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The "Big Kid" Rhythm Bundle (Grades 3-6) **30% OFF!**
By Jason Litt
Included in these rhythm bundle are 25 resources that you can utilize in grades 3-6. Games, dictation, worksheets, races, and more are in this bundle as the resources discuss longer rhythmic patterns, sixteenth notes, triplets, and long durations of rests.
Definitely a semester filler in here, terrific for reinforcing your 2nd half of the year with some of your upper grades, and with 30% off when bundled together, it's a sale you can't beat!
By Jason Litt
This is a competitive solfege naming game in powerpoint format. The learning goal is for 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade students to name solfege hand signs as fast as they can. We usually play this game 'around the world' style. We start off on the left side or right side of the the room and the first two people stand up and you flash a note on the screen.The student who gets the note correct gets to move onto the next child in the class while the other student sits. Despite the previews, the solfege symbol has a blank below it, and on the next animation it will appear. That student has to make their way through the entire class before being deemed champion... but they could be beat at ANY TIME! You can mix it up, left side, right side, boys/girls, etc. Kids get ultra competitive, especially in 5th grade.
Lightning Violin - Learn How to Play Violin
By Jason Litt
This is a curriculum I use in grades 3, 4, and 5. We have a full set of violins at our school and we learn notation, rhythms, and notes through an original curriculum called "Lightning Violin". The students all learn the songs together and then an individual student plays the song by themselves for assessment. If they play it correctly, I give them a "bolt" on their chart. It gets very competitive and the students really respond well and practice as hard as they can to get their next bolt. You can make a powerpoint chart or a physical chart and draw a bolt or create one in powerpoint. Included with this are the mp3 files accompaniment files that go along with the powerpoint. Please email me after purchase and I will send you the mp3 files! jasonlitt@gmail.com Enjoy!
Articulation - Staccato and Legato
By Jason Litt
Teaching your kids about articulations and note lengths? This activity teaches them about the history of note lengths by using a parallel with morse code. I ask the students to draw 8 quarter notes on their whiteboards (or if you have clip boards or pieces of paper, that will suffice as well)! We then play 7 examples of notes with various articulations and the students have to write the staccatos and legatos below the notes as they hear them. The initial slide has plain quarter notes, but then after the example is played, you scroll through the animations and the articulations begin appearing as the students check their work. Kids love it! This can be used from K-5 and you may play each example as many times as you wish. For older kids, play the example on a few times for a harder challenge. Included in the .zip file are the powerpoint, the fonts for the powerpoint, and the mp3 files for the examples at the end
Catch Wind of it! - Identifying Woodwind Instruments
By Jason Litt
Learning about Woodwinds but don't have a lot of music examples to test the kids? Here's your answer! After a short introduction video about woodwinds, students will learn about the 5 main woodwind instruments, flute, clarinet, oboe, saxophone, and the bassoon. After they hear the timbre of each instruments, they will have to identify each instrument after hearing it played. You can do this a few ways! You can print a blank template from the powerpoint, laminate it, distribute to students, and have them mark as they go along and erase after they answer is revealed Alternatively, you can run the entire powerpoint (or PDF) and have them guess after the example is played. When their answer is ready, you will advance in the slide and the answer will be revealed! Included in the ZIP folder: All 15 mp3 files with woodwind examples are included (with 4 introduction examples) Font and instructions (there are very important so you don't have crazy characters all over!) Woodwind introduction video If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me! jasonlitt@gmail.com
By Jason Litt
Reviewing the four families of instruments with your kids? This may be the game format you're looking for! An authentic jeopardy game board with categories for Brass, Percussion, Woodwinds, and Strings on the title slide. Students can elect to pick $200, $400, $600, $800, or $1000 answers. After clicking on the amount, the answer will appear on the next slide. A text answer will first be visible, but if you advance the animation, the instrument will enter the slide if your kids need a hint. Students (keeping in true Jeopardy! fashion) can answer in the form of a question "What is a Bassoon?" "What is a Trumpet?" "What is the Timpani?" After the money is awarded (You can split sides of your class, boys vs girls, class vs class, however you want it!), there is a link in the bottom right hand corner to go back to the title screen and game board. After extracting the ZIP file, make sure to install the Jeopardy! font included, or else you'll see random characters all over -- not good eats! Email me at jasonlitt@gmail.com or leave a comment if you have any questions. Happy Jeopardy...ing!
