5 minutes to make an impression: Orchestra is your ticket

Today was the 7th grade orientation at the junior high where I teach.  This is when the 7th graders go to each of their classes for 5 minutes so they can have a little practice following their schedule and finding their classes before school starts.  I had 5 minutes with each of my 7th grade classes - 5 minutes to make a first impression.  I've done these orientations before, and I used to just tell the students a few annoucements - when to bring instruments, where they will store their instruments, etc.  But this year, I starting thinking....this is the first 5 minutes I get with my new beginners.  Do I really want to just rattle off information that they will probably not remember?  I want them to be super excited for my class and I want to plant the seed that motivates students to stay in orchestra for years to come.  That is why I changed my 5 minutes.

As students entered my classroom today, I greeted each student and gave them 1 carnival type ticket (I already had a bunch on hand from doing raffles for practice motivation).  They had no idea what the ticket was for because I didn't say - and they were so scared they didn't ask.  But they all wanted a ticket.  As soon as my 5 minutes started, I starting talking about the tickets - about how each student who enters my class now has a ticket.

Here's a quick summary of what I said:  Tickets remind me of carnivals - where there is so much to do and so many opportunities for fun rides - but you need tickets to go on those rides.  When you join orchestra, you get your first ticket.  Tickets mean opportunity.  Because of orchestra class, you will have many opportunties available just for you - and the more you focus and work, the more 'tickets' you earn and the more opportunities you have.

I had the picture above projected in front of the room.  I then talked about the different tickets of opportunity - doors that will be opened - because of the talents they are about to develop:

Kids were mesmerized. After I was done, I had 1 minute left.  I called out a few random raffle numbers and gave prizes (magnets printed at buildasign.com that I designed for students lockers with my orchestra theme.)  Since I only gave a few prizes, I told the rest of the students that they could still earn a magnet and I would tell them how later.

This presentation went over really well.   I had one parent come to me afterwards to tell me about how much she agrees that orchestra opens doors of opportunity.  Another parent mentioned that her son is already determined to do whatever it takes to earn one of those magnets.  I'm so glad I ditched the annoucements.  Now students have had a glimpse of where orchestra can take them and I think they took it to heart.   I meant to tell students to save their ticket as a reminder of this lesson, but I forgot.  You would think I would have found a bunch of discarded tickets on the floor of my classroom after this mini-lesson, but I didn't find any.  Every student kept their ticket.

Tunes for teaching shifting

It has been difficult for me to find music for teaching shifting.  When learning how to play in position, students need music that is somewhat simple so they can focus on developing the muscle memory for solid intonation.  I believe many tunes in method books which emphasize shifting are too difficult - requiring the student to think about too many skills at once (bowing, shifting up, then down, then up, fingering, note reading, rhythm).  I still remember when my private teacher told me that I was ready to learn shifting.  She gave me a technique book filled with page-long exercises in every position.  I hated those exercises!  They had no melody, they seemed to go on forever, and they were not fun to play.  I rarely practiced them, so it's amazing that I ever learned any of the positions.

I will be teaching both junior high and high school this year, so I am building up my curriculum for more advanced technique.  I had this tune in my head and I quickly wrote it down - perfect for learning 3rd position (violin, viola, cello) and 1/2 position (bass).  It's just a quick exercise - with a melody - to be played all in one position.  It would make a great warm-up for solid intonation, tone, and expression.  I named this tune 'Woe is Me' - after my own memories of learning 3rd position.  :)

You may download the score and parts free HERE.

Seating Chart, anyone?

I was just asked a question about a seating chart template, so I thought I would share mine.  You can download it free here:  String Orchestra Seating Chart

I change seating in all of my classes every 2 weeks because I don't want any students getting too comfortable in the back.  I try to put strong players with those that need help and I feel this helps propels students to learn more quickly.  The layout is specific to the size of my classroom (I can't fit more than 4 rows of violins and 3 rows of celli).  But, if you can use it, great!

