Two fun videos from October

Catching up with my blog, here are two fun videos from October!

"Stirring the brew" song passing egg shakers to the beat by Mrs. Howe's 2nd grade class.

"Pass the Pumpkin" game by third graders with instruments and passing a pumpkin to the beat around the circle. Whoever the pumpkin lands on is out and moves over to the instrument rotation.

Winter Concert 2015 Pictures and Videos

Wow! What a fun winter concert. I'm so proud of the hard work students did and how brave they were to perform in front of a large crowd.

Our concert was on Thursday, December 10th at the Shapleigh School gymnasium. Grades K/1 had their concert first at 6 PM. The grades 2/3 concert followed at 6:45 PM.

Here is a link to the beautiful slideshow with photos taken by the talented Geneve Hoffman. Some photos she took are also posted below. Thank you Geneve!

http://genevehoffman.com/?/page/9fd7/mitchellconcert2015/


CLICK HERE for Grades K/1 Concert Video


CLICK HERE for Grades 2/3 Concert Video


Grades K/1 Winter Concert "Winter Fun!"

Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer 1st grade soloists

1st grade plastic plate routine to "March" from the Nutcracker ballet.

"Jingle Bell Rock" by the staff ukulele band.

Love the smiles!

There was a huge crowd!

 Grades 2/3 Winter Concert "In the Spirit!"

Our first 3rd grade speaking soloists.

Boomwhackers played by the 2nd graders.

Ukulele played by the 3rd graders.

The staff ukulele band played "Jingle Bell Rock" for the 2/3 concert as well.

"Raise your voice, sing out loud!"

Happy Holidays!

2nd grade stations from October

Now that my concerts are over I can backtrack and update my blog! :-) Here are some pictures and videos from the boomwhacker stations I did back in October with 2nd graders.

2nd graders did a nice job being independent and working in small groups. They rotated around the room to different stations working on things such as playing boomwhacker songs and practicing rhythms.

Two stations staying focused on the task.

Students loved making rhythmic patterns out of popsicle sticks. One stick meant "beat," three sticks together meant "beat-and," and an x meant "rest."

Some students even put 6 sticks together to make a "beat-e-and-a" rhythm of sixteenth notes!

Working together in a group to make a super long rhythm!

"Swat the fly rhythm." One student claps a rhythm and the other students must swat the correct rhythm first!

Composing with boomwhackers.

Working together to compose a melody.

Working together as a group to play a boomwhacker song.

Matching up a musical symbol with its name.

They matched all the symbols and names!

Composing with colored circles to represent the boomwhackers.

Orff barred instrument repair

When I first started at Mitchell school in September and was teaching the orff barred instruments (such as xylophones) to the 3rd graders, I noticed how poor shape the instruments were in! They hadn't been played in many years, so they buzzed, bars fell off or were missing, the tubing was all cracked, and pins were bent and broken. How sad!

Below are some pictures I took before fixing the instruments. Most of them show the instruments after I took the bars off. You can tell they need some work and cleaning!

I asked the PTA for grant funding to fix the instruments and ordered lots of necessary supplies such as murphy's oil soap, wood glue, etc. First I took all the bars off and vacuumed the instruments out. Then I cleaned all the boxes and bars with Murphy's oil soap and shined them with murphey's lemon oil.

Next I took out all the old metal pins and tubing and replaced it with new tubing and pins. Our instruments are now all in working order, sound beautiful again, and I can't wait to teach students with our nice and practically new orff instruments! Thank you Mitchell School PTA!

Nice new black tubing and pins!

One completed bass xylophone and one without it's pins or tubing. 

Nice new tubing and pins!

All instruments fixed before putting the bars back on.

All the finished instruments with their bars!