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Aileen Miracle

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September 23, 2013

More fun with fruit manipulatives!

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Since today is Monday, it is once again time for Lindsay Jervis' manipulatives linky party! Last week, I discussed fruit manipulatives. I've really loved using these, so this week, I wanted to mention a few more uses for them! In my last blog entry about fruit manipulatives , I had students use the manipulatives to practice ti-tika. After putting together the activity, I realized I could take away some of the fruit to practice easier rhythms. For example, if I take the raspberries out of the bags, then students could use them to practice tika-tika, by having a watermelon in every pattern…

September 17, 2013

Four great picture books for the music classroom

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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 informa…

September 16, 2013

Fun with Fruit Manipulatives!

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Since it's Monday, it's time for Monday Music Manipulatives, a linky party with Lindsay Jervis' blog, to blog about fruit manipulatives! This past week, I tried something brand new in my music classroom, and I'm very excited to share it! This idea started with a SMART board file I made with fruit that looks like this: The idea with this file is that students clap each fruit's name (like pineapple, kiwi, peach, etc.) and then figure out which rhythm each fruit is. For the pattern in the picture above, the fruit pattern would be "pineapple kiwi peach pear," and the rh…

September 13, 2013

Five Favorite Pins of September

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Today, I'm trying my first linky party; I'm blogging about my five favorite pins this month! I love Pinterest...I think it's such a wonderful way to share ideas (especially teaching ideas!) Here are my five favorite pins for this month: #1: Bim Bum You Tube Video: Maybe these girls made this video to share with other kids their age, but they are doing such a service to music teachers, especially those who want to collect folk songs and teach through technology! I transcribed the music below (in a more comfortable key for singing with children): The song could be used for fa and tika-t…

September 09, 2013

Four Ipad apps to help organize your classroom

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Are you looking for iPad apps to help organize your classroom? Here are four of my favorites! #1: Numbers This is one of the first apps that the Apple salesman suggested to me after I bought my Ipad. You can view it by clicking on the picture below: At $9.99, it is one of the pricier apps I've bought, but well worth it. It's a spreadsheet program, and although it's similar to Excel, it seems smoother and more powerful to me. I typed all of my students' names into class lists in Numbers, then added columns for singing solos and other assessments. Every time a class comes into the r…

September 09, 2013

Music Manipulatives: Popsicle Sticks

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Manipulatives are one of my favorite things to use in the music classroom, so when I heard that Lindsay Jervis from Pursuit of Joyfulness was hosting a linky party about manipulatives, I thought I should contribute! I am writing today about using popsicle sticks for rhythm writing. After my first graders have reviewed the term "rhythm" and have worked with icons, and before they are working with the notation for ta and ti-ti, I have them work with "long" and "short-short,"  notated as ___ and _ _. This is a great intermediate step to getting them to hear 1 sound o…

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