TeachersPayTeachers Sale Extended!

Good snowy morning!

Ok, I'll admit it, I am NOT thrilled about the snow that is currently falling outside.  Partly because I need clear part of my roof to avoid making the leak worse that I discovered during the last snow melt.  But mostly because we were just getting back to having everyone back into the routines of school.  Things were finally getting back to normal, projects were underway, learning was happening.... And now... more snow.

Sigh.

But there is a bright side to today.  TeachersPayTeachers has extended their Teachers Are Heroes sale another day.  They are offering up to 28% off sitewide for an extra day!

Thankfully, teachers are the kind of hero that doesn't wear tights.  Well, mostly.

For me, that means that you can snag absolutely everything in my store for 28% off using the discount code HEROES at checkout.  Want to save almost $3 on music education resources?  Try the Great Big Boomwhacker and Orff Collection!  Looking for some beginning band arrangments?  How about Chameleon or Kookaburra?  You could also go straight to my storefront and browse the items that are on sale for less than a dollar! 

So hopefully this TpT sale will help keep you warm on a snowy Winter's day.  And fingers are crossed that the snow stops soon and melts this afternoon and we're back on track tomorrow. (A teacher can hope, right?)

Teachers Pay Teachers Sale!

Greetings!  I just wanted to make sure anyone and everyone knows about the upcoming TeachersPayTeachers sale - Teachers are Heroes!

On Wednesday, February 25th, everything sitewide is going to be 10% off using promo code HEROES, and many stores will be an additional discount up to 20%.  My store is going to be 20% every item, so by combining the two discounts you can save 28% on anything I have listed.  This is a great opportunity if you're looking at possibly purchasing any of my Boomwhacker resources or beginning band or orchestra arrangements.  Those are the most expensive items in my store, so this is a great chance to scoop them up at a discount.  Here are direct links to each item:

Boomwhackers Introduction Powerpoint

Mary Had a Little Lamb Boomwhacker

Boomwhacker Song Collection #1

Boomwhacker Song Collection #1 with Heart Beats

Boomwhacker Song Collection #1 with Notation

Boomwhacker Song Collection #2 (Pentatonic Songs)

Great Big Boomwhacker Collection

Orff Instrument Bar Labels with Boomwhacker Colors

Big Rock Candy Mountain for Violin

Chameleon for Elementary Band

Kookaburra for Elementary Band


Alternately, you can click the link below to go directly to my storefront:

Have a great week, everyone!

Composition! Or, The Colors, Man, The Colors!

Greetings, internet!

I really am trying to be better about regularly posting, but it is a struggle.  It's funny how working three jobs gets in the way of writing blog posts.  And by funny I mean causes ridiculous amounts of angst.  I was reminded recently of just how much I'm not at home when I looked around the house and counted the number of projects that still need finishing.  I spent most of my Sunday afternoon cleaning up our rabbit cage because it had gotten nasty, a direct result of me not being home enough to keep up with it.

But I digress.

I assume you're here for a post about music education, right?  After all, this is The Mobile Music Mansion, not Mr. Earley's Dysfunctional Rabbit Farm.

AWEEEEEEOWEEOOWEOMUMBAWAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYY......

So here we go.

I have gotten back into using a resource that I had created last year - the Boomwhackers Song Collections.  There are currently two available on my Teachers Pay Teachers store

(Collection 1 and Collection 2), and I am working on some new ones.  If you haven't clicked over to see what those activities are about, I'll give you a brief rundown.  Essentially I started using squares and rectangles that were color coded to match the Boomwhacker colors as a means of introducing notation to my youngest students.  I am not a fan of using the little pictograph representations of notes, since I've never seen music notated with smiling bees or anthropomorphic suns and hearts and stars.  Instead, I wanted to use something that would make a logical sequence of reading left to right, grouping by beat, and applying what is read to the instruments at hand.  This works great with Boomwhackers, and even better when scaffolded into Orff instruments.  All of my barred instruments have color coded labels to match the Boomwhackers as well, and students can make a logical transition to playing those instruments after a little time spent practicing on the Boomwhackers.  This can then lead to using traditional notation with colored note heads, and then purely traditional notation.  I am still in the development stages of this plan, so there is a long way to go with implementing this and seeing/measuring the results, but I have high hopes.

