2016Sweet Sounds : 2016

Tuesday, August 2, 2016

Musical Prep in Elementary Music: 3

It's time to plan next year's musicals! This is the third post in a series! Check out the other posts here and here!

My ~~partner-in-crime~~ drama teacher and I have already chosen our musicals and done a rough sketch of the nitty gritty schedule. I'll talk more about that later. Let's get started by digging into Tech Day!

Tech Day is a family day where all the kids in the show come with their parents (and some siblings!) to put the physical pieces of the set and props together. It is a required event, but we don't take attendance (shh!). We know that our families are busy so we make it come and go and ask that they come for 30 minutes minimum. Most families stay longer than that, but this allows those with sister's gym meet and brother's basketball photos to be able to participate.

To prep for Tech Day, the drama teacher and spend tons of time preparing. We researched exactly what we wanted the backdrop and set pieces to look like, decided on color schemes for the whole set, and brainstormed prop ideas. We made a huge shopping list as we brainstormed. We filled out POs and made shopping trips to Lowe's and the Wals-Marts to get everything. We made a giant list of things that needed to be done and wrote it on the white board in the drama room. After making this giant list, I turned it into task cards!

Task cards were easy to make and super helpful!

We turned our to-do list into short tasks, added a list of materials needed and simple instructions if we wanted something done in a particular way. Then we printed these on card-stock, chopped them into strips and put them out on a table for Tech Day.

After families arrived and we gave brief instructions, the parents and kids went to the task card table and selected a task to work on. This was very flexible - you could join any group and switch groups. If you didn't finish a task, you had to make sure the card got back to the table before you left. If you worked on a task, you had to sign your name on the back, so that we had a record of who worked on each item.

As you can tell, there were tons of things to do and thankfully we had tons of families show up to help!

Helping hands assembling the garment lists

We hung each garment list on a hanger and the kids put their costume on the

correct hanger when they came to school for costume parade!

Large boards of insulation foam cut into various pieces

cardboard piano anyone?

not a box.

More foam insulation carved into a truck!

We have great artists at our school!

Reusing old backdrop pieces saved time and money!

The brown and tan houses from Aristocats got a makeover

with fresh window treatments for 101 Dalmatians (above)!

Big Ben going up!

Funny moment:

Student: Why do you keep calling it Big Ben, Mrs. Sweet?

Me: Because that's its name!

Foggy London-town!

Some of the dads helped create a backstage area with some velvet fabric, pipes and rope!

Costumes were made - each student brought their own white shirt (if they were a dalmatian) to paint!

We used generic headbands for all the dalmatians, and specific colors for the other dogs.

Monday, August 1, 2016

Favorite Music Resources on Teachers Pay Teachers For Back To School

It's back to school time again! To be honest, I have spent the last two months buried in homework for my grad school classes, so I'm ready for a break from reading and writing papers!

Let's take a peek into the store and see what's been happening lately!

I love using this song not only because it's a great "do" song, but because it's a beautiful song that speaks to my students. They love to pass around my big sea shell and sing this song over and over again.

This song is versatile because you can read the rhythms in first grade, bring it back after you learn "do" in second grade, and then again after presenting "re." I have included slides that you can use to read the rhythm only, to read the "do" phrases only, and of course the "re" phrases/whole song.

Another student favorite and new resource is Doggie, Doggie!

My kids love to hear the story of Doggie, Doggie. We take a trip around the music room, asking the other "friends" if they have seen his bone. They are so excited to find out where he left it! Spoiler alert: Mrs. Sweet had it the whole time!

The traditional solo singing game can be played with a nylabone from PetSmart, a toy bone or even a printed picture of a bone! Students in my class love to play a barking variation of the game as well. (The student that stole the bone barks in response to the question in phrase 3!)

Later, after we learn so-mi, we can read the song on the staff or with the rhythms.

This is a great la song as well, because of the mi-la pattern, which should be learned after the so-la-so-mi pattern, according to the Kodaly Today gurus!

