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iDoceo App for the iPad

12/27/2013

I know that I have neglected my blog, but I plan to get back with the program and keep up with my blog and website.

I would like to share a great app for the iPad (it is only for the iPad/iPad mini). iDoceo is an amazing app that does everything you can do with a grade book. It's a great way to store your data from all the assessments you do in your classroom. This will come in handy when it's time to show your data for the new teacher evaluation that many of us are having to face.

This is not a free app, it does cost $5.99, but it's worth every penny.
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/idoceo-teachers-assistant./id477120941?mt=8
They also have a website where you can learn how to use the app.
http://www.idoceo.net/index.php/en/

Here is what the home screen looks like. You can add as many classes as you want. There is no limit on how many classes you have or how many students. I love the reminders section. It comes in handy to type little notes on the things you need to remember for the week. This app is packed with a lot of features. It has everything a teacher needs to use throughout the day.

I teach at two schools and being able to have both school's schedules handy has been a life saver.

This is the planner feature. I haven't yet utilized this feature, but you can type in the activities that you will be doing with each class.

Another feature that has helped me a lot is the ability to create seating charts. You can create up to 5 different seating charts for one class. This will come in handy for things like centers and assessing. I also love how you can take a picture of the student.   This has helped me to learn students names. The great thing about the pictures is the are compressed to a small file and they don't take up space on the iPad. I teach over 500 students and I have taken all of their pictures.
What's also nice about the seating charts is you can do a quick attendance (as seen above), or you can select an assessment to score them on. All you have to do is tap their picture and it will put the grade on their picture. Just keep tapping their picture until it puts the score you want the student to have.
   You can also input scores in the class list. The student's picture also shows up on the class list. I input score both ways. Most of the time I will input the score in the class list view. I use the seating chart view to take attendance.
   You can use any grading system you want. It comes with several different types of grading, but you can create your own.

Another cool feature is the random selector. When you're in the seating chart view, you will see the two dice. When you click on them it will pop a student's name up. This is great to use for picking a student to take a turn. You can also randomly rearrange the seating chart, but you do need to be carefully. I always leave seating chart 1 alone, this is my original seating chart and I don't want it to get messed up. I usually select seating chart 2 if I need to rearrange them. I will do this when I want to put them in an order for an activity or an assessment.
Another good feature is that you can color the students name plate. I color them for the risers. At one school I do have flipforms and I color code the seating chart for the color of the flipform. I have concert risers at my other school and I color by section on the risers.

You do have the ability to print to a printer that has Air Print or you can send it to your email or even dropbox. You can do this with the class list (where all the students grades show up) or the seating chart.

I am still learning how to use all the features and there are many that I still haven't used.

Other things you can do with the app:
1. create as many categories for each class. I have: rhythm, melody, turns, attendance, and music concepts.
2. You can record the students and it will store it under their name. I haven't used this feature, but it would be great for assessments.
3. You can put parent contact info in or make specials notes about the students( e.g. medical concerns, behavior concerns, or whatever info you want to put in.)
4. When you delete a student or class, you can recover it later. It stores all the deleted items in the recycle area.
5. You can copy students and assignments from one class to another. The downside is it won't copy the student's scores. You would have to re-input them into the new class.

7 Comments

Rhythm Wars: lightsaber rhythms (pool noodles)

4/15/2013

9 Comments

This month I introduced my students to "Rhythm Wars". I purchased Rhythm Wars from Teachers pay Teachers website. They are created by Amy Abbott. Here is a link to get more details and to purchase your own copy.

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Rhythm-Wars-Poison-Game-ti-tika

Amy has created several different versions to meet your rhythm needs.
I like them because they are mp4 video that was created in PowerPoint. The rhythms move on the screen just like the words do in the movie "Star Wars". You don't have to worry about changing the slides. Just push play and let it go. This way I can wander around trying to catch students who either play the "poison" rhythm or who are playing rhythms incorrectly.

Rhythm Wars is played just like "Poison Rhythm". There is one rhythm pattern that is the "poison" rhythm. Students play rhythms, but when they see the "poison" rhythm the cannot play it or they are out. I also get students out for playing rhythms incorrectly (e.g. like playing on a rest). The teacher is the only one who can say who is out. When a student tells another student they are out, they will be out. Here are some snapshots of the Rhythm War file from Amy Abbott.

