What have we been working on?

Veterans' Day!

On Wednesday, November 13th the 4th and 5th grade students performed for our Veterans' Day Program.  The students sang the Star Spangled Banner to open, and followed with 7 selections from Music K-8 Magazine.  They did a fantastic job overall, the principal and fourth grade teachers even gave them a standing ovation!  The best part for me was to get the kids to sound good on songs they didn't particularly like.
That said, as with any performance there were plenty of things I wish we had done differently.  There were some problems with rushing, some problems with over-anticipating a few entrances, enunciation, etc.  My personal favorite is that it seemed that my two kids who have the hardest time matching pitch are also some of the shortest students, guaranteeing that they were right down front.  Of course that means their voices are some of the most prominent - thought this is also because they took my instructions to heart - don't sing scared!  We spent a fair amount of time talking about proper performance practice and how to sell their performance.  We talked about breath support and all of those fundamental singing techniques.  Most of all I told them that if they were going to make a mistake they needed to do it "loud and proud" so even though it was a wrong note it wouldn't sound unsure or scared.

Now if only I can figure out what happens to kids between fourth and fifth grade that makes them go from wonderful singers to wimpy singers!

Program order from our concert:

Star Spangled Banner - Key
America The Beautiful - Ward/Bates, arr. Jennings
We Will Not Forget - Riggio
Those Who Served - Jennings
Proud of Our Veterans - Jennings
Thank a Vet - Wilson
A Time for Peace - Jennings
We Celebrate America -  Jennings

I will continue adding tracks as they get edited - this is my first attempt at using SoundCloud!


Have a great week, and if I don't get a chance to post again before then, have a Happy Thanksgiving!

Teachers Pay Teachers Sale!

Greetings everyone!

It's that time again... When teachers gear up, parents do a happy dance, and students look forward to actively socializing constantly!  Yup, school is about to begin again!

To help teachers gear up, Teachers Pay Teachers is throwing a huge sale, with many items discounted up to 28%!  Everything in my own store is on sale, though I definitely encourage everyone to take a look around as there are tons of excellent resources across the site.

Here is the link to my store: http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Nathan-Earley

I am working on several projects right now, and hope to have some interesting updates in the next few days.

Among other news: I have a student teacher!  Granted, it's a "buoy" placement, so it's only 6 weeks or so, but it's going to be an interesting adventure all around.

Until next time,

I am really bad at this...

Good morning!

I have noticed recently a bunch of people repinning this blog on Pinterest.  My hope is that this is a sign of increased traffic, that people will come and read and either be inspired or made to think about something or at least interested enough to come back.  I know I haven't been as good about keeping up with posts as I should.

However -

With the new school year coming I plan to have quite a few new things to show and discuss, starting with my classroom itself.

I had planned on already having all of my personal things moved into my room and be at least partially set up by now, but that has not quite happened.  One of the joys of being in a Mobile Music Mansion is that it comes with some of the troubles that such Mobile Mansions are prone to.  For example, for two years we have been chasing a series of ceiling leaks.  Roofing people have come and looked, other maintenance folks have looked, and the building service folks have replaced the affected ceiling tiles something like 6 times, all to no avail.

As a result, my plans to post a before school classroom tour are postponed a bit, though I may get a few good shots of my room packed up yet in disarray due to ladders and plastic sheets and whatnot.

Rest assured, however, that posts will be forthcoming, and hopefully as engaging as I imagine them to be.

I hope everyone has had a fulfilling, relaxing Summer, and we're all ready to dive into the next school year!

Teacher Appreciation Week

Howdy!

Since this week is Teacher Appreciation Week, I figured I had better write something.  It's been too long since my last post, and I'm really trying to keep up with things.

First, in honor of T.A.W. there is a sale going on at TeachersPayTeachers that can give you up to 28% off your purchase!  My store currently has 23 items, all marked $5 or less.  That means you can get my arrangement of Chameleon for beginning band at a low price of $3.60!  There are tons of products created by thousands of great teachers, and a great deal of them will be on sale for the next two days.

Second, a bit of commentary.  Yesterday I was a bit amused to find the PTA at my school had given us all boxes of bandages with a note that said something about how we "hold the place together."  I suppose I understand the sentiment that was intended, but I couldn't help but be a bit disappointed.  Not because I didn't appreciate the thought, and not because I have no use for bandages.  My disappointment was that they weren't latex-free, so I can't really use them in my classroom.

And that's when it hit me that I've been teaching long enough for my thought process to go there first.