Some day I hope to have matching mallets for each instrument

I'm starting to think that maybe I need to spend some more time with Kindergarten and first grade earlier on in the school year to develop the sense of steady beat and tracking the beat while listening.  This is something that my students frequently struggle with, and is at least partly (stereotype warning!) a result of having middle-class Caucasian students forming the bulk of the student body.  These are kids who don't grow up experiencing music as something that they do, but instead as something that exists beyond them, perhaps on a shelf only to be taken out on days they have music class.  I want to move my students to a place where music is part of their everyday life and expression, something that they do without thinking, without hesitating, and without fear of whether it is "good enough."  (I think of this as the "American Idol Phenomenon" - what if we grew up thinking that we weren't good enough because some celebrity judge said we weren't any good?  What  complex to create in young people. But that is another rant for another time,)

Simon says that was the worst improvised ostinato he's ever heard paired with Mary Had a Little Lamb.  You should just stop.

The more students are experiencing music in a hands-on, applied, real sense, the more it becomes a part of who they are.  My goal is to foster that as much as I can in as many students as I can.  It kills me to hear students talk about music like it's some mystery.  Music is all around us, music is a part of what makes us human.

If I can use a bunch of colored rectangles and squares to help reinforce that integral musical part of all of us, I am 100% in.

So then what's next?

Well, in my view that would be composition.  But gone are the days when I would just hand out staff paper to my oldest students and have them write meaningless combinations of notes.  I have been working with students creating ostinatos, which has been nice, but let's go several steps further.  What if students were creating something that had meaning to them, as well as its own musical meaning?  By all means, let's do it!

So I give you color coded composition.  Also, alliteration.  :)

What I am trying now is to have students use construction paper cut to the same relative sizes as the squares and rectangles in the Boomwhacker Song Collections.  I spent a little time working out the measurements I could use, then cut them out of red, orange, yellow, dark green, and purple paper, thus making a C pentatonic scale.  At first I am planning to introduce the concept by giving students a few pieces to work with and having them see what they can come up with.  No rules - anarchy in the music room!  We will arrange the pieces and then perform them for the class, discussing what we hear.  Then, I plan to given a worksheet/template to each student giving some guidelines - mostly beat groupings (hello, time signatures!), but also reinforcing Do as the tonic note.

With my youngest students, it will just be practice to get used to the idea of organizing notes by how they sound, reinforcing Do, and getting to use the Boomwhackers and Orff instruments to create music.

For my second graders, I hope to have them really apply their knowledge of staff notation and transfer what they have done by color onto the treble staff, thus creating true compositions that they can give to anyone and have it played.

Long term, I hope to never again have a student look at a piece of music then look at me and say "I can't read this."

Fingers are crossed.

I'll keep you posted!

Merry Happy ChristmaHanuKwanzicaa! And a Teachers Pay Teachers sale. Hooray!

Last night I had the second of my two December concerts.  I say December because they are not generally holiday concerts as I do them, though I have been known to do the odd Chrstimas/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa performance.  This was my 2nd and 3rd grade performance.  The kids did great, though things got a bit hairy a few times, as they are wont to do.  The best part was my third grade student with Autism, who had a fantastic time.  He spent a fair amount of time dancing around while we sang, but stayed within the realm of what was fine with me, and clearly enjoyed his experience very much.  That really made my night, seeing the joy on his face.