Bell-work for the Strings Class

Our district has been really focusing on student learning objectives and  teacher/student goals.  As part of this process, we have had quite a few trainings about 'checking for understanding,' and I believe this concept really helps improve teaching and student growth.  I remember a time during my first year when I taught a new concept - low 1's, and then gave a playing test at the end of the week.  As I taught the lessons, I thought my students were getting it.  They sounded in tune - at least in the front (we know how that goes).  At playing test time, it was pretty discouraging to learn that most students were not understanding the skill and they were extreemely out of tune.  I should have checked for understanding earlier in the week so that I could have targeted my teaching to what my class needed.  Students could have then had the experience they needed to do well on the playing test.

Now, I try to check for understanding constantly.  One way I do this in my beginning strings class is to have bell-work that students complete every day.  An added bonus is bell-work gives students something to quietly focus on during tuning. Here's what's been working for me:

6 Tips for Implementing Bell-work:

1.  Establish a routine.  From the first week of school, teach students to always read the board where you will have instructions about bell-work.  Students should enter the classroom, set up their instrument, get it tuned by the teacher, then complete bell-work.  The student must be finished with bell-work BEFORE the teacher is done tuning.  When bellwork is finished, students place the paper on their music stands in full view for grading.  Students who do not finish do not get points and there is no way to make-up missed bell-work assignments.

2,  Keep stacks of staff paper (half sheets) and blank paper (half sheets) on hand so you can write directions for bell-work on the whiteboard and students answer on one the papers. Then, you never have to hunt for specific worksheets or make copies.  (I do use my 'Be An Amazing Note-reader' workbook pages for bellwork during the first few weeks of school.)

3. Don't stress about creating bell-work assignments - it's easy!  As you think about what students learned the day before, what could you ask them to check for understanding?  What it essential that you want to make sure students understand? It can be short, simple, and easy.  Possibilities are endless.  Here are a few examples;

Note-reading        - draw 10 notes on the staff
                             - draw your clef 10 times and circle the best one
                             - divide the staff into 4 measures and draw 2 half notes in each measure
                             - draw one note on every line of the staff and label the note names
                             - draw the notes for your open strings

Rhythm                - music math
                             - copy a rhythm and label the counting
                             - draw a dotted half note. How many beats?

Skills:                   - what should your thumb look like when forming a proper bow hold?
                             - Show your bow hold to your stand partner.  Write about anything you                                                   see that is good, or that should be fixed.
                             - What are the notes on the D string?
                             - How long did you practice last night?
                             -  List anything that was hard for you to play yesterday?
                             -  How do you play F#?

4.  Keep grading simple.  During warm-ups, you can walk around the room and look at the papers on the music stands to see who has done their bellwork.  Give every student points for completing the work, and collect only the ones where you see the student needs help.  Then, you can spend time at the end of class re-teaching the students who did not understand.

5.  Consider investing in clear pockets and fine tip white-board markers for quick bell-work assignments.  It saves paper and they are very convenient.

6.  Be sure students know what to do with bellwork papers at the end of class.  You don't want little papers left all over your classroom. You can have students hand them in or throw them in the recycle bin on the way out the door.

Karate Strings Pass Off Sheet and Curriculum Guide

Part of my job is to mentor the instructors that teach beginning strings in the elementary schools in our district.  Our elementary orchestra classes meet before school only 2-3 times per week.  We have been doing a karate strings program and the students really enjoy earning the belts.  This year, we will be using a different  method book and I am totally re-structuring the curriculum.  I just finished making a new karate strings pass-off sheet and curriculum guide. Students will staple the karate paper in the front of their method books and pass off the belts throughout the school year.   The curriculum guide is for teachers so that we stay on track for our final concert when we combine all students together (over 300!) for a giant Monster Concert.

New Trinkets for Teaching Beginning Strings

I'm always on the lookout for trinkets to use in my classes to help students learn position and to keep the class fun.  I had a colleague once tell me that he would never use trinkets in his class, and that's fine.  Every teacher needs to stay true to his/her own personality.  Yet, we do teach children, and children like little toys.  Object lessons and mini-challenges help students remember our objectives and they help students focus on accomplishing specific goals in their practice.  I recently found a site called www.rinovelty.com and I bought a few items to use in my class.  Things from this site were very inexpensive and I am impressed with the quality of the items.  Here are some pictures of the items I will be trying out in my class.