I used to wonder when I would feel like a real teacher.  I spent my first year waiting for someone to find out how inadequate and unprepared I felt. My second year I felt like I was keeping my head above water, but just barely. My third year I felt like I was being tugged in multiple directions all at once.  My fourth year I started a new school, so in many ways I was back to the drawing board.  But my fifth year?  For the first time in my professional life I think I may have a handle on some things.

I am definitely not yet to the point of feeling like I have everything covered.  I wonder sometimes if I will ever feel that way.  This has been a year of experiments, of reorganizing, of trying to push myself beyond my own comfort zone.  In many ways I think this has been one of my most productive years for myself, but in many other ways I feel like I am becoming more and more aware of all that I have not done or not done well enough.

Let's get back to teacher appreciation week for a moment.  Do you know what really makes teachers feel appreciated?  The little gifts and whatnot are nice, but for me that's not really what does it.  Personally, I feel appreciated by my principal and my content supervisor, which is a huge change from where I was not that long ago.  Beyond that I have positive relationships with many of the parents at the school, which is a huge plus.  That is appreciation to me.  I feel valued as a professional, I feel like my viewpoint matters to my colleagues (ok, some more than others, but still).  I feel like I'm past the stage of worrying about being unmasked as a phony (thank you, Holden Caulfield!).

You know what would make me feel even more appreciated?  Not having my salary and general livelihood on the chopping block when there are budget issues to solve.  Not having my judgment questioned by people whose only classroom experience as an adult is for a photo op.  Not having my friends and colleagues (and myself) forced to take on multiple part time jobs to make ends meet.  Knowing that the money I spent and the debt I incurred to take on this profession is both money well spent and debt that can be paid off.

Too many of us (and that's a general "us," not just teachers) feel the pressure of financial burden.  I worry that if the trends continue, teachers will be forced out of teaching because we cannot afford it.  Personally, I have over $60,000 in student loan debt.  I am working on finding yet another job (current count is 4, the next one will make 5) just to try to keep up or (dare I say it?) possibly get ahead financially.  I am starting to wonder if anyone in a position of power will ever notice that they could not have gotten there without teachers who were not only there to collect a paycheck, but that often had to go above and beyond with little to no compensation just to push students to be their best.

Doctors make a lot of money, and they should.  The same goes for anyone in a position that helps create the modern world we live in.  I just wonder when the time will come that the people in positions to do something about it understand that everyone who is anyone got there with a lot of help from those of us in the classroom.

Nurse! Get a coffee line stat!!!!

Ever have one of those days that was brought to you by coffee?  Today is one of those days.  Tomorrow and Saturday probably will be too.  Here's the perfect description:

I just finished cup #3, thinking about cup #4, and I have a Red Bull in the staff lounge fridge.

Why, you ask?

Simple.  Today is a concert day.  2nd and 3rd grade, to be precise.  They're doing a program titled "Music Around the World."  It's all music out of Music K-8 magazine.  This is the best I have felt about a grade level performance in a long time.  We had our dress rehearsal performance for the whole school this morning.  If the kids can do as well tonight as they did this morning, this may be the best show yet.  I am hopeful to have some pictures and possibly some video, but we'll see.

The best part is that tomorrow I am helping a friend up the road and have to be in her band room at 7:00, then at work a little after 8, then I have to go to another friend's house and load up my car to do a craft fair on Saturday in Leesburg.  Nothing like a car crammed full of stuff, a 3 1/2 hour drive, 6-8 hours of craft show, reloading the car and a 3 1/2 hour drive home to get the blood flowing.  I may see about installing a coffee Camelbak in my car.  If I make it to Saturday night it may be a small miracle.

It's interesting, I was at a rehearsal a few nights ago talking with another music teacher who was telling me about how crazy things were schedule-wise in her house.  She and her husband are both elementary music teachers, and involved in different ensembles and whatnot, and constantly running in different directions.

Hooray for all of us crazy music teachers and all of the crazy things we're into.

Hooray.

Wow, it's been a while...

Greetings internet!

I should have realized that keeping up with this blog would become a challenge once the school year really heated up. Thankfully I come bearing good news.

As with many music teachers I find myself constantly fighting the practice battle with my instrumental students. Even the ones who are motivated. In some ways u feel like I am making proofread on that front through music selection and bribery (I may have offered baked goods in exchange for stellar performance in our most recent concert), but in many ways I feel like it is the same uphill fight to get students to pick up their instruments, let alone put in quality practice time.

Thankfully I was in Pinterest the other day and came across a fantastic article from NPR about practicing and how students might be motivated to do more of it.

Getting kids to practice music without tantrums or tears - via NPR.

I will definitely be employing some of the ideas from the article, and I already emailed the link to all of my band and orchestra parents.