The downside of the night was definitely the parent who cornered me and wanted to know (because her son asked, or so she said - way to use your kid as an excuse) why we sang a Hanukkah song and no Christmas songs.  I explained to her (just as I had announced to the audience during the performance) that with yesterday being the beginning of Hanukkah (or maybe the 2nd day, I had conflicting dates on that one), it seemed very fitting to perform a Hanukkah song.  In addition, I talked about the cultural piece of the music curriculum and the other holidays that I incorporated into this time of year to give the students a broader view of holiday practices from around the world.  She didn't seem impressed, and pretty much implied that it made her angry.  It took a lot of self-control to not tell her where she could go with her Christmas-centric view of a December performance.  Now, don't get me wrong, I celebrate Christmas, and like to view it as intended, with it being a celebration of the birth of Christ, a focus on family time, and being together and enjoying the company of both family and friends.  I do not, however, for one moment believe that a concert in December has to be Christmas related.  Beyond that, I also reject the expectation that I do a concert based on a parent's view of what music I should do.  But that's another topic altogether.

So I am extremely thankful that my two December concerts are finished, I am pleased with how well the kids performed, and I am very much looking forward to Winter Break.  Those happen to be two of my three favorite words in all of the English language (the third being Summer).


Now the other purpose of this post - a sale!  I am going to be throwing a sale in my TeachersPayTeachers store from now until Christmas.  If you are a music teacher and want to buy yourself a little something, or know a music teacher who could use a little something, or are just interested in a little music education sort of activity, everything in my store is 20% off!  My store can be found at http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Nathan-Earley.

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Kwanzaa, and a Happy New Year!

Product Review - Sherman's Bass Rosin

Wow, back so soon?  It's almost like a regular blog or something!

Today is a product review day - maybe some day if I get truly organized I can have a regular product review day of the week.  Wacky Wednesdays?  Weekly Wednesdays of Wonder?  Wow.  I'll have to work on that.  If anyone has a better suggestion I am all ears.

Enough with the word play, on to the review!  Today we're talking about Sherman's Bass Rosin.

This is something I bought just out of a need (more like desperation, really) as I had zero rosin for my school's double bass.  This became especially important when I had a student who was interested in playing said double bass - the first time since the instrument came to the school that someone other than me would be using it.

All of my experience with bass rosin prior to purchasing the Sherman's was with Pop's Bass Rosin - the stuff that comes in the little red plastic tub with the attached lid; you open it up and there is the rosin cake sitting in a little paper cup.

This stuff.  Notice the paper medicine cup.

I always had the feeling that this was someone's solution to dealing with the mess of making rosin who cared more about their post-production cleanup than the actual end user's experience.  The paper cup is good in theory, but as you use the rosin you have to peel the sides down, which inevitably (for me, anyway) led to sticky fingers, the awful sensation of the bow scraping the paper, and a lot more mess than I felt was truly necessary.  And heaven help you if you ever leave the rosin somewhere warm.  Good luck prying it out of that cup.  It's like trying to chip off an ice block without the aid of melting.

Enter the Sherman's rosin.

This stuff.  In case you forgot.

It comes in a regular wooden tray just like any other student rosin - almost like bass players are considered to be the same as the violinists, violists, and cellists!  I know, crazy town.  The nice thing about these trays is that they allow for true shadow bowing while you rosin.  This is how I have students practice their bow technique - hold the rosin about where your bridge would be and bow, whether you're bowing a song or just back and forth.  The idea is to reinforce the muscle memory on straight bowing, which is so wonderfully facilitated by the sides of the wooden (sometimes plastic) trays.  The downside to the trays is also one of their strengths.  The ends of the tray are open, so there is nothing holding the edges of the rosin back.  This means that if you have a student who drops their rosin like one of mine did last week, it will not only chip and crack, but also start to fall out.  So perhaps this isn't the best solution from a durability standpoint.

As far as performance of the actual rosin, I have not noticed any difference between the Sherman's and the Pop's rosin.  I will be completely honest in that I have not really paid attention to the sound quality of the rosin in particular, but I have not noticed students having more or less issues using either rosin.  At the very least I can say it does not cause any more issues that the Pop's rosin.