This is the poison rhythm in the ti-tika version.

This is what you see after each poison rhythm. There is also an alarm sound that plays.

For the first week lesson we played the game using rhythm sticks. I told the students if they did well this week, we would use lightsabers next week.
I made the lightsabers from Pool Noodles that I bought at my local Dollar Tree store. I bought 16 of them that I cut in half. Then I used duck tape and electrical tape to make the handles look like lightsabers. I also bought two laundry bags at the Dollar Tree to store the lightsabers in. Each bag holds 16 lightsabers.

Before I let them have a lightsaber I went over the rules and expectations. I told my students that if they can't follow the rules, then they will not participate in this activity. I modeled the activity for the class with another student. I showed them how to play the rhythm on their partners lightsaber and things to they need to be careful with. Then I had students find a partner and a spot in the room where both players could see either the Promethean board or my big monitor. They also has to decide who was player one and who was player two. Each player takes a turn to play a rhythms, but they had to be careful not to play the poison rhythm.

Here is a video of some of my students playing the game. They chose to trade spots each time so that they could take turns seeing my big monitor. My monitor sometimes has a clearer view than my Promethean board (I have an old projector, but soon will have a new one). This not the best video. I was using my iPad to take it and realize I need to hold the iPad in landscape mode rather than Portrait.

Here's some pictures of my students using the lightsabers.

9 Comments

Solfa Texting Sticks

3/24/2013

166 Comments

I like to use a lot of hands on things in class. To help students sing on pitch we use Solfa Texting sticks. I will sing a short melody using the pitches we are working on. As students sing the melody back they touch the solfa pitch on their stick.

I learned about Solf Texting Sticks while attending a workshop at the 2011 CMEA (Colorado) convention. The presenter was Amanda Silvestri. She made hers with small stickers that she wrote each solfa letter on, but I decided to make my own on the computer. Below are the 3 sets that I use in class.

I print the solfa ladders onto a full sheet label. I bought the full sheet labels from Office Depot. Mine are by 3M, 8.5 X 11" and have permanent adhesive. The are for a laser printer, but work just fine on my ink jet printer.

I cut out each ladder and peel the backing off then I stick it onto the craft stick. I finish them off by painting a coat of Mod Podge to help keep them from smearing and getting dirty. It also helps to keep the students from picking at the sticker.

Click on the button below to download the Solfa Ladder template. There are 15 ladders on a page. All three sets are included in this file.

PDF file Solfa Ladders

166 Comments

Debrief: Getting Students to Reflect on Their Learning

1/5/2013

4 Comments

At my school we have been working on the Workshop Model. The Workshop Model is nothing really new and most teacher automatically teach using many elements of the Workshop Model. The Workshop Model has 4 section: Warm-Up (also called a Hook), mini lesson, work session, and a debrief. The Workshop Model really takes over 45 minutes because the warm-up is usually no more than 5-7 minutes, the mini lesson is 7-10 minutes, work session is 40 minutes, and the debrief should be no more than 7 minutes. This does present a problem in the music room because we only have 45 minutes and we usually work on several different concepts in one lesson, but I am expected to follow the Workshop Model even though it is a watered down version of it.

I want to share what I do for the debrief part of the Workshop Model. After the students have done the activity (the work). I will have the class sit on the risers or on the floor in a circle. Then I will call on a student that I know they can demonstrate the lesson target. I have them come up in front of the class and show the class what they did.

Before they start I have them share what they are learning. They will basically restate the learning target. They would say something like "Today I am learning how to play the instrument using proper mallet technique and the name of the instrument I am playing on."

My fifth graders are learning to play the "response" part from the song "Bound for South Australia". For the first lesson I wanted them to focus on holding the mallets correctly and to be able to name the instrument they were on..

After the student states the learning target, they would play the part on the instrument. Then I would have the student explain how they were able to play the part. They will basically use things from the success criteria to explain what they needed to know or do to get it done.

