Less than $5 Middle School Music Assessment (by date, oldest first)

Nothing like catching two curriculum areas in one. This assignment will help you meet expectations in both music and language. Students are asked to analyze poetry and lyrics, both those used in class and those of their own choosing. The assignment has students looking at: * vocabulary used * structure * techniques * important words * feelings Students are also asked to consider how the poem/music is meant to be performed. They are also asked to consider the background of the poet/musician.

Reviewing Orff with your kids? This may be the game format you're looking for!

An authentic jeopardy game board with categories that students can elect to pick!
The amounts, as imagined, are $200, $400, $600, $800, or $1000 answers.

After clicking on the amount, the answer will appear on the next slide.
Hand Me a Note - Discussing the pitches on the Orff instruments

Technique - Techniques on Orff instruments (middle of the bar, "handlebars", etc)
Mallet Madness - Descriptions and anatomy of mallets (rubber, yarn, wood)

Family Time! - The instruments within the family from the Bass all the way to the Glockenspiel

Students (keeping in true Jeopardy! fashion) can answer in the form of a question

"What is a Soprano"

"What is Yarn"

"What is C"

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!

With “Rhythms Around the Horn”, students will see four rhythm squares on the powerpoint (or PDF), all of them containing different rhythms.

For starters, have the entire class perform rhythm 1 (with instruments, vocalizing, clapping, patting, etc), then rhythm 2, then 3, and then finally 4.

After students understand the rhythms, then you can have the rhythms all be performed several different ways...

• Assign an instrument to each number and have them repeat their rhythm
• Example: #1 will be shakers, #2 will be tambourines, #3 will be hand drums, #4 will be guiros
• Example: #1 will be bass xylo, #2 will be soprano xylo, #3 will be alto xylo, #4 will be glockenspiel
• Example: #1 will be C and D boomwhackers, #2 will be E and F boomwhackers, #3 will be G and A boomwhackers, #4 will be B boomwhacker
• Assign an instrument to each number and have them rotate throughout the numbers (1, 2, 3, 4)
• Assign an instrument to each number and have them repeat the rhythm 2 times, 4 times (or however long you wish) and move to the next number to do the same thing
• Assign all instruments to start at the beginning, but at different times (a canon or a round).
• Example: Instrument 1 will play #1 first, then #2 consecutively, then the second instruments begin on #1 when the first are on #2, and so forth
• Go backwards, 4, 3, 2, 1
• Or maybe a free for all – have students pick their favorite number and repeat

There are 4 levels of rhythms all with increasing difficulty

• Quarters and Eighths
• Half Notes
• Eighth Note Rests
• Triplets

Have a great time with this!

Down, Set, HUT!

In Bar Line Blitz, student will see a meter with several beats of music – except the bar lines are missing to separate the measures from each other!

They will will see 2 or more line placeholders (small grey lines) in between notes. One of the placeholders is where the bar line should go… but which one is it?

Identify where the bar line should be placed and the correct area will illuminate
green if it is accurate!

Play team vs team, A vs B, or individually... and enhance it by playing some fun football music in the background (search NFL themes or college football fight songs on YouTube) ;)

There are 4 levels (4 quarters if you wish) of varying difficulties. The last quarter, they students will need to identify where it should be placed without any small grey lined hashmarks

Have a great time with this one!

No need to have drums, recorders, or even auxiliary instruments for this one! If you don't have access, are traveling to rooms, or want to give a change to your curriculum try "Body Percussion Dynamic Challenge"!

There are nearly 30 Dynamic rhythm in each level with CLAPS, PATS , STOMPS, and SNAPS, and CHEST PATS, all indicated on the powerpoint slide with icons. Count your kids off with a few prep beats and watch them go!

If the kids master the rhythm with the appropriate dynamics, advance the slide and see how far they can get! (scoreboard included!)

• I usually put a 2-3 minute song on and see if they can get the highest score before the end of the song and track it for next time

Also terrific for reading in some of the younger grades who are not familiar with standard notation and need a warmup to reading using these icons.

Use the included background tracks (90bpm to 110bpm) or put on your favorite music so the kids can jam along (or choose your own)!

Here are the 4 levels:

• Level 1 - Piano and Forte
• Level 2 - Adding in Quarter Rests
• Level 3 - Crescendo
• Level 4 - Diminuendo

We're BACK and for 2022 in the follow-up to the #1 selling "Identify Form in Pop Music" series, we now bring you....