And now my favorite part of my Sherman's Bass Rosin experience: the price.  Sherman's rosin costs $3.95 over at Johnson String Instrument (they also sell through Amazon), while the Pop's rosin is listed at $8.95.  Now, I am all for paying extra for higher quality when necessary, but if you're in a situation like mine where students have far more important things to worry about than their particular grade of rosin, I'll take a major cost savings where possible.  Like I tell my students - get to where you can play all of your notes and rhythms 100% correct 100% of the time and we'll worry about the tiny details then.  Now that is not to say that I wouldn't attribute any kind of benefit to improving the quality of your rosin.  Quite the opposite.  If it helps you play better I am all for it.  The thing is, I'm tired of hearing students talk about their playing difficulties like there is some magical accessory out there that will make up for their lack of consistent practice.

"No, really, Mr. Earley, if I get this $200 rosin that was pressed from old growth Douglas Fir trees in virgin forest land in the Pacific Northwest I'll totally be able to play everything perfectly.  My fifteen minutes of practice a week might even be able to be reduced to ten!"

Not me.  I am not an Asian woman.  Just to be clear.

Right.  More like if you practiced five minutes a week it would be a 500% improvement over the current time spent with the instrument.

But that's the cynical music teacher in me that gets tired of being "fibbed" to on a weekly basis.

And I digress.



So my overall impression and recommendation?

Sherman's Bass Rosin is an excellent value for the money, especially for a student who doesn't have issues with dropping things.  I would love to have a student who progressed far enough that I could hear a limitation of this rosin, but I teach 3-5 strings.  Maybe if it was high school I'd have someone at that point, but not at the elementary level.

Also, as a side note - I am giving very serious thought to an experiment.  I'd like to see if I could re-melt the rosin to get rid of the cracks from it being dropped.  I watched a video of a guy making rosin, and have heard of folks who make their own regularly, so it looks to me like it's a question of getting to the right temperature, holding it long enough, then allowing the rosin to cool properly.

If any of you read a news story about a music teacher from Maryland getting killed by his girlfriend for messing up her oven, you'll know that's me.

Also not me.  But the beard is at least heading in the right direction.

But more on that later.

Wow, that's a bit of a break....

Let me start off by apologizing to my followers - all both of you.  I did not intend to take such a long break from my blog, it just kind of happened.  So with that said, here's a quick summary of what I've had going on this school year:

- I started the year with a student intern named Grace, and she had some of the most original ideas for elementary music I've ever seen.  We did an activity with a loop pedal for her second observation and had the students create a loop-based composition using improvised body percussion and vocal sounds.

- I have students who are struggling like never before to play brass instruments.  Two trombones and a trumpet, all three who started at the same time; one of the trombones plays everything too low, the other trombone and trumpet play everything too high.  It's making for a bit of a beginning band struggle.

- I was observed by my principal doing concert prep.  Very strange.  We dissected the form of one of their concert pieces which made for a very useful lesson, but I'm a little concerned it cost me some valuable time that could have been spent on performing and rehearsing.  The neat thing is that I  think I did the best lesson on form that I have ever done, and I will absolutely use it as a touchstone throughout the year.  (Also pretty awesome is that the write-up for my observation was overwhelmingly positive - we'll see how that comes up in the post-observation conference.)

- I have second grade students working on rhythmic fluency using pool noodle notes as well as a worksheet I created.  They are using the noodles to work out rhythms in three dimensions and getting used to drawing notes on the paper, which is a pairing of ideas I got from Tracy King over at Mrs. King Rocks.  If you haven't already, go check out her blog and then her Teachers Pay Teachers store, they're both pretty fantastic.

- First grade and Kindergarten have been working on found sounds, body percussion, and enhancing stories with sound effects and music.  This is especially great around this time of year as I have found many great Halloween-related activities.  As a side note, I have no students at my school with any kind of religious or cultural barriers to celebrating the various holidays throughout the year; I cannot begin to tell you how much easier that makes my job.

My beginning band and strings groups are making progress, painful though it is to listen to at times.  My choir is off to a good start, though I suspect I could be pushing them a little harder.  We have honor chorus starting this week, which I am really looking forward to (aside from fighting traffic to make it to the rehearsals on time).  In about 2 1/2 weeks we have our fourth and fifth grade concert, which should be interesting.  Here's to hoping we pull it off in time!

