Sometimes it is helpful to zoom out and look at the entire school year for planning purposes. Here is a collection of resources/blog posts with the whole school year in mind:
Check out the Contents page for a list of all my blog posts, organized by category.
For context, I teach first- and second-year orchestra students at two elementary schools.
I keep a document where I keep track which years/months I post my different hallway bulletin boards, and I thought it might be helpful to see them sorted by month. My beginning-of-the-year bulletin board tends to stay up until winter break if it's a year when I don't put up the bow hold bulletin board; then second semester I'll change it each month or so. Some I use every year (Birthday/Music for Life/Music In Our Schools Month/End-of-Year Recruiting), some I alternate every-other year (the two January bulletin boards), some I try to rotate between several before repeating one (beginning-of-the-year bulletin boards), and some I've maybe only used once or twice.
What other bulletin board ideas might I add to the mix?
SEPTEMBER/BEGINNING OF THE YEAR/SEMESTER 1
OCTOBER
NOVEMBER
DECEMBER/WINTER CONCERT
JANUARY
FEBRUARY
MARCH
APRIL
MAY/JUNE/END OF YEAR
ANY TIME (or could be timed to special events--Career Day?)
YEAR-ROUND (in classroom)
I have been wanting another way to look at the repertoire I have taught in past years, organized by unit or by concert. I had always been keeping track of past repertoire, but it was just a long list in a Google Doc format, and I would have to scan through the whole thing (or do Ctr + F to find a specific piece) each time I was looking for something. This new document groups pieces by unit--during which part of the year this piece could be taught or for which concert it could be performed.
There are so many pieces out there for beginning orchestra, but for it to work in my teaching situation, it would have to fit in a specific slot depending on what has been taught by that time in the year and it would have to help provide a balance between different time periods, styles, parts of the world, composers, etc. that students are studying throughout the course of the year. Please see this blog post for a sample winter concert and spring concert program for first- and second-year orchestra students along with a list and explanation of the different "slots" I try to fill with my repertoire selections.
In my district, we have a winter band/orchestra/choir concert in December, our district-wide String Fest field trip and concert at the end of January, and a spring band/orchestra/choir concert in May. In February, once String Fest is over and we are into our Solo/Ensemble unit, beginners will start their first very simple full orchestra piece (often just two parts), while second-year students will learn a full orchestra piece that may or may not be performed on the spring concert--students will get to vote from a few options they've been studying later in the year.
Anyway, I went ahead and created a Google Sheet, organized more-or-less chronologically through the school year, with both first-year (5th grade) and second-year (6th grade) orchestra represented. Titles in each category are listed in alphabetical order, with links to the publisher's website (or to a different blog post for my arrangements). The last column allows me to track when I've last taught each piece too.
As always, feel free to make a copy and update as you like! Which other pieces would you recommend I check out?
On the last week of small groups, I like to have students figure out how to play some melodies by ear. This isn't their first exposure to learning something by ear--we do echoing throughout the year, and students would have learned the two-measure melody from "Medieval Kings" by Soon Hee Newbold a few weeks earlier--but I want to give students another idea of what is possible with their instruments before we part for the summer.
First, I'll remind students that while we've spent a lot of time this year learning to read music and learning new music by reading it on the page, that that's not the only way musicians can learn new music. I'll say, "If I told you the first notes of "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" are open D, D, open A, A, could you figure out the next part? I'll let students work on it on their own or help guide a student who might be struggling and then have someone share before we all try it. (Or, if we have played Twinkle earlier in the year, we might try "Hot Cross Buns" instead) It can be helpful to have the D Major scale with solfege up so I can point to notes as a visual cue if needed too. Once most of the students have at least the first phrase of Twinkle in their fingers, I invite them to try out any of the options on their Melodies by Ear sheet. "Baby Shark" is a popular one! While I don't talk about the transposition bit at the bottom, it is there in case anyone needs an additional challenge :)
Melodies by Ear (half-sheet, includes 10 titles--print double-sided and cut in half)
Melodies by Ear (full sheet, includes all 12 titles--I double-side this with Lines and Spaces for each Clef)
I wanted to share sample lesson plans + agendas + resources for the entire school year. To view, here's the link:
Orchestra Expressions gets to the C and E string notes pretty late in Book 1, and I like to introduce them to first-year players in the spring, as we are preparing for our spring concert. I created a double-sided sheet where students learn about half steps and whole steps to figure out the names of the notes on their newest string on the front and then the back side is music that uses these new notes.
I'll have a student read a paragraph out loud, and then we'll go back dissect it together, pointing to the notes on the keyboard poster to figure out the notes on the E or C string one by one and get them written down. It is fun to see students make predictions about what the letter names or sharps will be, and then I encourage them to see if their guesses are correct as we work through the sheet together. Many will independently fill in the corresponding bubbles on their fingering chart that's taped in their folder as we go through this sheet too. Otherwise we do that together the following week as a quick review.
Ideally each student in the small group is on the same instrument, but this tends to be the time of year when I have to do combined small groups or creative scheduling due to testing or field trips so I'll have multiple instruments in a group. When this happens, I have to be careful to keep the pace moving so we can get through all the notes/fingerings but not to go so fast that I am losing/confusing students--this can be a tricky lesson for some! It can also be tricky to play these pieces together since they are in different keys depending on the instrument/string--I'll use my judgement in the moment if it makes more sense to have the E string instruments play while C string instruments air-bow or say finger numbers or clap/count or just listen and then switch or to just have everyone play the parallel 5ths together. In full orchestra, we'll do "show and tell" with one of the pieces to avoid the parallel 5ths :)
In the both the Word document and PDF below, I've included three different versions of the sheet music--one with regular notation, one with a few Alpha notes at the beginning of each piece, and one with all Alpha notes.
C/E string notes worksheet/repertoire
On the last day of small groups, students receive their summer packets. The first page gives some ideas of how to stay involved with music over the summer, a few dates of orchestra concerts in the area that families could attend, as well as suggested books to check out at local music stores for additional repertoire. (I've kept the first page pretty blank on these templates so you can customize it for your students.)