My favorite item that I found is this balancing eagle.  It will work great for teaching students to keep violins/violas level on the shoulder.  Students can practice balancing the eagle on their instruments.  The eagle toy is pretty awesome and I bought enough of these for students to earn throughout the year by meeting certain practice goals.  It's amazing what students will do for a little 30 cent toy. :)

The balancing eagle can also be balanced on the fingers.  This works well for showing violin and viola students to keep fingers round and tall.

I thought these eyeball rings might be useful for placing on the bow as a bow distribution lesson.  After trying this out, I noticed that these rings will only work for full size bows.  The circle part will be too wide for smaller bows and these probably would not work on the fingers of young students.  I teach 7th grade beginners, so these rings will fit my students.

These rings could also be balanced in the scroll as the student plays.  It is impossible to keep the eyeballs in the scroll with poor position.  This draws students focus to proper playing position as they practice their music.

 

I love these little emoji stress balls.  I will be using these for finger strengthening exercises and some team rhythm games.  (I should write a post someday about the fun rhythm games we play using balls)

I purchased a bunch of these 2 minute timers to use in class and for students to earn as a practice incentive.  I don't want students to watch the clock as they practice, but I do want them to realize how much they can accomplish in only 2 minutes when they really focus.  We can use this to time students as they perform repetitions on a small excerpt of music and see who can get the highest number of perfect reps.  When students practice, we don't want them to just play through a piece once.  We want them to work...and I will be teaching them how to really practice using these timers.  I have used this timer with my son in his piano practice, and it really helps keep him motivated and focused.

Technology Awesomeness - AirPlay!

I use my laptop, iPad, and projector almost every day in my classes.  I haven't needed a gym membership because I get plenty of exercise running to push 'play' or 'stop' on my iPad as needed.  Though I probably needed the exercise, why didn't anyone ever tell me about www.airserver.com?!  AirServer is going to change the way I teach.  It is super duper awesome.  I just installed it today and can't wait to use it in the classroom.  It's inexpensive, it's easy, and it works great!  What does it do, you ask?

The AirServer program runs on your computer and allows other devices to connect through the same WiFi so that your computer can mirror the screen of your portable device.  Now I won't be tied down by wires when working with my phone or iPad in class!  I can keep my device with me as I walk around the room, mirror my device's screen to my computer that is connected to the projector, and wowie wow - so much easier!  Plus, you can have multiple screens mirrored to the computer at one time.  That is so awesome! This will be very handy when we are playing classroom games using the iPads.  The teams can pass the iPads around and the whole class will stay engaged because they will all be able to see what is happening on the screens.  Also, my iPhone would not connect to my projector before, but with AirServer, I can connect my phone via my computer with no problems.

Maybe everyone else already knows about this, but I just thought I'd tell you anyway because I'm pretty excited. :)

The True Beginning: Before the Method Book reviews

I have a slight addiction to getting packages in the mail so yesterday was a happy day because I  received my spiral bound copy of "The True Beginning: Before the Method Book"!  It's nice to have the digital files for curriculum because its easier to keep track of everything and you never have to worry about losing an original.  Even so, I love having a printed and bound copy of this book!  It's easier to read and with a printed copy, I can write in the margins and add more ideas.

My other products in my store have all been digital file downloads, but I decided to give teachers the option of purchasing this book as a hard copy.  You can either purchase the digital file and hard copy together as a set for $40 at my store:  www.orchestraclassroom.com, or if you only want the printed book, you may purchase it for $25 at www.thebookpatch.com.

I have received feedback from some teachers who have already purchased this book.  Here are the comments I have received so far:


Dear Angie:

Have read a great deal of your book already.  It is right on.

Good luck with your book.  Every beginning student, and their parents,
need to read it and do the work pages.

Thanks for sending it to me.  I know that you put a tremendous amount of
time and work into this project.