We usually have 3-4 students share their learning. I only pick the first student to share, but then I let the student pick who should share next. I am suppose to pick all of them and they are suppose to be students who can demonstrate the learning target, but I feel that all students should be able to share their work even if they are not successful yet.   It's a great way to teach students how to give and take good or bad criticism. After all this is a big part of what goes on in Music. It is part of our music standards.

I am working on getting my students to be more independent on sharing what they know. Right now I am still having to guide them through the process.

Even thought this all takes up time. I actually think it's very valuable. This really helps students to be accountable for their learning because they don't know if they will be called on to share at the end. It also helps me to see if the students are understanding what we are working on or do we need more time with it.

4 Comments

WipeOut: Rhythm Reading Game

1/4/2013

12 Comments

I have created another fun rhythm game called WipeOut. WipeOut is an easy game for all grade levels to play. I will be using the game with 2nd - 5th grade. I will first use it in class to introduce the game to the students. I will divide them into 2 teams and we will play throughout the lesson.

Materials Needed:
1. 4 player card (available in the download)
2. 40 turtles. I bought little plastic turtles from my local teacher store. You can use other materials: buttons, beans, bingo chips, etc.
3. 2, 1" wooden cubes (can get these at your local teacher store). The download includes the images for the dice to print and cut out. Just glue them on or print them onto an Avery full sheet label page.

How to Play:
Step 1: each player will need one player card and 10 turtles
Step 2: each player places their 10 turtles on their player card. They can put them on any square they want.

Here is a sample of what it can look like.

Step 3: The first player rolls the dice and either removes some turtles off their board or they might get to add a turtle to another payer's board.
Here are some samples of different dice rolls and an explanation of what you would do:

I would then remove one turtle from the 4 sixteenth column and one turtle from the half note column.

I would remove one turtle from the sixteenth note column and then I can pick any turtle I want.

I would remove one turtle from the two eighth note column and then I would put one turtle on one of my opponent's board.

I would put one turtle on two of my opponent's board. You cannot put more than one turtle on a player's board.

After you remove a turtle you must read the rhythm that is under the turtle. If another player catches you reading the rhythm wrong or forgetting to read the rhythm, then you have to put the turtle back on your board.

The goal of the game is to be the first player to "WipeOut" their board.

Click on the button below to download the game. Print them onto card stock and you can either laminate them or put them in a plastic sleeve.
Enjoy!
Tami

Wipeout pdf

12 Comments

Strong Beats & Weak Beats

11/22/2012

4 Comments

Second graders are working on Steady Beat. We have been discussing strong beat and weak beats. We watched the Quaver Music episode on Steady beat then we went to the Quaver Music website (www.quavermusic.com) to do the Interactive White board activity "Find That Beat".

In this activity you play on of the music tracks then you have to figure out the number of beats (2, 3, or 4). When you figure it out you drag the strong and weak beats out of the beat jar and place them in the measure. When you're done you click on "check my answer".
To help keep all students engaged in the activity I gave every students a beat strip and a bag of strong and weak beats. Each bag had one strong beat (plastic chip with a heart on it) and 3 weak beats (small plastic bingo chips).

As the music played every student tried to figure out if the music was grouped in 2, 3 or 4. Then I would pick one student to go up to the board to show us what they think it is.

4 Comments

Note We Are Working On; graphic organizer

10/22/2012

14 Comments

This year I really want my students to really know all about the notes we work with. I want them to be able to give the real name, syllable sound, tell me how many beats, and to notate it. I decided instead of just discussing it in class that I needed some kind of hands on activity. I decided to create a graphic organizer. Here it is what it looks like:

Here is what one looks like with it's completed:

I plan on making 30 copies and then put them into a plastic sleeve. Students will use a dry erase marker to fill it in. I will be doing this with 1st-5th grade.
I always start my lessons in a crew circle. I will have them fill them out in our crew circle. Throughout the lesson I will have them look for the note in the music we are working with. When they see the note I will have them hold a thumb up and shake it. I will also have them count how many they see, go up to the board to circle or color the note, read the measure that has the note in it, etc.
I also plan on creating a Note Wall to show the notes we know.