Another fun addition to my store is my National Standards checklists! I am so excited to have all the standards in one checklist for my teacher binder. You can post them in your classroom (laminate! plasticize!) and check off each grade level, or put them in your lesson binder and keep track of each grade level or class individually.

What are you looking forward to this year? I'm excited about getting my teammate and partner in crime back on campus! We are moving a lot of students around this year because of a new school opening and we've been in limbo about who was coming back all summer. We got the word and were finally able to meet up and plan our musical season and take a deep breath about the year! Shew!

I can't wait to share more about this year's musicals, but it's Top Secret until the reveal date. If any of the kids ask, we answer "Shrek." (Note: We are not doing Shrek, it's just our standard answer to all musical questions. Mwahaha!)

I hope you're having a great end-of-summer and back-to-school season! May we all survive this crazy time of year!! :-)

Let’s Connect!

Friday, June 10, 2016

Prepping for Next Year Now

It is officially summer break around here! For me that means beginning my Master's degree, moving across town (closer to my school! woo!) and getting everything planned out for next year.

Every summer, I spend hours and hours getting ready for the next year, trying to think of improvements, better listening lessons, smoother transitions, unique ways to keep my students' interest. Allthethings.

My friend Linda over at Floating Down the River has challenged us to come up with a list of things you can do now as school is ending to help the next year go more smoothly. You can link up at the bottom!

Analyze Your Data!

If there's anything that education has taught me over the last 13 years, it is the importance of data. Data can show us what is really going on in our class, what our students are actually learning, and should help us to plan for the future.

During the school year, we are always in a time-crunch, whirl-winding (just made that up) to the end of the year. Shew! Take a minute when the dust settles (but before summer brain kicks in) to evaluate what happened in your class this year.

Student Data

Look over the year's student work. Really dig in to what they missed and why. Was it the kid who was in orchestra three times during that unit, or was it a kid who was there every day and stilled missed it?

Make a tally of the answers for "exit tickets" - was there a pattern? One of my close teacher friends mentioned that her students were having issues with adding the stems to their staff work - bingo! Next year, she will be adding more examples with stems.

Look at the self-assessments - did students feel confident in their understanding or was it more surface level? I find that when students are not confident about their knowledge, many times it is because we had to rush through the preparation phase of learning. Usually when I look back, I see that we were also preparing for a performance, or we ran out of time because of a school holiday. This is a great time to assess exactly how much time you got to spend on each unit.

This is also fantastic data if you are having to speak to a principal or administrator about the number of programs and performances required. When they see actual data regarding the missed curriculum, sometimes that is more persuasive than a tired teacher who just has "too much on her plate."

Teacher Data

Look over your "teacher data" - lesson plans, yearly plans, how many units did you complete? This is a great chance to analyze "what you planned to do" vs. "what you actually did."

For example, every year I make two Yearly Plan documents. The first is the pie-in-the-sky document in August when I have forgotten about assemblies and field trips and orchestra practice and program prep.

The second is usually about halfway through the year, when I come to grips with the fact that the year is half over and I get down and dirty trying to decide what I can cram in with the remaining weeks.

Here is the document I've been using lately. It allows me to do a rough sketch of the year, blocking out any program dates, holidays and events, so I can see the big chunks of time and plan accordingly. I don't want to start a unit the week before spring break (for many reasons!) but I also don't want to finish it the week we get back.

My printed lesson plans have check boxes on them because with over 120 kids rotating through my room each day, it is very simple to check off the items we completed and circle the ones we didn't. Then I can look back on them when planning the next rotation to see if I need to add more time for preparation or more time for practice if I see they are having trouble in the next unit.

Create One Project for Your Classroom

When I think about the list of things I want to do for the next school year, it can get overwhelming! But if I step back and create one thing at a time, it makes it much more manageable. I try to do one creative thing for my classroom early in the summer, before all the activity of summer gets me out of "school-mode."