So that's what's going on in my world, how about yours?

And now for something completely different...

Good morning, internet!

So usually I tend to write about things like classroom setup, goofy things kids have done, projects in the classroom, ideas I've had, and things I am working on.

Today we're going to talk about something that is just a little outside of that norm.

Food.

Yes, food.

I promise this is teaching related.

No, really - it's teaching related.

On April 21st, my girlfriend and I decided to start a program called Whole 30.  Recently the creators of the Whole 30 program have been on TV and radio, as well as featured on blogs and on their own website, as well as in several books.

This came from a suggestion from my girlfriend who sent me a text message to research the program.  Of course, being the obliging boyfriend that I am, I immediately Googled what this was all about.  And promptly dismissed it as ridiculous, too hard, too exclusive, and reeking of some Hippie/Vegan/Earth Child nonsense (and that, dear readers, is how to alienate and irritate multiple groups of people all at once!).

A week later, she brought it up again, and said that a coworker of hers was actually about halfway through and couldn't believe how well it was going.  I essentially decided that I could do it, but would have to do the reading and studying and preparing necessary first, so I promptly bought a Kindle edition of "It Starts With Food."  Before the end of the first chapter or two I was sold.


The entire idea behind the program is that you are eating too much of everything that is bad for you, and that includes some things that you think are healthy.  The bulk of the program revolves around a simple idea: eat nothing but whole food - lean protein, vegetables, fruits, and good fats - for thirty days.  You must exclude all added sweeteners (including honey and agave, especially including artificial sweeteners like aspartame), all grains and pseudo-grains (sorry, no quinoa!), all dairy with the exception of clarified butter and ghee (they give you instructions on how to make your own), white potatoes, alcohol, soy, and legumes.

Now just hold on there one cotton pickin' minute.  Soy?  That's what the health nuts eat!  Legumes??? Those have important nutrients!  No grains at all?  Meh... Dairy?  Isn't milk supposed to do a body good?  Just what kind of tree-hugger crap is this?

Where's the tofu, man?

Actually, those are just about the exact thoughts that went through my mind upon reading the basic tenets of the program.  The funny thing is, after 3 weeks of doing this program, I don't really miss those food items.  Sure, there are a lot of things I can't have right now, and lots of things I may never really eat again (especially in any kind of quantity), but it's absolutely worth it.  There is nothing nutrition-wise in any of those things that you can't get from eating the right food.  Even better, if you are careful about selecting produce that has been grown without the use of chemicals and meat that has been pastured/free-ranged/grass-fed, you're eating far cleaner anyway.  I had started to buy into the idea that maybe pesticides and fertilizers and herbicides and whatnot weren't really something I wanted in my food stream, but hadn't done much of anything about it.  It's expensive.  But since I've begun doing research (some through the internet, some just using the old taste bud approach), I'm coming to find that it is frequently worth it.

As a side note, one of the guiding rules is not to step on the scale for the entire 30 days.

I'll tell you right now that I've broken that rule.  In my defense, my girlfriend started it.

But what's more - in three weeks I've lost 11 pounds without doing a darn thing outside of my normal routine (aside from cooking more).

I have more energy, I don't usually find myself sagging mid-afternoon, I feel better overall, and the 11 pounds I lost came straight off my stomach where I was carrying around all of the adult beverages I have consumed directly or indirectly as a result of being a teacher.  Even better, I've found myself to be less irritable and more patient in general, which was becoming a real problem.  I've always been one of the most patient, laid-back people I knew.  Until about a year ago.  I suddenly realized that I was getting irked or frustrated or downright angry about stupid things that never bothered me in the past.  Having changed my diet, I have definitely noticed a return to how things were.  I know that the folks around me had to have noticed as well.

Now here is the connection to teaching:

I TEACH BETTER WHEN I AM NOT FEELING CRAPPY!

I have had more energy to do things in the classroom this past three weeks. I have had more good ideas flowing this past three weeks.  I have felt more like I am being a positive influence.  I have had more patience.  I am better able to deal with student behaviors and troubles.  Overall I am a much better, more effective teacher, all because I am not fighting with myself to get through the day so I can go crash at home.

