Creativity in Music Class

One of the things I love about teaching music is the way you can do creative things! I currently have third graders writing their own group song. The lyrics are done, now they have to learn enough about notes and rhythm to write the rest!

One thing I do every year with second grade is to divide a song into short sections, type them on a paper for each kid, and then have them color what they think his or her part of the song would look like. They are always great to look at. Then I scan the pictures, put them in PowerPoint, record the class signing the song, and voila, they have a music video! I think this could be used for parts of a story as well as songs. Kids love it and they are SO proud of the creation.

Finally, using Stationery Studio, I print out animal templates. I have the kids write everything they can think about the animal on the back of the paper, and then make two or four lines that rhyme on the front of the paper and we put them together as an Animal Rap! Last year, I put them in a podcast! Great fun.

Maybe everyone can share their creative activities and we can follow our wonderful leader’s advice….’Let a beam of the North Star light into our classrooms!’

This entry was posted on Saturday, October 27th, 2007 at 6:40 am by TerryS and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

2 Responses to “Creativity in Music Class”

  1. Maribeth Says:
    October 28th, 2007 at 1:11 pm

    Terry, I’m absolultey “WOWd” reading how creative you are as a music teacher. I’m amazed that your third grade students aren’t just singing, but WRITING their own music, and producing music videos! You have quite a cross-curricular music program - incorporating language arts, visual arts, and technology. I also enjoyed reading how you’re using Stationery Studio - which is a great “North Star” tool to inspire creative writing (and I think it even inspires creativity in teachers). The North Star light is beaming into your classroom very brightly indeed!

    I agree with you that it would be great everyone can share their creative activities - perhaps through their own blog entries. It would be very inspiring!

  2. Paul Reynolds Says:
    October 28th, 2007 at 4:26 pm

    Thanks for sharing Terry. You get extra NSC points for contributing all these great ideas!

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