Thanks again,
Marilyn



Got it.  Thank you so much!!  I can't imagine how much work this was for you.  This fall will be my 12th year of teaching, but only my 2nd teaching beginning/middle school orchestra....this is going to be such a valuable resource!!  Thanks again, and keep up your amazing work!

Nick

Thank you! These are so great.

Michelle

Practice with PURPOSE

I've been thinking a lot about practicing since I am presenting a session about motivating students to practice at the 2015 NAfME National Convention in Nashville.  My oldest son started taking Suzuki violin lessons when he was 4 years old.  I practiced with him every day and we made some good progress, as long as we practiced exactly the way the teacher told us to practice.  But, there were plenty of times when I could hardly get my 4-year-old to get out his violin...let alone get him to hold his instrument the right way.  After a year or so, my little beginner violinist was in a rut.  We weren't making any progress, even though we were practicing.  He was getting frustrated, and so was I...because I knew it was my fault.  It was such a struggle just to get him to practice, I was allowing him to quickly play through all of the songs and exercises, without really working to make sure he played accurately.  We were practicing every single day, but we were practicing just to check it off the to-do list... not to improve skills.  This slowed his progress tremendously and it wasn't as fun.  It was like we were stuck at a red light that was never turning green.  We just couldn't progress. Thankfully, we had a wise and experienced teacher who waited for us to get it right before we moved on in the repertoire.  If she had let us move ahead before mastering necessary skills, my son probably would have become more frustrated and quit lessons.

I didn't want to be working on Twinkle Twinkle forever.  I knew we had to transform our practicing and raise our standards.  To help my son stay motivated, I installed a toy basketball net on the door to our living room and I let him try to make a basket every time he completed a task on our practice agenda.  We worked extra hard during practice, paying attention to every bow stroke, every note, and every sound that came out of the violin.  We focused on one technique at a time during each repitition that he played:  Intonation, Tone, Bowing, Rhythm.  Instead of just playing through our exercises, we listened, analyzed, and corrected.  We made sure each repitition was perfect.  After one week of our new practice standards our teacher was amazed at our sudden improvement.  After hearing my son at his next lesson, she exclaimed, "What's the secret!?  What did you do!?"

The secret about practicing is that time doesn't matter.  The secret is about paying attention, focusing and correcting everything you do.  It's about practicing with a PURPOSE!  This takes a great deal of maturity, so a parent must help a  young child when they practice.  As a public school orchestra teacher, I need my students to learn how to practice effectively on their own.  I guarantee that most students think practicing is playing through a song once or twice - that's how I used to practice as a kid and I wish I would have known better.  Specific practice assignments which describe exactly how and what to practice will help students learn how to progress.  Since beginners don't know how to break up a piece into smaller sections, tell them the measures you would like them to work on and demonstrate how practice bowing, intonation, etc.

Here is a poster I just made to help students remember how to practice.  This will help students remember that practicing takes thought, focus, and purpose!

"These are BEGINNERS???"

"These are BEGINNERS???"  I hear that phrase quite often when parents, teachers, administration, or music store reps come to visit my classroom. It makes me smile and I always tell my class about these compliments.  I'm not saying that there are never times when we sound like a horror movie soundtrack, because sometimes we do....sometimes.  People tend to assume that a beginning music class should sound bad, but that is a myth!  Students really can learn to sound good from the beginning.

I am always amused when I open beginner method books.  Each method book contains that first page with a picture or two, showing students how they should hold their instruments and bows.  Then, the music begins and students must focus all attention on the page to play with the class.  As soon as students are looking at a page of music, they are not looking at their position or bow hold.  I set out to elaborate the process of teaching bow hold and instrument position and I'm still amazed that it took 97 pages to teach what the method books teach in one page. (see http://orchestrateacher.blogspot.com/2015/06/its-finished-true-beginning-before.html)

Every year that I teach, I spend more and more time allowing my beginners to become comfortable with the basics of playing, before cracking open the method book.  Last school year, I didn't even have students bring their books until we had been playing in class for a little over 2 weeks.  When we finally did start using the method, it was easy for the students.  They had the basics down, and the method book became a tool for reinforcement.  Students were able to progress very quickly through the first part of the book and they sounded good - right from the start!  The method book is not the lesson plan.  I use it for reinforcing.  Students learn skills first, THEN we open the book and they see what the skills look like on paper.