I look around the building and see teachers eating leftover pizza, frozen meals that are full of sodium and preservatives, tons of bread and cookies and muffins, and all kinds of things that I'm not allowing myself to have.  And to be honest, I think I can say without a doubt that I feel physically better than anyone else in my building.  And for once, that's not just because I am 15 years younger than the average!  One of the other specialists in my building has been complaining of digestive tract distress for a year now.  Go figure, it all seems to have started when she moved out of her parents house, had no one else to cook for her, and started eating prepackaged everything.  Essentially she has salt-cured herself and loaded herself down with every preservative used in today's prepared meal industry.  I (and another teacher) have tried to show her how much better she could feel with a change in diet, but she is determined it's too much work.

Yes, it is a lot of work to cook for yourself.

But are you an adult or a helpless baby?

I know for a fact that I spend an extra 4-5 hours per week in the kitchen compared to what I did a month ago.  Some weeks it's more like an extra 10 hours.  And this is on top of working 3 jobs.  It's a lot of work.  But since I don't have ridiculous exercise requirements on top of all that cooking, I'm okay with it.

The best part is that I get to eat literally as much as I want.

Let me repeat that:

I GET TO EAT AS MUCH AS I WANT!

Now, that doesn't mean I get to gorge on whatever I'm eating and go until I can't possibly take another bite.  Instead, it means that if I want a few more sweet potato fries, I have no reason not to.  If I want a big plate of leafy vegetables, peppers, carrots, and pork chops I can have it.  I'm even encouraged to cook with lard and tallow!  I haven't yet - still trying to win the girlfriend over on that one - but if I had it, I could use it!  I've been making sweet potato hash and fried eggs frequently for breakfast, and eating an entire plate full.  And in case you've forgotten, I've LOST WEIGHT doing it!

Pictured: Deliciousness.  Also, weight loss.

Another side note - I actually really like another one of the guiding principles behind this program.  There are no cheat days.  In their book, Dallas and Melissa Hartwig actually specifically say that the only "slip" is if you were to physically fall face first into an open box of donuts with your mouth open.  And no, that doesn't mean you can add open boxes of donuts to your home decor hoping to improve your chances.  For three weeks the only to "slips" I've had were for two (I think) good reasons.  First, the guy at Chipotle misunderstood and put hot salsa on my salad - it is made with chipotle Tabasco, which has sugar in minute quantities. No big deal, the rest of the meal was delicious, and I didn't feel any ill effects.  Second, I ran the Warrior Dash last weekend with my girlfriend, her son, and a friend of ours.  At the end I indulged myself with my celebratory free beer that was included in the cost of the race.  I felt like crap for about 24 hours.  No guilt, just consequences - I consumed something that had negative effects on my body, I dealt with those negative effects, and now I am back on track. (I'll admit, I am very disappointed - I love good beer.  I especially love semi-free celebratory beer after achieving something.  Sigh.)

So if you are looking for that next thing to improve your teaching, this is it.  If you find yourself reaching for another can of Diet Coke (what is it with teachers and Diet Coke???), this is better.

Pictured: the enemy

If you have an unhealthy relationship with food, this is the solution.  Overall, I don't think there is anything I could have done for professional development this year that would have had as significant an impact on my teaching as this has.  It's truly amazing what my change in diet has done for me personally and professionally.

Just as a reminder, I want to leave you with this thought - I refused to do this when I first read about it.  I'm a meat and potatoes and barbecue and beer guy.  Hardcore.  Ron Swanson is my spirit animal.  Even though I am coming from that sort of angle, I am completely sold on Whole 30 and have no intention of going back to my terrible food habits, even after my 30 days are up.  Will I reintroduce things that I haven't had for this whole time?  Yes.  I plan to indulge myself in some delicious ice cream the first day I'm done with the program.  However, I will eat it in a small quantity, and won't be surprised if I find it to be disgustingly sweet.

Sometimes them's the breaks.