Archive for the ‘Teaching’ Category
October 31st, 2009 | 
Author: “We the People” is my newest Veterans Day video. I made it using Digital Juice clips. The song is from Plank Road Publishing, and it features the entire text of the Preamble to the Constitution. All my students, grade 2 to 6, can now recite it from memory. The younger kids have trouble with the meaning of the large words, so I’m hoping the video will help with that!
This is an update of an older PowerPoint that I did of “You Are Our Heroes” several years ago. It’s a great song and is also from the magazine Music K-8 by Plank Road Publishing.
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Kim Komando had a link on her Cool Sites of the Day today that was pretty fun. It was a quiz about how some people on American Idol think they can sing, but really can’t. I don’t have perfect pitch, but I think I have relative pitch because after a while, I can start a song from memory without hearing an intro or a given tone. Unless I have a cold or sinus infection, I’m usually right 95% of the time. That’s why I was so freaked out when my left ear completely closed up in June! Anyway, here is the link for a test to see if you have a tin ear or not. There are 26 little snippets of tunes. Some stay right on the money, but others drop or raise a tone right in the middle. I actually don’t think it’s accurate though because people who get off pitch enough to drive me bananas only are off a fraction of a tone (in music it’s called cents). They wobble somewhere under or above the tune, but not a full half step away, such as these examples played on a keyboard.
This would be pretty interesting to give to my students, but it says: “You must be 16 or older to take this test. Tone recognition is not fully developed at younger ages, and test results may not be meaningful.” I don’t know. I have a bunch of kids with great ears, and then some who cannot repeat a pitch no matter how hard they try. We do crazy fire engine siren sounds, and some of them can’t make their siren move up or down at all. They don’t hear it. On the quiz I got them all right, but they are pretty easy. Give it a try!
I am beat. I got back from Florida yesterday, and I’ve been sleeping a lot ever since. I need to get caught up because North Daviess has a music program on Tuesday. The kids have been working really hard; I hope it goes well. I’ll have to go set up the P.A. equipment sometime tomorrow. And I still don’t have my taxes done yet. Ever since 2001, I’ve had my taxes done before March 1st due to the dreadful FAFSA. I do have an appointment to get them done this week though. Once all that stuff is done, I will add some pictures from Florida. I can’t believe I didn’t get one picture of Mom and Dad! I did get some of the beach, Sarah, and Disney. I wanted to get some more pictures of Sarah’s apartment, and I didn’t even do that. We didn’t have much time together; at least it seems that way as it went by really fast. Sarah, if you’re reading this, I had a great time. The only thing that would have made it better would have been if Carrie was there too.
Here is one picture that I really like from Disney. We were at our second park of the day, and I am not in nearly good enough shape for all the walking we did. We did get a little rest while watching the parade, and then watched the fireworks over the castle. I took gobs of pictures, but this was my favorite.