Part EIGHT!

Kids love their pop music, right? Want to integrate it into your classroom? This is great lesson to do with 4th and 5th graders that lets them listen to their favorite pop music (as always, kid friendly 100% CLEAN!) while learning about musical form!

The lesson begins with an introduction to popular music and how the music is formulated by the artists songwriters. We talk about the intro, verse, chorus, bridge, and outro, and include the collision and the channel and then go onto our activity.

I cut out cards... a whole bunch of intros, verses, chorus, bridges, outros, channels, and collisions (or you can do it with a whiteboard/marker, or even as a unison class response) and give them to each student, then have have the kids sit on the floor. I then play an mp3 of a song which has 10 second clips of each of the sections (there is about a 2-4 second gap in between each clip and all clips are safe for little ears -- no profanity!) and have the students identify them by spelling them out on the floor in front of them. This works great if you're putting kids into groups of 2 or 3 as they try to figure out the form of the song.

It's a great compromise to having your kids listen to their music and still satisfy a 4th and 5th grade standard in identifying the structure of music!

The 2022 hit list:

• Enemy, Imagine Dragons
• Something in the Way, Nirvana (from The Batman)
• Good 4 U, Olivia Rodrigo
• We Don't Talk About Bruno, Encanto
• Easy on Me, Adele
• Butter, BTS
• Cold Heart, Dua Lipa/Elton John
• Ghost, Justin Bieber
• Heat Waves, Glass Animals
• Bad Habits, Ed Sheeran

If you have any questions, please feel free to leave a comment email me at jasonlitt@gmail.com

Have fun, kids LOVE this!

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All the previous versions can be found here:

Identify Form in Pop Music

Identify Form in Pop Music PART TWO

Identify Form in Pop Music PART THREE

Identify Form in Pop Music PART FOUR

Identify Form in Pop Music PART FIVE

Identify Form in Pop Music PART SIX

Identify Form in Pop Music PART SEVEN

This resource Rhythm and Rest is terrific for your kids as an introduction to quarter and half rests or just as a warmup for whichever instrument you may be practicing (recorder, orff, handbells, voice, etc!)

30 slides with 3 different levels

1. Quarter Rests and Half Note Rests with Quarter Notes

2. Adding in Eighth Notes

3. Six beat patterns

In "Twos Company" students will see two 4-beat rhythmic examples on the powerpoint and will split amongs their peers as a duet and read the rhythms down, with instruments, vocalizing, or however you please!

Students can be the "1" part or the "2" part or you can call individuals to sight read, or split it up any way you wish.

There are 25 different examples with inflections, style, and background grooves to keep you going (at different tempi if you'd like)

In this resource, it encompasses quarter notes, quarter rests, half notes, dynamics (forte and piano), and repeat signs into a canon exercise (to be repeated 4 times)

You can play these on boomwhackers, classroom percussion, Orff, recorders, or whatever you'd like.

Part II coming soon with extended rhythms and more!

In this rhythmic identifying game (fastest one wins!), students will see a rhythm displayed on the board with a box (one beat or two beats) inside the rhythm. These boxes will be blank and can hold different types of beats to complete the rhythmic phrase

The students will then listen to an example of music and figure out which of the available boxes (with corresponding rhythms) would complete the rhythm shown on the screen! Simply click on the sound icon, have the students listen, and then advance the slide when they choose the correct answer.

There are 10 musical examples in this lesson and works great with some of the younger elementary students. They can either vocalize "1st" "2nd" or "3rd" box, come up to the screen and pick, or have a race to see who can select the correct box first.

Have a great time with this!

End of the year review or just starting up with aural theory? Try on "Inspector Interval"!

In this fast paced game, students will do a brief review of how a musical interval is defined and jump right into the contest -- have an interval on the treble clef staff appear and TEAM A or TEAM B will have to name the interval as fast as they can!

There are no qualities of intervals (major 2nd, minor 6th, etc), just interval names by itself. There will always be a grounded "F", so the intervals will be built on top of that

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 an interval 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. 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!

... or use it as an individual activity!

One of the favorite end-of-the-year (or even beginning-of-the-year) activities for the kids to get them sight reading and of course, keeping their eyes and ears out for one of those DEADLY Poison Rhythms/Poison Patterns!

