March FREEBIE | "Juggling Jamboree" | Scarf Activity

Hi Teacher Friends:

I've updated the FREE DOWNLOAD at my Teachers Pay Teachers store for the month of March! This month's free complete song package is "Juggling Jamboree". It's a fun, original classroom song to use with scarves. Preschoolers can easily participate by tossing and catching only one scarf as they sing the song, while older students will easily be able to handle two scarves!

This complete package comes with a song recording with vocals, an accompaniment track and a demonstration video:

Watch these first grade students play the game in the demonstration video!

The package also includes a PDF with sheet music, game instructions and lesson ideas:

It also comes with a SMART Notebook file that includes two activities. The first one invites students to determine if sound clips are high are low, and the second provides them with an opportunity to categorize letter "J" word images:

Touch matching images to hear two versions of the same song.
One sample is high, the other is low.

Students must drag the "J" images to the jug.

Be sure to watch this video for some helpful tips from me and to watch my students enjoying these classroom resources:

Please don't hesitate to leave questions or comments below. I hope your students enjoy this song as much as mine do!

Thanks for reading and watching, and don't forget to follow me on TpT!
Lisa

Finale NotePad for Elementary Composition Part Two (Classroom Strategies)

Last week's blog post introduced you to Finale NotePad for collaborative composition in the elementary music classroom. The video included with that post takes you through a step-by-step process for setting up a file and includes many helpful tips for the classroom.

This week's video, the second and final part in the series, digs much deeper into strategies for making the best use of this free software with primary and elementary students. You will view two groups of students working collaboratively to create an original composition for piano.

The first group is a small class of first graders who compose using only middle C, D and E of the treble clef. Their portion of the video begins at 0:52. The second group of students are in grades four through six and compose with a slightly extended range of notes and rhythms. You may view those students at 5:32 in the video.

My current classes are quite small, but I have also experienced great success using this software in much larger public school music classrooms. The strategies for use are quite similar. Of course, if you don't have access to a keyboard lab, your composition projects will likely be for recorder using a different range of notes. I can assure you that the excitement of your students will be well worth the extra time and effort in undertaking a project like this!

I hope you enjoy this video on using Finale NotePad with students:

Please don't hesitate to leave a question in the comments. 

Thanks for reading and watching, and don't forget to follow me on TpT!

Lisa

Finale NotePad for Elementary Composition: Part One (File Setup)

A few years ago I began to explore collaborative composition with my young students. We compose our first composition in first grade using just three notes on the treble staff, and we learn to play that composition, as a group, on the piano. For the kids, composition time is one of the highlights of the year!

My working situation is likely a little different than yours. I'm a former public school music teacher turned small business owner. I left the public school system about nine years ago to start my own music school. My classes sizes are small with only eight children in a group and, over the years, I have built a keyboard/computer lab which has made a huge difference in my teaching life. My students also benefit from the use of a large Mondopad (the kids call it the "giant iPad") that we use to work collaboratively on our compositions.

If your classroom is equipped with a means to project a computer screen, you can also pursue group composition projects with your students - regardless of class size. I'm going to talk you through all the steps to make use of Finale NotePad for collaborative composition in your primary and elementary classroom. It's FREE, and it's easy to use!

This first of two videos demonstrates the setup of files for young students (treble only) as well as for older students who may be able to composer longer pieces using the grand staff:

Next week's video and blog post will feature some of my own students working together using the software.

If you have any questions, please be sure to leave them in the comments. I'm always happy to help!

Thanks for reading and watching and don't forget to follow me on TpT!
Lisa

February FREEBIE Featured Song Package | "Clap Your Hands Together"

This month's new featured song package is "Clap Your Hands Together". It will be free for the entire month of February. You can download it at my TeachersPayTeachers store.This song has multiple verses and is perfect for for the little ones!

The free package includes:
- a PDF with sheet music and lesson ideas
- a recording with vocals
- an accompaniment track
- a SMART Notebook file
- link to a singalong video

This video highlights some of the features of the package, and shows some of my students in action:

I hope you enjoy using this song in your classrooms.

Don't forget to follow me on TpT!

Thanks for reading and watching,
Lisa

Welcome to my New Blog!

Hello fellow music teachers and other friends:

My name is Lisa Gillam, and I am a working music teacher, songwriter, performer and developer of teaching and learning resources for preschool, primary and elementary music education.

I've been following a number of amazing music teacher bloggers for many months. I won't list them all now, but I'll be sure to share some of their content with you in the future. It has been my intention to start blogging for quite some time, but teaching life has always seemed to prevent me from doing so. Well, those experienced bloggers have inspired me to get things underway!

From this point forward, I'll be posting a great deal of video content, teaching resources that I've created, resources that others have shared that I find helpful, helpful tips that I have collected in my 20+ years of teaching and some general interest stories.

I look forward to sharing ideas with you!

Please sign up for my mailing list and subscribe to my YouTube channel!

Here's the first video - a short introduction to me:

Thanks for reading and watching, and don't forget to follow me on TpT!
Lisa