIC CURRICULUM

Musicplay is an award winning music curriculum for elementary schools. Musicplay is a sequential curriculum with lessons that follow the calendar year. The weekly lesson outlines the new concepts that will be taught, those that will be reviewed, and include seasonal and holiday repertoire. The planning is done for the teacher!

Important concepts are taught through play. Each week in Grades 1-5 a new singing game is featured. Children love music games. This is a text that will have your students really excited about learning music! The songs and games are chosen to teach musical concepts, to teach children about cultures around the world, and to provide songs for special days and performances throughout the school year. The most important factor in selecting songs for this series is that songs appeal to children! In addition to printed teacher’s guides and Digital Resources Disks, there is now an online resource. The online resource is free to use until June, 2016 and will be an affordable subscription ($149/year) after that. There is a wealth of materials on this site. LINK TO MUSICPLAYONLINE.COM

Rhythm Instrument Fun

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Rhythm Instrument Fun!

When you have an activity using non-pitched percussion or rhythm instruments, it can get noisy and out of control if your children don’t know or don’t follow your procedures. When giving out instruments, I explain to the class that I’m going to put the instrument on the floor in front of them and they are to wait until everyone has an instrument and I tell them it’s OK to pick up and play. The analogy I use is if you go to a fancy restaurant, you don’t start gobbling your food the second it’s placed in front of you. It’s polite to wait until everyone has their meal, and then you all start eating at the same time.

That’s the procedure, but the kids are still eager to play and I hate to make them sit and wait and I want them to have the experience of playing. As soon as the last instrument is given out I use this poem:

The kids are very quickly engaged in the activity, they are exploring ways to play the instrument, and there is no chaos!

When that activity is finished, and they have to wait until the next activity is prepared, the rule is: If you play before I say I’ll take your instrument away.

I will take away an instrument, but usually give it back for a second try. Certainly, the behaviour is better from all the students if I do take away one instrument. Remember Barbara Coloroso’s saying: Say what you mean (If you play before I say I’ll take your instrument away.), Mean what you say and do what you say!

There are many ideas for using rhythm instruments in the new collection, Rhythm Instrument Fun. Get more information on the collection at www.musicplcay.ca.

Instrument Ideas

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I got an email from a teacher who is going to Cambodia to work with children.

I’m going to be teaching a workshop in Cambodia in a couple weeks for Friends International. They have about 5 foreigners who head up cultural activities and care for the children that they support. They have asked me to do a half day workshop on making instruments from recycled materials and then some songs and activities they can do. Do you have any great resources for this? I would definitely like to pull a few songs from the “Singing Games Kids Love” books, but other than playing along to recordings and soundscapes, I’m a bit stumped for good ideas of what they can do with their homemade instruments.

1. Play instruments along with recorded music – classical, folk tunes, pop tunes

– I do a play along almost every music class with my preschool aged kids, getting them to play the beat

– I find different ways to play: loud/quiet, finding any different timbres the instruments can make

With older kids, I’d teach them some basic rhythms, and have them play a series of rhythm patterns with the music.

If you have the Listening Resource Kits, take a look at any of the instrument playalongs in them.

2. Substitute instrument sounds in familiar songs

The wheels on the Bus go round and round – we play on the round and round

With my littlest ones,we use only one instrument for all the things on the bus.

With older kids, I’d choose instruments that fit the sounds of money, or doors opening and shutting.

Use body percussion as well – doesn’t have to be instruments.

Other familiar songs that work like this:

Let Everyone Clap Hands Like me – let everyone play sticks like me

If You’re Happy and you know it play the sticks, x x

3. Add sound effects to storybooks

* Mortimer is a must do

* Mmm Cookies by Robert Munsch is really good too

* Up UP Down by Robert Munsch I do as well

I’d like to write some stories for kids to add sound effects to – I need some that my littlest (3 year olds) could play with. If you have any brainstorms let me know!

4. Older kids love the Pop song play alongs.

We’re working on a publication, but it will be a few months.

Artie Almeida did this to wipe out – really fun with sticks on buckets or some kind of drum

5. Create Rhythm Compositions

– create rhythm canons – have different groups of instruments start at different times

– create 4 bar rhythm and add an ostinato. Put the ostinato on one instrument, and have the rest play the rhythm.

6. Check the lesson plan section of the blog for more ideas.