The BRASSroom - Identifying Brass Instruments
By Jason Litt
Learning about Brass but don't have a lot of music examples to test the kids? Here's your answer! After a short introduction video about brass, students will see a powerpoint with 4 blank circles with a trumpet, trombone, french horn, and tuba below it. The teacher will then play an example of the instrument being played, and students have to figure out which instrument it belongs to You can do this a few ways! You can print a blank template from the powerpoint, laminate it, distribute to students, and have them mark as they go along and erase after they answer is revealed Alternatively, you can run the entire powerpoint (or PDF) and have them guess after the example is played. When their answer is ready, you will advance in the slide and the answer will be revealed! Included in the ZIP folder: All 10 mp3 files with brass examples are included (with 4 introduction examples) A powerpoint with full answer key A PDF with full answer key Title font and instructions Brass introduction video If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me! jasonlitt@gmail.com
Turn up the Aux! (Identifying Auxiliary Percussion Instruments)
By Jason Litt
Percussion instruments are anything that you either hit, shake, or scrape, but that's not limited to just drums, rhythm sticks, and Orff instruments! Want to see how well your kids can identify which instruments are which? Try "Turning up the Aux!" where a musical example will be played of an auxiliary percussion instrument. Students will see three different instruments and will have to select one of the instruments they think matches the musical example. On the following slide will be the answer! In this 10 question game, you can play this any way you want -- boys vs girls, team vs team, individually, or have students write answers down on whiteboards or even come up to the board to interact with the powerpoint. Have a great time with this and leave a comment below if you have any questions!
SOL-FISH - FISHING FOR SOLFEGE!
By Jason Litt
We reinforce tons of Sol-Mi patterns in early elementary music. How about the kids dictate it through Sol-Fish? Each student receives a "Fishing for Solfege" printout which is a fish bowl with 2 spaces - the top space reserved for the SOL and the bottom space reserved for the MI Ten examples will be played and students will have to decipher where the sol's and mi's are after listening to them. They do this by putting bingo chips on the Sol or Mi spaces. After students lock in their guess, advance the slide to reveal the answer! You may do this through the printouts, or you can make it an interactive game with your whiteboard, the possibilities are endless! All sound files are embedded in, so you'll need to manually click each "speaker" icon to play each example. Have a great time with this, and let me know if you have any questions or concerns!
By Jason Litt
Learning the values of quarter and eighth notes are a good solid foundation to start off, but when it gets to rests, understanding a beat of silence is a little different! In "Give it a Rest!" students are introduced to the quarter rest, which is a note, but a note of silence. They watch "Give it a Rest!" from Music K-8 and then are given an activity -- try to decipher where the rest occurs in a musical example. The students will be told how many beats are in the example and then a four beat percussive introduction is played. Students will be asked to dictate the quarter notes AND quarter rests in the musical example. The teacher can play this again for reinforcement (but for kids in upper grades, playing it only ONCE can be a challenge!). There are 12 examples, each one getting a little more difficult than the last! You can run this activity in many ways: - Student can write on whiteboards with dry erase markers - Pairs of students can team up in a race to spell it out - Use as a whiteboard/smartboard/IWB activity - Print out cards of quarter notes and rests and have them line it up on the floor - Any other way you find creative! Enjoy this with your class and as always, if you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment!
By Jason Litt
Oh, the kids and this game. Well, might as well learn something? I cut out construction paper squares of the following colors: Purple, Blue, Yellow, Grey, Red, Orange, and Pink A FORTNITE character (or characters) are shown on the screen along with different rhythms in different colored boxes. Which colored box of rhythms goes with the character on the screen? Line up the syllables and find out! I mix it up by putting students into teams of 2 and letting them work through the activity or you can have them play individually by themselves. Or maybe even a race to the board to see which one is right (all you have to do is advance the slide and the answer will appear!) There are 9 different examples of rhythms. The kids will LOVE seeing Fortnite up in your room (and don't worry, this is ALL family friendly, no mentions of violence or weapons in here) :) HAVE FUN!
By Jason Litt
Tracking your students, classes, and sections of your groups have never been easier with music tracking powerpoints! Included are 10 files, all different templates of tracking such as leaderboards for classes, boys vs girls charts, a thermometer powerpoint, and various high score templates All you need to do is plug and play -- put names, classes, however you wish and save it as a different file! If you need any creative ways to track student or class progress, feel free to email or leave a comment. I truly hope this visual aid brings some flare to your classrooms!
Stick it to the Rhythm - Part II!
By Jason Litt
In Stick it to the Rhythm, we used popsicle sticks to identify quarter and eighth note notation in our classrooms. What happened if we didn't give the kids a blank slate and they had to use eyes, ears, and minds? In this follow-up, "Stick it to the Rhythm Part II", students are instructed to put a number of sticks on the floor (6 to 12 'quarter notes') and will listen to a musical example made up of quarter and eighth notes. They are then to interpret that example and use the last sticks and place them where they think they heard the eighth notes... In essence, they are taking the quarter notes at the end of the phrase and making them into eighth notes by beaming the quarter notes together -- this will really get your kids thinking! There are 10 examples (all with an 8 beat count off to establish tempo) and the examples range from easy to difficult with the mp3 embedding into the file. Have a great time and let me know what you think in the comments :) As always, any questions or concerns, you know where to find me!