One year, I ordered banners and stickers from a printing website. Another time I made instrument and manipulative repairs for the next year. I was very thankful I had glued all of the magnets back onto the beat and melody cards come August.

Rest, Relax and Don't Think about School!

Get some R&R time with your friends, family, or a good book! It may seem like a good time to get everything done that didn't happen during the school year - and it is! But make sure you spend time re-charging your batteries and spending time to think about things that are not related to work. Your creative brain will thank you for it!

What do you do during the summer to make your school year better?

Let’s Connect!

Tuesday, May 31, 2016

Musical Prep in Elementary Music: 2

It's time for part 2 in my Musical Prep series! Don't forget to check out Part 1 here; plus all new: part 3 & part 4!

Let's talk rehearsals!

In my previous post, we discussed planning the schedule of rehearsals (depending on how much time you want to spend) and communicating that with the parents. Now let's get to the nitty gritty - how we ran our rehearsal schedule & what you can accomplish in a limited time.

Our first after school rehearsals were for "character roles" only - students that had auditioned and won "character roles" knew in advance that they would have a few more rehearsals than the other kids.

While we were able to learn most of the blocking during specials class, there were a few scenes that involved a majority of the kids (who may have been in different homeroom classes, some in orchestra practice during specials, etc.). So, we held three blocking rehearsals after school, where we basically finished whatever scenes were left and rehearsed extra scenes as time allowed.

All students were required to have their script & pencil to write down their blocking. Let me give a shout-out to MTI for including a page in every script that teaches students how to write blocking in their scripts! Woot!

Tech Transition Night is specifically for the students who were chosen to do tech jobs during the show. While everyone is invited to (and expected to be at!) Tech Day, some students have been asked to do tech roles during the show.

In our show, these tech roles included: Stage Manager, Assistant Stage Managers (ASMs), Lights, Sound, Wardrobe and Makeup.

Stage Manager provides another set of eyes for the directors. They write everything down in their director's script so that if the teacher directors don't see something, they can mention it. (For example: the #1 mistake in rehearsals was entering or exiting from the wrong part of the stage. Almost every time, the stage manager caught it and would whisper to us "upstage left" or "oops - she's supposed to exit downstage.")

As a stage manager, they have the authority to ask the other students to be quiet, to move to a new spot on stage and to take attendance at the beginning of rehearsals. They are also in charge of following the script and calling out lines if an actor forgets a line, or reading the lines if someone is absent. Stage Managers come to every rehearsal.

ASMs are in charge of moving the set pieces around on stage. They are the only students allowed to touch the set pieces, so it's a huge job that must be filled by reliable students. Tech Transition Night is mostly for ASMs - we assign each set piece/prop to an ASM, and they practice moving from one scene to another over and over!

The Light Operator sits in the "pit" with the directors & Stage Manager and runs the lights. In our shows, we have a simple up-down toggle that controls the lights over the chorus. They follow along their script and write in exactly when they are to have lights up and down.

The Sound Operator also sits in the "pit," directly beside the director. In our experience this year, the adult director (drama teacher) is in charge of the sound board, but the Sound Operator follows along in their script, which is marked with sound cues, and helps with each mic change. They also listen for anything unusual, like a mic that has not been muted (but should!) or if a mic isn't loud enough, etc.

I'll talk about wardrobe & makeup in the next part of the series, when we discuss the Costume Parade. They are the only members of the tech crew who don't have to attend the Tech Transition Night, unless there is a complicated costume change that they need to practice.

We had 2 tech rehearsals (one for each cast) that served as last minute runs for each cast, plus a chance to try out our tech equipment without costumes or makeup. This is supposed to be a full run with mics/sound/lights, with the flexibility to stop and rehearse scenes as needed. All students attend the Tech Rehearsals so that we can see what the show looks and sounds like with all cast, crew & chorus!

