Floating Down the River

Music resources that make your teaching easier

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My job is crazy busy, with 42 classes a week, 2 days of early morning choir, bus duty once a week, plus lesson planning at night. so the thought of going to an all day workshop is not very enticing. When I go, I am usually glad I went and this “Make it, Take It” workshop was no exception.

Last Saturday, we had a Kodaly Chapter “make it take it”. It was so fun to talk to adults for once, catch up with my local music teacher friends, and make some really great things to use with my students.

The first item I made was rhythm cubes. I first saw something like this recently on Amy Abbott’s blog from a few years ago. She has a really cute post with rhythm cubes made out of tissue boxes covered with paper. I have been collecting boxes ever since I saw that.  See the post HERE.

I was delighted to see that we were going to make little rhythm cubes. They were so easy to make and were pretty inexpensive. I am still working on getting more sets of those tissue box cubes of Amy’s though.

Amazon.com has a bucket of 102 multicolored foam cubes for  about $18 if you have Prime (no shipping). You can make 6 sets for individual, group, or center use.

I was inspired by these cute little cubes and made a fun Valentine song and rhythm packet that has songs, centers and worksheets, now expanded to 39 pages of 4 different songs. One song is one that the older kids especially love. I am so exited to use these with my kids in the next few weeks. We have always sung most of these songs and played most of these games in the younger grades. I am excited I have some fun solfa and rhythm activities I can now use with the older kids, along with some games and songs for them. 
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The next item we made at the workshop was texting sticks. I have seen these on Pinterest and thought they looked so fun and useful. I can tell you that after using them, I am sold on how engaged the kids were and how much it helped them connect with another sense and helped them see the relationships between the notes. Here are some pictures of my kids using them this week. 
The idea came from Ms Manguasso’s Blog. She has many levels of texting sticks and you can get them on her blog HERE. A teacher in our chapter made a diatonic side and a pentatonic side s,l, drm s’l’. You can get that set in her brand new TPT store with both diatonic and pentatonic for only $1 HERE.
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The third project we did was an inner hearing puppet. From what the other teachers say, these are very hard to find. One teacher said she bought one in Germany. This was definitely the hardest project but well worth it. 
We use these for inner hearing. When the puppet is out, the kids sing the song. When the puppet is down in the cone, the kids hear the song in their head. They will love this! 
This is the puppet I made. 
The materials we used were:
  • A heavy cardboard cone

These are sold around Christmas at craft stores, but you can still get them online. Get

there HERE. They got the rest of the materials at Walmart and Hobby Lobby (be sure to go on their web site and get the coupon). 
  • colored cotton fabric for the cone. 
  • Spray on glue for putting the fabric on the cone.
  • Linen fabric for the dress of the puppet
  • A wooden dowel for the puppet stick
  • A wooden ball for the head- 1.5″ for the bottom and 5″ for the head
  • Hot glue gun
  • Thread and needle for sewing the dress
  • Buttons for putting on the front of the dress
  • Embroidery thread for the hair
  • Sharpie marker for making the face
Go to this craft blog to get instructions HERE.
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Our final project was a pack of 50 solfa cards. They were already cut for us and they had already cut colored pieces of paper in half and put the into packs of 50. We just had to glue them onto the paper and then I took them to school and laminated them. The teacher at our workshop made these and you can get then for a bargain at $5.00 in her store HERE.
Solfa Cards
It was so much fun and I have already used some items. I am so excited to use the rest in my teaching. 

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