Supplement: D String Notes

Once we arrive to combining D string notes and the bow, some students are ready to take off with their note-reading and explore new music.  Others are quite content to stay in the book and on our concert pieces.  I give this packet to all the beginners but spend very little, if any, class time on it so students can really do what they like with it.

I've included a reference of the D string notes on the staff labeled with finger numbers and letter names along with a box of practice tips for home practice.  Students are eager to try out their new skills on some familiar and not-so-familiar tunes--they're most excited to see the melodies to the pieces they've already played the harmony parts to such as Barcarolle, Jingle Bells, and Twinkle.

Pieces included:

• Hot Cross Buns
• Go Tell Aunt Rhody
• Barcarolle
• All Through the Night
• The Huron Carol
• Dreidel Dreidel
• Jingle Bells

These pieces also use first finger B on the A string:

• Twinkle Twinkle
• Old MacDonald
• Lavender's Blue
• This Old Man
• London Bridge

D String Notes Supplement

• Word document
• PDF
• Audio files

And here's a link to an earlier post that tells a little more about this packet as well as the Orchestra Expressions supplement for the beginning of the book: Supplements.

Enjoy!

Rhythm Magnets

Here are some magnets I made for different rhythms.  The length of each magnets corresponds to the number of beats (one beat = 6 inches).  I also color-coded the background of rhythm by the number of beats represented (which matches the rhythm bulletin board).  This will be a very visual way to see the relationships between different rhythmic values and to create measures with different note values.

The documents have the rhythms already spaced out--just cut on the line (or cut it slightly smaller than the lines to make room for a colored border).  The longer values (whole note, dotted-half note, etc.) will need extra white paper on either end to make them the corresponding length.  Then, after laminating, I just cut strips of adhesive magnetic sheets to finish them off.

I'm able to use these on the white board or on my teacher desk, as both are magnetic.

• Rhythms (Word document)
• Rhythms (PDF)  

Rhythms Bulletin Board

Here's a bulletin board of different rhythms, organized by number of beats, for my elementary orchestra classroom.  I wanted to include both up-stems and down-stems, notes and rests, and single eighth notes and beamed eighth notes.  I color-coded these by number of beats, which matches the rhythm magnets that I just made as well.

• Symbols (Word document)
• Symbols (PDF)
• Labels (Google doc)

Rhythms include:

• Whole note
• Whole rest
• Dotted half note
• Half note
• Half rest
• Dotted quarter note
• Quarter note
• Quarter rest
• 2 Eighth notes
• 4 Sixteenth notes
• Eighth note
• Eighth rest
• Sixteenth note