Talking SMARTBoards & Much More! » Music

San Fransisco Symphony for Kids

anne marie — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 12:14:51 +0000

The SFS has a wonderful site to help children learn, understand, listen to and have fun with music. The Instrument section allows you to explore and investigate the orchestras instruments and the Music Labs allows you to experiment with the sights and sounds of music. This site presents very well on the SMARTBoard. ENJOY!

Singing Horses– FUN!

anne marie — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 02:51:09 +0000

I came across this very fun site that works great when addressing cause/effect objectives using the SMARTBoard. It incorporates two motivating factors– animals and music– which adds up to success!! Singing Horses, is just plain fun! When students touch any of the 4 horses they begin to sing and continue to sing until touched again. So if you want to smile, saddle up and trot on over!! ENJOY!

Calling all Musicians!

anne marie — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 17:37:10 +0000

I was asked by a Special Education teacher if I knew of any websites that would incorporate computer mouse skills with music- she has a student who is very motivated and interested in “making music”. I remembered this site called Muxicall that I learned of this summer. It is a basic and very powerful flash tool designed to help teach music composition. You simply click on the various musical signs to hear that sound. When you click on play it will give you a choice of instruments- piano, strings or drums. It also is coupled with corresponding colors which is very cool! If you hold the shift key down, the mouse hovers and you can play the music continuously. It works great with the SMARTBoard since you simply touch the music signs to hear the sound.

So back to the original request– the student loved this activity! During his free time activity he is able to independently use the computer to compose all of the original tunes wants! It also has proven to be reinforcing for other students to address cause/effect objectives– especially when using the SMARTBoard. ENJOY!

**Quick directions to activate the hovering mouse when using the SMARTBoard (thanks to Jim Hollis for help with these directions). Go to your SMART tools in the task bar, select control panel, select SMART Hardware settings, make sure the pen and button option is selected and click on the picture of the mouse & keyboard. On the left side drop down menu select right click, on the right side drop down menu click floating mouse. So now the right click button on the tray launches the hovering mouse feature. To deactivate this feature simply touch the board and to reactivate it touch the right click button again. If you need to do a right click when in this mode you can still accomplish this by touching the SMARTBoard for 3-4 seconds.

Juice Bottle Jingle Friday FUN!

anne marie — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 12:32:36 +0000

I came across this very fun science site (requires Shockwave) that works well on the SMARTBoard and is a fun way to reinforce the numbers 1-6, following directions, cause/affect and is all musically fun! It’s called the LHS Juice Bottle Jingle. Students have to touch the correct numbered bottle to produce a specific song. Again it is a science site specifically addressing sound waves and how so there are other hands-on activities on the page that you might want to check out. ENJOY!

Beethoven’s Baseball– batter up!!

anne marie — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 02:07:10 +0000

For all of you teaching music history (grade 3-8) you might want to check out his interactive site from the Dallas Symphony Orchestra called Beethoven’s Baseball. This is a fun interactive baseball game where students score runs by correctly answering questions about composers. A really cool feature is the link that allows you to review or learn about a particular composer before playing the game. To play the game you simply choose 5 players and then answer the questions thrown at you by the pitcher! A correct answer is a homerun and an incorrect answer a strike. It presents well on the SMARTBoard and is interactive to the degree that you can click on the answers. ENJOY!

Drumming up some fun!

anne marie — Thu, 08 May 2008 23:15:54 +0000

Today the U-Mass Drumline visited our school and our class was invited to attend this wonderfully fun, loud, impressive show! My students were mesmerized by the rhythm, beat and precision that these very talented young adults demonstrated by “hitting the drums”. As the show concluded, keeping a beat with invisible drumsticks, many of my students asked if they could “hit the drums”. Enter two websites: 1.Virtual Drumming -play drums using the keyboard. Great to watch on the SMARTBoard. The drums as very life-like and the drum sticks move to the beat. 2.Drums Online Player -play drums with the keyboard or mouse- so perfect for SMARTBoard interaction as it allows students to touch the drums to make music. Here’s a sample of Scott’s musical talents using the keyboard to showcase his “Ringo Starr” moves on the Virtual Drumming site: scott-drums.wmv

The Rain Deer Orchestra

anne marie — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 01:29:22 +0000

The weather here in New England this week has been sultry- the mercury reached 84 today-so I thought I’d write about a site that might cool us off a bit! It’s called The Rain Deer Orchestra and is a great motivating site for number recognition 1-10 because it incorporates music… and my students LOVE music! Using the SMART Board students simply touch the nose of the reindeer ( a white glove squeezes the nose) and it elleicits a musical note. I should mention that for some of my students the fact that the number is listed below the nose can be confusing (they want to touch the number). It also is effective for addressing cause/affect objectives. It does give you the option of following a pattern to play 3 Christmas songs or you can opt for free play and create your own beautiful music! Hope you enjoy a little Christmas in April!