Poison Bucket Patterns! takes students through 78 slides and 5 levels of Bucket Drumming sight reading. Students will play a variety of rhythms as the teacher scrolls through the slides. Each slide contains one rhythm they will play and after advancing to the next slide, you can elect to give them a 4 beat or 2 beat prep to read the next rhythm, whichever works for you. The less prep they have, the better because...

There will be one rhythm (the poison rhythm, poison pattern, or OOPS! rhythm as we'll call it) that students DO NOT play! If they do, they're out of the game.

Students learn the rhythm before the round is played. Be careful or you will be ELIMINATED!

• All regular notation is to be played on the buckets (or drums, or ground, however you wish), and the X notation (with a down stem) are played as stick clicks above their head (or you could apply it to a tambourine or other auxiliary instrument)

You can play this in teams, As vs Bs, however you wish! There are 5 background grooves that go from 80 bpm to 120 bpm to challenge your kids as they go through the levels. Levels begin with 4 beat rhythms and end with 6 beat rhythms with rests, quarter notes, and 2 eighth note patterns.

Have a great time with this!

Want your kids to have their cake and eat it too? Turn pop music into an engaging and fun lesson with "Identify Timbre in Pop Music!"

Before your begin this lesson, make sure your kids have an understanding of the four families of instruments, Woodwinds, Brass, Percussion, and Strings and know multiple instruments in each family as they will utilize their aural skills during this activity.

As we know, timbre is the quality of sound an instrument makes. Students will listen to 11 examples of popular music and be given 3 multiple choice answers of instruments in the song example. They will then have to choose answer 1, 2, or 3 after listening to the example.

Advance the slide to illuminate the correct answer (in light blue) and assess from there! You can play this individually, as a class, have students write it down, or even play it as a race to see who can get the answer correct first!

All mp3 files are embedded into the slides -- just extract right to your desktop and they should link up and play.

Song examples included:

• High Hopes, Panic! at the Disco

• Hotline Bling, Drake

• 24k Magic, Bruno Mars

• Believer, Imagine Dragons

• Perfect, Ed Sheeran

• Levitating, Dua Lipa

• Into the Unknown, Panic! at the Disco

• Old Town Road, Lil Nas X

• BANG!, AJR

• Don't Start Now, Dua Lipa

• Watermelon Sugar, Harry Styles

  Have a terrific time with this!

Review your lines of the treble staff from EGBDF and FACE with "TAKE NOTE"

In this reproducible worksheet, there are 3 pages of exercises where students will identify the names of the treble clef letters from 1st line E to top line F.

TAKE NOTE 2.0 is a continuation of the first page

TAKE NOTE 3.0 is a treble clef note shown and the student will circle the answer they think is correct.

You may use this as an assignment, warmup, timed practice, or however way you see fit!

A game that will keep your 4th and 5th graders entertained, engaged, and competitively charged, here's METER IMPOSTER inspired by "Among Us"!

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_IN METER IMPOSTER, YOU WILL SEE 2 OR EVEN 3 CREWMATES ASSIGNED INSTRUMENTS WITH DIFFERENT METERS.

EACH CREWMATE HAS THE CORRECT AMOUNT OF BEATS AND RHYTHMS THAT ADD UP TO THE DESIGNATED METER (4/4, 3/4, 2/4, ETC)_

_YOUR TASK IS TO DECIDE WHICH CREWMATE IS THE IMPOSTER BY SELECTING THE CREWMATE WHO IS SHOWING THE METER THAT HAS MORE THAN OR LESS THAN THE AMOUNT OF BEATS IN THEIR METER

THERE WILL BE ONLY ONE CREWMATE WHO IS THE IMPOSTER_

Included in this resource are

• A printout where you can replicate and cut out cards (if you want the students to place on the floor or hold up to show which one was the imposter)
• 3 levels of meters with 2 and 3 imposters, along with a level where you can find the crewmate (and the rest of the meters shown are the imposters!)

Notation covered:

Quarter notes/rests, Half notes/Rests, Whole Notes, Eighth Notes/Rests

Have a terrific time with this while your kids study time signatures!

Gone are the days of identifying and listening to soprano, alto, tenor, bass, and all of the instruments in unison! With "In Harmony", students will listen to a short piece of music and have to identify if the piece is in unison, a two-part harmony, or a three-part harmony

Each piece of music is about 12-15 seconds and covers different instrument groups (woodwinds, strings, brass, and percussion) and venues through different timbres so students are challenged to identify the harmonies (or unisons!) in each one.

