Monthly Archives: November 2016

Mystery Melody Monday

Posted on November 22, 2016 | Comments Off on Mystery Melody Monday

In Concert Choir (all freshman and first-year choir students) we were having difficulties engaging students in sight-reading (what educator doesn’t). I saw on Facebook a post about how a teacher put a familiar tune on the board and students had to guess what the melody was without making a sound. At first, I was suspicious about the students’ engagement, but after introducing the activity, they loved it!

Here’s how it works:

  1. Dictate 4 to 8 measures of a familiar melody.
  2. Give a time limit for answers
  3. Have students write down their guess and their name

We had the students who guessed correctly earn a certain number of points depending on the difficulty of the tune. Then, we had a leaderboard on the whiteboard. This was not worth a grade, but a way to gamify the classroom and further engage our students in sight-reading!

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Posted in Lesson Plans, Uncategorized

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Instrument Cards

Posted on November 2, 2016 | Comments Off on Instrument Cards

This was a fun manipulative for the students! In both my third and fourth grade classes I cut these instruments into individual squares and glued them to construction paper to create cards. Then, I was able to use them in so many ways!

All rights reserved. Please contact me for a printable.

Here were some of the ways I used the instrument cards

  • As a way to sort students into groups
  • Have students find which instrument family their card belonged to
  • Listen for their instrument family and stand during Britten’s “Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra”
  • As an individual assessment: students came up at the end of class, picked a card, and sorted it into its corresponding bucket

The students were very successful. The best thing about the cards was students did not have to specific know the name of each instrument. They were able to identify what family they belonged in by how it looks. For the fourth graders who knew what the instrument was, it doubled as a way to check their understanding the names of specific instruments.

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Composing Manipulatives

This was a composing manipulative used with the second graders to practice composing with half notes, or “2 beat ta” as we called it.

All rights reserved. Please contact me for a printable.

In order to give the manipulatives a little more bulk, I glued them to square (1 beat) and rectangular (2 beats) pieces of construction paper that matched the color of the leaves. They also had a large 12×18 piece of construction paper with mapped out beats for them to place their composing cards on.

After they composed in groups, they practiced their composition and then performed it for their peers. The biggest difficulty was getting the classes to come back together because they were having so much fun composing and performing within their own group, they forgot they were going to perform for the rest of the class!

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Posted on November 2, 2016 in Physical Visuals

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Fourth Grade Instrument Assessment

This was an assessment used for fourth grade to test identifying which instruments belonged to which instrument family.

In my classroom, students colored in the instrument that went with the family, but other classrooms could use hole punches or stamps to get the punch card effect.

All rights reserved. Please contact me for a PDF if you would like a copy.

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Posted on November 2, 2016 in Assessments

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About Me!

Posted on November 2, 2016 | Comments Off on About Me!

Hello!

Welcome to my blog! I am Anna Karnick, an Illinois music educator currently teaching in Mundelein. Originally from Northwest suburbia, I attended Illinois Wesleyan University.

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During the school day, which often feels like a footnote on my day, I teach three curricular choirs, an all-ability choir, and a social-emotional learning class. After school, I spend my time directing Guy’s Group, a choir for just guys, and organize an in-house solo/ensemble program. Additionally, I am the assistant director of our musical and co-advisor to our school’s chapter of the National Junior Honors Society.

After I finish at the middle school I spend a couple hours a week with a high school a cappella group, Perfect Harmony, rehearsing both my own arrangements and arrangements by others in a relaxed, collaborative atmosphere.

In the limited free time I have, I like to visit the local farmer’s market, arrange music, and create graphics for my classroom and the groups I am involved with.

In harmony,

Anna

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