I like using method books and I always will use one in my class, but I do believe that beginners need more than just a method book.  I had a student transfer to my class from another town.  His mother called me to ask me about my class and about my practice requirements.  She told me that her son was not enjoying orchestra because the teacher was requiring the students to practice out of the method book for 30 minutes per day.  I told her that I do not grade on practicing, so her son decided to continue in orchestra and take my class.  This student now frequently tells me that orchestra is his favorie class.  I wonder if we sometimes squelch student's passion for music by forcing method book music all the time.  There are some fun tunes in method books, but the music is mostly exercises designed to develop specific techniques and skills.  Students will stay better motivated if they LOVE the music.  Since most of my students want to burn their method books at the end of the year, I don't get the impression that they love method book music as much as the other music we do in class.

My beginner classes tend to learn fast and I love our first concert in October, because parents are amazed that the students are beginners.  It's so fun to 'wow' an audience, and we do it every year. I believe we can do this because the method book has become our tool for reinforcing instead of becoming THE curriculum.  Students stay motivated by learning other supplemental pieces which have multi-level parts so that all students can progress and improve on their level.  The students who learn faster than others can be challenged by learning the more difficult melodies, and their talents take flight.  Once the rest of the class hears students playing a difficult melody, they want to learn it too and they practice.  This is why I don't have a practice requirement.  I do my best to motivate them, and they choose to practice.

For the supplemental music, I use mostly fiddle tunes that I have arranged with more than one part.  Students love music that has more than one part because it sounds more like 'real' music.  I included 3 of these pieces in my book;  "The True Beginning:  Before the Method Book."  I also use the "Basic Fiddlers Philharmonic" book by Andrew Dabzynski and "Strings Extraordinaire" by McAllister/Monday.

It's finished! The True Beginning: Before the Method Book

I posted earlier about a new book I was working on this summer called 'The True Beginning: Before the Method Book.'  This turned out to be a huge and very time consuming project.  I thought perhaps I could cover everything in 40 pages or so, but my final book is 97 pages!  I am happy with how it has turned out and I hope it will be beneficial for teachers who would like some tips on helping beginners establish great postion and proper playing habits.  The book contains 10 lessons to be taught before students begin their method books.  Included are worksheets, techniques, tips, and music to help students learn playing position, bow hold, and left hand technique.  I am especially excited about the 3 new beginning pieces that are included in the book that each contain 3 levels of ability.   I believe these pieces will really help beginners stay motivated and have fun at the early stages of their skill development.

You can purchase .pdf download of the book   --or--   a .pdf  PLUS  a spiral bound hard copy at my store -  www.orchestraclassroom.com

Here are some sample pages:

Puffy stickers....Eyes on your bow!

Puffy stickers are really handy for a few different things when teaching beginning strings and they work well because you can easily feel a bumpy sticker.  To help students place their left thumbs on the correct place on the neck, I stick a puffy sticker in that spot and they can immediately feel when their thumbs are in the right place.  Depending on the shape of the sticker, you can create a story or analogy to help students remember how to place their thumbs correctly.  For example, I found some puffy kitty stickers and I told students a story about how fragile little kittens are and how you have to hold them gently and not squeeze them.  When placing the thumbs on the kitty sticker, they had to remember not to squeeze on the kitty and to keep the thumbs loose and soft.

Check out what I found at Wal-Mart today!  I was walking by the stickers and I stopped to see if they had any puffy stickers and they had these....

I was so excited - I bought 2 packages but now I wish I would have bought more.  These are perfect for helping beginners watch their bow to keep their bows straight between the fingerboard and the bridge.  When students first place their bows on the string, I always instruct them to keep their eyes on the bow to keep it straight.  It seems like so many times, they are bowing totally crooked and they aren't focusing on the bow,  so I will say, "Eyes on your bow!"  Now, I can really stick some eyes on their bow to help them remember the goal of carefully placing and moving the bow.