Simply advance the slide after the example to see which answer was correct!

There are 15 examples in this lesson with multiple instruments featured.

The follow-up to "Rhythm Wind Up and PITCH!"
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This one will get the kids on their edge of their seats!

You will need 1 thing for this particular game:

• A sticky suction cup ball (or maybe a soft squishy ball)

The students will see a melody at the bottom of their screen and memorize the melodic direction or say it back in their head (just make sure the melodic is not sung out loud). They will then hear a musical example of an endless loop of melodic figures separated by 4 beats each in between rhythms. (Teacher will click the speaker icon to play)

Take a listen...

....

....

One of the melodic figures will be the melody that is on the screen. AS SOON AS THEY HEAR THAT MELODY, they throw their suction cup ball at the target. The first kid who gets it correct is the winner (and make sure you advance the slide to make the target turn green) :)

Obviously, we cannot play this as a class because of

1. The amount of suction cup balls tossed at the screen would be insane

2. Team A v Team B would be a bit more competitive and only two balls would be launched at once

If you don't have a whiteboard/projection screen, you can alternatively have the students raise their hand when they hear it and choose the kid who has their hand up the fastest.

Have a great time with this fast paced game!

Focusing on the timbres of the Trumpet, Trombone, Horn, and Tuba? Try "Brass with Class" on and let your kids zero in on differentiation between each... and more!

In "Brass with Class!" will hear the brass instruments in all sorts of orders (immediately following each other's segment) and their goal is to put them in order they hear them. Students will get a brief review in the beginning by playing the examples of a Trumpet, Trombone, Horn, or Tuba.

After reviewing the timbres, go onto the game where the options will be shown at the top and blank spots at the bottom for the instruments to go. Students can either have printed cards with the instruments, write it in on the whiteboard, call it out, or however you wish! I like to do the printed cards on the floor so the students can line them up and I can assess from the top.

Included are

• Reprintable cards with a clip art of a Trumpet, Trombone, Horn, and Tuba on them
• 12 musical examples with synthetic brass instruments
• Easy, moderate, and difficult modes in the examples (2 instruments to 4 instruments)

Have some class -- Brass with Class!

Mastering the “Call and Response” technique just got a bit more automonous! Sit back and let the music be freely created with “Call it the Response” for Orff Instruments!

In this lesson, student swill hear a “Call” which is the first part of a musical phrase. They will then play a “response” which completes the short musical phrase. Their response may be a certain number of beats or maybe a certain rhythm (could be same or different than the call)

There are 8 different exercises for your kids to give their response on Orff Instruments (or even auxiliary percussion instruments or boomwhackers, the possibilities are endless!).

Each exercise has a percussive backing track with the "Call" built in (played by marimba and xylophone, so you as the teacher aren't responsible for making it up yourself!) and varies in tempo from 100bpm to 110bpm and covers V7, Pentatonic, IV chords, and bourdon notes.

Get creative with “Call it the Response!”

Working on ostinatos (repeated phrases) with your instrumentals (Orff, Recorder, Percussion, Body Percussion etc?).

Check out Ostinato Party where students can be assigned an A ostinato or B ostinato while working on different rhythms. You can have students switch halfway through or assign half a class one ostinato and the other half the different one.

3 Levels of Quarters and Eighths, Eighth Rests, and Sixteenth Notes!

Need a resource that is a creative and intuitive way to work on the notes of the treble clef staff?

In “Fully Staffed” students will see several notes on the Treble Clef staff. They will then be asked to identify one specific note out of all of the notes shown. By process of deduction, or even using previous knowledge, they’ll have to find the note as fast as they can, either individually, as a class, or team vs team, boys v girls, however you wish! As soon as they’ve locked in their answer, advance the slide, and the correct note will be revealed by illuminating green

I like to have the students challenge either other and see who can be the first student to name the note

Included in this 55 slide resources are 5 levels:

• Level One: Find one note out of 3 listed (ex, find the “E”)

• Level Two: Find one note out of 4 listed (ex, find the “F”)

• Level Three: Find two notes listed out of a melodic figure (ex, find “A” and “D”)

• Level Four: Backwards! Find the note that is NOT “F” or NOT “D”, etc

• Level Five: Find one note out of 8 notes listed (ex, find the “G”)

Get ready to get FULLY STAFFED!