I am especially intrigued by the idea of using practice beads as a visual reminder of what has been covered and accomplished. To use them as described would definitely take some training by both the teacher and parents, but it is something I am seriously considering adapting to use in my classroom.

So there is my thought for this evening, hopefully I can get some rest tonight!

Feeling a little Orff today...

One of my goals for this year is to incorporate more time for actually making music.  To create rather than follow along, especially when it's something the kids are coming up with themselves.  To that end, I decided that the best way to get more playing time was to have my room set up such that the instruments are more accessible.  Unfortunately my room really isn't spacious, so coming up with a way to have all of my Orff instruments set up all the time is an ongoing battle.  For the moment, what I have done is flip some of the major components of my classroom to the other side of the room, spread some of the larger furniture out, and make things fit where they can.

It's still a work in progress.

However, I have had some initial success with the setup, though it requires constant tweaking at this stage.  Here is one of my fourth grade classes enjoying their instrument time.

I didn't cover up anyone's face, this is how they all really look! :)

I have 3 glockenspiels, 2 soprano xylophones, a soprano metallophone, 3 alto xylophones, an alto metallophone, 2 bass xylophones and a bass metallophone.  Since there obviously aren't enough mallet instruments for everyone, I've been having the kids that weren't on mallets play Boomwhackers.  I was playing the conga to (try to) keep everyone together on the steady beat.  Surprisingly, I'm finding that what I play has to be a bit more complicated and rhythmic for it to have any bearing on what the kids do. And unfortunately what they do almost without exception is speed up.  A lot.  So the more I play something resembling a rock or funk groove the more likely they are to stick with one tempo.  Go figure.

And speaking of Boomwhackers, I have finally found a good way to store mine.  A huge thanks to Pinterest! Ok, so really it is from Music With Mrs. Dennis, who got it from Rainbows Within Reach.  But Pinterest was where I saw it first. The school where I used to teach had two complete classroom sets of boomwhackers, which was glorious.  The other music teacher at the school had hers stored in a tall plastic wrapping paper bin that resembled a tall skinny trash can.  I liked the idea, but felt that there had to be a better way.  While the bin kept everything protected, it took a little more work to get the Boomwhackers in and out than I would like.  When I changed schools, I was thrilled to find a class set of Boomwhackers in my classroom.  But they were stored in a large Panera bag.  I still get irked thinking about that darn bag (and not just because someone went to Panera without me!). For a year I fought with it, it got mangled and slightly more ripped than it was.  And that just won't do.  So naturally, I turned to the internet for a solution.

Cereal boxes!  Go figure! I brought three boxes from home (ok, one is a cereal box, one is for fruit snacks, and the other was for Tabasco flavored Cheez Its - YUM!), and put out an email to the staff asking for donations.  So far two teachers have donated to the cause, so now I only need one more box!  I folded the top flaps inward, which hold the Boomwhackers upright and in place.  The cereal/fruit snack/Cheez It boxes keep them separated by color and all organized.

 

I put the smaller boxes into an empty printer paper box.  Further proof that there are better things than the trashcan.  Once I get  the last cereal box I need I will organize the boxes by size so that the larger Boomwhackers are in the bigger boxes, so on and so forth.  Then I'm planning on putting color coordinated construction paper on each box to make it obvious where each color goes.  Last I will probably coerce ask someone more artistic than myself (probably the Art teacher!) to decorate the outside of the newly paper-clad big box. I might even have some of the kids do it.  Hmm.....  Regardless, the best thing about this particular box is that it fits into the hideous yellow cabinet in the background of the picture, so it will help store my Boomwhackers out of sight when needed!

So at the end of the day yesterday, I stood back and looked at my room.  And it was a minor disaster.  Between the bits of trash that seem to stick to kids just long enough to get in my room, the odds and ends that kids forgot to take with them (I'm pretty sure I could open a thrift store), and the instruments strewn about, something had to be done. 

So I spent 30 minutes of my Friday afternoon (after the duty day was over!) to put things in some semblance of order.  Again.

So far this is the best I've come up with.  Everything is oriented toward the Promethean board, spaced out such that the kids can all fit behind the instruments, and arranged by instrument type.  The only problem now is that this takes up more than 1/3 of my room.  If I were to leave it like this, I would have students sitting on top of glockenspiels and xylophones when they sit in their usual spots.  That's a no go.

For right now, the solution is just to have the kids tuck everything back against the bass instruments when we're not using them.  I hate that, but it's really the only way to have them out all the time.  My plan is to build carts for all of the instruments (minus the glockenspiels) so that we can just roll them into place.  Hopefully I can also incorporate storage for the bars we're not using and the mallets, too.  I got the idea from Crafty Music Teachers, and look forward to adapting their design to my needs.  But that will be for a later post.