By Jason Litt
Aural Dictation has never been more colorful! Students will be given 3, 4 or 5 color coded rhythm examples on the board. Students will then listen to a 4, 6, or 8 beat example of music and try to identify which color has the rhythm they just heard. As the lesson goes on, it gets progressively harder adding in more beats and more cards to the mix. I typically like to play this by cutting out red, green, yellow, purple, and blue construction paper, giving the kids a stack, and have the kids sit on the floor and hold up the answer they think is correct. Sometimes for the 6th or 7th example, I let the kids hear it twice so they can double check their answer! All slides include the embedded sound file in it (with 8 beats of prep before the rhythm example) and you get 10 examples to illustrate for your kids Have a colorful time with this one!
By Jason Litt
4/4, 3/4, 2/4, the whole clan! What splits those evenly between measures, bar lines of course! In this interactive game, I have boys vs girls (side one, side two, class A, class B, however you want to do it!) go against each other as they see a long measure of rhythms. Their job? Split it in half and affix a bar line to the interactive whiteboard! The first kid who gets it right gets a point! You can do this with flash cards, use this as printables, or any other creative way you wish! The answers are on the following slide highlighted in green. Included is an intro video in the folder from Quaver's Marvelous World of Music to start your kids off on the right... foot ;) (You'll see in the video!) Have a fun time with this!
Jump through Hoops! (Rhythm Dictation)
By Jason Litt
This will sure to get your class energized and all you need is about 8 hula hoops! We group all the boys on one side and all the girls on another side (or you can do team A + team B) In front of the teams will be 4 hula hoops (representative of 4 beats of music). Kids will be called up in groups of 2, 3, 4, or more and listen to the musical example. After they hear the example, they have to act as the quarter and eighth notes in the example and spell it out from left to right! It's a hot mess, but it sure gets the kids to work together! As soon as the first team gets the right rhythm, advance the slide and show the answer! Each slide will contain how many students will be in the group, the musical example, and the hoops shown. Up to 2 students (2 eighth notes) can be in a hoop, 1 student (will represent a quarter note) alone in a hoop, or a blank hoop (0 students) for a rest. Have a great time with this the KIDS LOVE THIS!!!!!!
By Jason Litt
Working on rhythms with your kids and need to hammer in those note lengths? Beat me to it may be the trick! Students will see a box on the board displaying rhythms made of quarter, half, and whole notes. They will see a set of number below that will match the amount of beats in that rhythm above. Which number is the correct answer? I usually do this boys vs girls or team vs teams in the class and have a circle magnet that the kids both possess. They run to the board and put the magnet on the answer they think, and all I do is advance the slide and the answer appears in green! Beats go from 1 to 16 and answers change all throughout the presentation! You can use this as an assessment any way you like (kids call it out, kids write it on their lapboards, multiple choice, however you wish). Have fun and let me know how it goes!
Measure Up! (* Distance Learning Approved! *)
By Jason Litt
Understanding notation duration and how they fit mathematically into bars of music is one of the fundamental learning goals of upper elementary students!
With Measure Up! Students will see a measure of music… but… it is incomplete! They will then Choose the correct notation from one of the boxes to complete the measure. Students can use the powerpoint in design mode to click and drag it, draw a path for their specific box to the open box, or write it in!
Can also be used for Distance Learning as well!
15 examples with quarter notes and rests, half notes and rests, whole notes and rests, eighth notes and rests, 4 sixteenth notes and 2/4, 3/4, 5/4, 4/4, and a bonus 6/8 example at the end!
Major Problem, Minor Adjustment (Identifying Major & Minor chord quality)
By Jason Litt
Chord quality galore! Help your kids understand to identify Major and Minor chords in "Major Problem, Minor Adjustment"!
Students will hear 3 to 4 chords back-to-back and have to select the chord (represented by a box from left to right) they think is "minor" or "major" as indicated by the slide
Advance the slide to discover the answer!
There are 8 questions and answers in this series
Rhythm Espresso! (* Distance Learning Approved! *)
By Jason Litt
Something that'll satisfy your caffeine fix and your students understanding and mastery of rhythm!
In Rhythm Espresso, students will see an assortment of 10 famous beverages (by national coffee chains, of course) and accompanying coffee logos with rhythms in them. One of the rhythms match the rhythmic syllabes said in the beverage name.
Have your students select the rhythm they believe to be correct, advance the slide, and the correct rhythm will illuminate green!
Works well with boys vs girls, team vs team, individually, or even as a distance learning activity!