You can go to my download page on my website to get a copy of the graphic organizer.

14 Comments

What Time Is It?

9/18/2012

2 Comments

Well time has gotten the best of me these last few weeks. I have been struggling trying to get through everything in my lessons. We have a really crazy specials schedule this year. We are on a construction calendar because this summer they will be redoing the roof. We will be getting out a month early so this project can be done. This means our school day is longer by 20 minutes a day. We were able to add 4 more minutes to our specials time. We see each class for 49 minutes instead of the usual 45mins. All the classes come to specials at odd times (e.g 9:24-10:13, 10:13-11:02). I have been trying my best to make sure I finish on time, but I haven't been consistent with it. I decided I needed a timer to help me keep track.

After doing a Google search on classroom timers I finally found a winner. I really like the MegaTimer from Kagan. It is large enough to see from across the room and it has large buttons that are clearly marked.

This timer does a lot of different things. I love the student selector. Whenever I need to pick a student to do a job I can quickly push the student selector and it will pick number. You can program the number of students in the class from 1-99. I put it on 28 because that is the largest class we have right now. I assign all my students a number. I use Easy Grade Pro grade book program and I can easily keep track of everyone's number using Easy Grade Pro. I assign numbers by ABC order using their last names. Students keep the same number all year. If a student moves out, then their number stays unassigned until a new student moves in. My students are good about remembering their number, but if they forget I print out a list that has their number. I use the numbers for everything (e.g. picking students, assigning recorder folders, rhythm folders, bags of manipulates, etc.). The students love to watch the timer select a number.

I use the countdown timer a lot. On my lesson plans I put the time of how long I want to spend on each activity. I set the timer before we begin each activity. I turn the clock so we can't see it counting down. Otherwise some students would sit there the entire time watching it count down and then they want to announce how much time is left or do the final 10 second countdown. The count down clock will beep once when it's at the 80% mark. The beep is not too obnoxious, but it is loud enough to hear. As you can see in the picture above the stop button is nice and big.

There are some other features that I haven't used yet:
1. Team selector: works just like the student selector. You can program how many teams you want to have.
2. Random: This can be used in different ways. You can use it like using dice, spinner, random numbers to create math equations, etc. You can program it to the number you want to use. The max number is 9,999.
3. Stop Watch: works like any standard stop watch
4. Alarm clock: you could set the ending time of the class

I really like how all the buttons are clearly marked. They all have preset times or number, but if you want to change the settings you just hold the button for a few seconds until the number blinks on the screen. Then you just use the up and down arrows to change the settings to what you want. It does save your settings.
I purchased mine directly from the company's website:

http://www.kaganonline.com/catalog/JMT/

I also purchased the AC adapter (doesn't come with it). The clock can run on batteries. It takes 6 double A batteries. I don't know how long it last on batteries since I use the AC adapter.

I really love this timer and it really has helped me to stay on track so I can get to everything on the lesson. I am also no longer late getting my classes lined up and ready to leave.

2 Comments

Are You on Target with Your Effort?

8/26/2012

11 Comments

My first few weeks of school have been going well. I have been very busy trying to finish up setting up my room and getting class list and seating charts ready. I also spent a lot of time trying to update my website. This week I will be introducing all my classes to my Effort rubric. We are an Expeditionary Learning school and having students self assessment themselves is one of the components. We use a rubric of 1-4, 4 being the best.
I will discuss how a 4 is a person who has full colorful music. They even go back and fix mistakes without being told to (that's why it has a repeat sign). I will also go over each of the bullets below.

A 3 is a person who does good work most of the time, but makes a mistake (the rest). Sometimes they will fix them on their own, but occasionally they need a little reminder or they just excepts the one mistake.

A 2 is a person who does sloppy work. Their work is not complete and they make several mistakes. A 2 is also a person who is starting to be a passenger. We always say "We are Crew, not Passengers".

A 1 is a person who doesn't get any work done and they often give up when things are hard. They are being a passenger.