One thing that I came to learn is that the unexpected will happen at a tech rehearsal!

During our first series of tech rehearsals (with 5th graders), we didn't have any tech equipment! They morphed into extra blocking rehearsals, and we did sectionals with the chorus.

During our 4th grade tech rehearsals, half of our tech equipment arrived an hour into our first rehearsal and the rest was MIA! Due to things beyond our control, our first cast didn't get to practice with their mics/sound/lights until their first dress rehearsal.

For Blocking & Tech Rehearsals, our students stayed after school. They sat in the back of the gym eating their nut-free snack (brought from home) and took bathroom breaks while the drama teacher and I finished our car rider duty. During this time, our wonderful Americorps worker sat with them and managed bathroom breaks and kept shenanigans to a minimum.

After this, they got a 5-10 minute break in which the ASMs set the stage for the first scene, the students got pencils and scripts, threw away their snack trash and got mentally prepped for rehearsal. Because blocking and tech rehearsals are the shortest of our rehearsals, we did minimum warm-ups, and then jumped into the action.

Dress Rehearsals are a monster of their own! These 4 (2 for each cast) rehearsals were held at the same time as the shows, with the call times & agendas the same as the actual show. For our purposes, we had students arrive an hour and a half before show time.

The student have the first 45 minutes to get into costume & get in line for makeup. It takes almost this entire time, depending on the amount and complexity of makeup.

After getting into wardrobe & makeup, character roles had to report to Mic Check at the front of the stage. Most character roles in our show got wireless mics taped to their faces. Mic Check can get complicated if you have multiple wireless mics - and we had 16!

Side note: The best thing we did was have a trusted "tech guy" come to set up our tech equipment & teach us how to troubleshoot it. Our fabulous volunteer not only set up 16 receivers, taped the mic packs with corresponding numbers and labeled the mic cords - he came back when we were having issues & taught us how to sync different channels when we started having 2 mics come through on one channel! Whew!

It was a beast of a job and, looking back, I will have to think about having someone run our sound for us for the next show!

After Mic Check, all students reported to backstage for warm-up. This helped us to mimic the timeline of a show night, because all students had to be backstage (in our cafeteria, which backs up to the stage) when we open the house to parents 30 minutes prior to the show.

Warm-up gave us a change to get some wiggles out, bond as a team, and of course mentally and vocally prepare for our show!

At "show time" we begin a full run of the show with no stops (ideally). This is very telling of how the show will actually go, and the first time we get a chance to see what it looks like put together.

The directors take notes (with help of the stage manager) during rehearsal and we have a short notes meeting at the end of rehearsal. Everyone should have their script on hand so they can make notes of the things that need fixin'. :-)

After our Notes Meeting we begin a timer - no one leaves until the stage, boys & girls dressing rooms, and both bathrooms are clean & all clothes are hung up correctly. Theoretically, the timer makes the kids move faster & try to beat their time from the night before. When each room is "all clear" then we allow the kids to leave.

Our first dress rehearsal usually takes the longest to clean up before they realize that they need to move faster. Mwahaha. It also depends on how organized the kids are - typically the older 5th graders move faster because they've done it before.

3 Things I've Learned:

1. Have a plan, stick to the plan, but be flexible for things beyond your control. Prior Planning Prevents Poor Performance!

2. Have reliable parents backstage to help things flow! Can I say that again? Have reliable parents backstage to help things flow! We had some FANTASTIC parents helping with our last show. Their kids were both in the tech crew, so it wasn't imperative for them to be front of the house every show. They each took a turn "going" to the show, sitting in the audience, and it was so much fun to have them building relationships with the kids through rehearsals and shows.

3. Hold the kids accountable to a high standard of performance - and they will achieve it! You have to practice like you're going to perform. Young kids especially cannot practice one way and perform a different way. Whatever you do in practice is what you will do in performance.

Stay tuned for Musical Prep #3 - Tech Day!

Let’s Connect!