Hey there! I can’t
believe it’s been so long since I’ve posted, I will definitely do better!
I recently gave the flashcards I use in my
classroom a makeover and thought I’d share on the many ways to use flashcards
in music lessons. While it’s true that
the true spirit of music learning should always be engaging and hands on, I’ve
found that by making a game out of it, I can essentially get my students to “drill”
patterns using flashcards. I tend to use
flashcards to practice reading and identification and have found that
especially for melodic reading, using a quick flashcard activity in a lesson
helps to give students a good workout on a variety of patterns and combinations
quickly.
Here are some of the ways that I use flashcards in my
classroom:
1.
Rote Melodic Reading Practice on the Staff
When the students are just
reaching the point in my process with an element where they are ready to read
on the staff, I either hold the cards up, tape them to my white board, or use a
power point with a new card on each slide.
At first, I usually need to sing and point while they echo after me, but
after a few lessons they are able to read by themselves!
2.
Reading
Sometimes I choose to focus more
on rhythm or melody in a lesson, but to still include practice in whatever I’m
not focusing on, it just takes a few minutes to just hold up the cards and have
them clap, speak, or sing each one. For
this, I often have a student hold up the cards and since they are not
themselves performing for the group, it gives those kids that are not always
likely to volunteer to lead other activities a chance to lead since it’s very
low risk.
3.
Which Phrase is This?
To practice identifying and
performing patterns, I may tape four or five melodic or rhythmic phrases to the
board and perform one asking the students to identify which one they hear. I tend to do this more with rhythm since I’ve
found that my students are more likely to want to try to perform one themselves
for the class to figure out if it’s a rhythm pattern, which then turns out to
be a great way for me to assess where they are.
For melody, this is a great way to challenge those higher level learners
early on in the staff reading process.
4.
Stick to Staff Matching
When I created all of my melodic
cards, I made two versions of each pattern:
one written in stick notation with the solfa underneath and the other on
the staff with a do clef. Once the kids
are ready to start working on the staff, a quick and fun way to get them
practicing is to lay out one version (stick cards or staff cards) and call on
individual students to match the cards up with their corresponding opposite
(stick or staff). To keep the other
students engaged, when the individual student has made the match, the rest of
the class has to double check their work to make sure it really is a
match.
For my flashcard sets that have
many more cards (my so-mi set is a lot smaller than my drmsl set!) I give all
the students either the stick cards or staff cards and everyone searches the
cards on the floor to make matches. For
my bigger groups (my class sizes this year range from 14 to 34), I either buddy
up kids so that two work together with one card, or I make the kids without
cards the “checkers” and they make sure that all the matches are correct. There’s no singing involved (but there
definitely could be if you wanted to extend the activity), I mostly just want
them to be able to recognize the notes’ correct placement on the staff.
For my larger sets, it has
worked well to give everybody one card (I usually have to take several of the
matches out) and then all the students mingle around the room to find the
student with their match. When they do
find their match, they sit down and practice singing the card together. After everyone has sat down, we go around the
room and all the matches sing their phrase.
This gets them up and moving, while still practicing reading, singing,
and working with a partner. And, since no one has to sing a solo, I’ve had
great success in getting students to sing that do not normally volunteer to
sing patterns on their own!
Once reading is going well, I try
this matching game: I give everybody two
cards-one in stick notation and the other in staff notation-but the cards
cannot match! The students sit in a
circle and one student begins the game by singing one of their cards (it can be
the stick or the staff). The student who
has the match then sings the card again and they both put those cards in the
middle of circle face down. That second
student then sings their other card and then whoever has the match sings the
card again and so on. I’ve only tried
this activity with my smaller groups (My FCS musicianship groups are all much
smaller than my school groups and I have one group at school of 14 in 4th
grade and another of 14 in 5th grade), but it has been a great
hit! This is a great way to assess reading/literacy
and singing! While I have not yet tried
this with larger groups, I bet this could work if kids buddied up and worked
together (great for kids that need a little extra help) and if you keep things
moving so that the game doesn’t take too long.
A game that works well in
centers with the stick and staff notation cards is Memory: with 2-4 players, set four sets of cards (8
cards in total) face down. Each student
takes a turn turning over two cards to find a match and when they do, they get
to keep those two cards. The game
continues until all the matches have been found. You can incorporate singing or not, either
way it’s a great way for them to practice reading skills!
As you can see, I get a lot of
use out of my stick to staff cards!
5.
Rhythm Walk/Music Walk
This is so simple, but
great! I made smaller versions of my
bigger flashcards and then handed them out, one to each student. I play some fun music (just one song so the
activity only lasts about three minutes or less), and while the music is
playing the students may walk or dance around the room to the beat. Every ten to fifteen seconds, I pause the
music and when the music stops, they must partner with the person closest to
them. Each student takes a turn speaking
their card to their partner, then they switch cards and we do it again. This was such a hit with my students! More than just the rhythm practice that the
kids are getting, I really loved that my students were helping each other out
when they were having trouble reading their cards which resulted in students
who had not quite gotten “it” yet, really beginning to understand and making
real progress in just three minutes!
In fact, this went so well that
I applied it to absolute note reading on the staff. I gave out my recorder King of the Mountain
cards (such a great game!) and played a fun song, pausing every so often, but
this time the students speak the letters of their card. After the song is over, we sit down and play
King of the Mountain with recorders (which my kids love to play! See Amy Abbott’s post here for an
example: http://www.musicalaabbott.com/2012/12/king-of-mountain.html). Since we just did a quick and fun review, they
are a lot better prepared to play. King
of the Mountain is another great game for assessment, especially now that I
also use it for recorder.
I’m always looking for new and
more engaging ways to get my students to really enjoy working on patterns to
help boost their overall musicianship.
What are your favorite ways to work on patterns or practice with
flashcards?
Have a Great Week!
Ashley
P.S. I’m working on getting all
of my flashcard sets up onto my Teachers Pay Teachers Store, be sure to check
them out!