Many classroom teachers have their students record their answers either in a notebook or on an effort sheet. I teach 500 students and that would be a lot of paper and it would take up valuable time getting out the paper and pencils. I have created an Effort scoreboard. Throughout class I will move students names. I only move their name when they are not doing good work. During our debrief time I will move students names up. All students start off on a 3 "Ready to Learn" they have to earn the 4 or whatever score they will end on. Students who got moved down to a 2 can be moved up to a 3 and students who got moved to 1 can be moved up to a 2, but they cannot be moved up to a 4 since a 4 does high quality work and follows all the expectations.

When a student gets on a 1 it is Teacher's Choice this means that I will decide what needs to happen to help the student to make better choices. Most of the time I will ask them to go and sit in the Isle of Rest.

The Isle of Rest is a quiet place where students can go to refocus or to calm down. I do not make students write or owe a recess because they went there. I have provided some tools for students to use to help them to refocus. There are sand times, liquid timers, stuffed animal, paper to draw or write their thoughts down or just to doodle. I also have a copy of the rules to help remind them of the expectations. Sometimes I will ask the students to go practice the rules. I don't micromanage this. If students do it, then great, but it's okay if they just sit their. The only thing I care about is that they are quiet and they are not distracting the class. I will call the office if the student refuses to comply to this expectation.
If anyone wants a copy of my PowerPoint you can click here to download it. I will also put it on my download page on my website.

Effort Rubric Download

I know some people want to sign-up to receive an email when I update my website and blog, but unfortunately Weebly doesn't have this feature yet. I am hoping that this feature will be coming soon. They did a survey last month asking users what we would like to see and it was one of the choices. Crossing my fingers that it will be the next new feature.

Tami

11 Comments

First Week of School

8/18/2012

4 Comments

I now have seen all my classes Kindergarten -5th grade. It was a good week and we had a good time. We really enjoyed doing the "Jump in, Jump out" activity. It was fun to see students create and do their own dance moves.

I was able to get all the Whole Brain Teaching elements in. I even introduced "Class Yes" to kindergartners. They did very well. I only did Class Yes with them, next week I will introduce the scoreboard.   1st-5th grade learned about the scoreboard and Teach Okay.
We worked on the music rules. I have 5 rules, but decided to only focus on the first 3 rules. Students did very well with Teach Okay. They were able to say the rules with all the hand gestures. During the last 5 minutes of class I had student come up in front of the class to demonstrate that they could say all three rules with hand gestures. Then the class critiqued what they did. My students are use to doing this and are pretty good about giving feedback to their classmates.

I had to change the rectangle on my floor. Originally I had it set-up to seat 32 students because that is where second grade classes were. One of our new teachers who were suppose to teach kindergarten moved up to second grade. It turns out that the new teacher wanted to do 2nd grade so she was happy when the opportunity came about.   Now all the classrooms have good size classrooms. Our biggest classes are the 4th grade classes. The largest class is 28 students. Most classes are about 20 students. These are smaller class sizes than we're use to, but it is nice to have smaller classes. I am a little worry about what this will mean for next year, but it's only the beginning of the year and things can change. I won't stress about it now and I will just enjoy having smaller classes.

With smaller class sizes and having a smaller rectangle on the floor we now have more room I also have gotten rid of a lot of furniture that I no longer need.   My room feels very open and roomy. All I need now is some windows to bring in some natural light, but that is wishful thinking.   My room sits in the middle of the building so I don't get any natural light.

I have really enjoyed my kindergarteners they seem to be learning how we do things in school very quickly. I struggled a little with them trying to get them to stay in line as we followed the lines on the floor, but that was the only problem I really had with them. We'll see how they do next week. I am hoping to get through more stuff with them than I did with last year's class.

I have really enjoyed the beginning of the year and I am hoping that things will continue to go well. Over all my classes have done well and we haven't had many issues.

Tami

4 Comments

<<Previous

iDoceo App for the iPad

Rhythm Wars: lightsaber rhythms (pool noodles)

Solfa Texting Sticks

Debrief: Getting Students to Reflect on Their Learning

WipeOut: Rhythm Reading Game

Strong Beats & Weak Beats

Note We Are Working On; graphic organizer

What Time Is It?

Are You on Target with Your Effort?

First Week of School

Ms. Mangusso

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