CPHMusic

Here’s the latest addition to our music classroom:  Music Crates! Wishing… I’ve seen these everywhere on Pinterest and finally made them for my music classes. Yippee!!! Actually, I’ve wanted to make them all summer but knew I didn’t have the $$ and didn’t want to ask for it since there are so many other needs at our school. I started collecting every crate I could find as the other teachers discarded them at the start of this year. I told my husband about them, showed him the pictures on line,  and mentioned that I had collected 6 mismatched crates from school. Happy Anniversary! Last week was my 24th wedding anniversary! When I came home from school, my den was filled with 20 brand new red and blue crates, PLUS, my wonderful husband had spent the day cutting and sanding the lumber for the seats. He had a big sign that said, “Happy Anniversary!” It’s right up there with the year he gave me a new John Deere lawn mower!! I was beyond thrilled, and the fact that he took all day to buy them – 20 of them, load them in his car, buy the wood, cut it, and sand it…. left me speechless! I love that man!! Easy to Make!! Making the seat cover wasn’t hard at all. I bought one king-sized memory foam mattress cover from Walmart and cut each piece slightly larger than the board.  I cut up old bed sheets to make the first layer covering the foam and getting all the edges perfect. I stapled it to the board. Then, I bought a man’s handkerchief for $1.00 and used it as the fabric cover. The corners are tricky, but if you cut away the bulk, it isn’t a problem to get them just right. I cut up my daughters’ old school sweatshirts and used that fabric to finish the inside of the cushion. I added a piece of ribbon on one end to make a pull-tab. By the end, I was pretty fast and could finish one in about 10 minutes. What’s inside? I’ve used them for a week with PreK – 4th graders and they work for every grade.  Here’s what I used this week: Scarf  Ball  Rhythm Sticks Bean Bag Drum Sound Tube for echo singing, etc.  Musical Alphabet letter cards Here’s How We Used Them This Week: We used the sound tubes for echo singing and for practicing our songs. I was able to walk around and listen in on children as they were singing. Funny how kids didn’t mind singing for me through the tube! In several classes, we used the rhythm sticks and turned the crate into a drum. It was sooooo cool!! We explored rhythm instruments that we shake and instruments that we strike or hit. We bounced the ball to feel the meter of 4 We waved the scarf and swayed to feel the meter of 3 We marched around the crates to feel the meter of 2 Lessons Learned: Housekeeping! It’s important to teach the children right from the beginning to sit on the crates properly. They will try to rock back and forth and it’s best to nip that behavior in the bud. I used the SPOT to replace the crate when the student repeatedly chose not to follow directions. A gentle reminder is sufficient most every time. Consider only putting one instrument in the crate at the time. Little ones get so confused if they have too many choices. It might be less tempting if the items in the crate were limited for some grades. The children love them and the storage the crates provide works so much better than the bags on the back of the chairs. They are easy to move around and arrange in groups. Having several different manipulatives that the children can access instantly makes a huge difference in the pace of the lesson, but also in the variety of ways we can experience concepts together. I’m having the best time with my Music Crates!  When I see how much my students are enjoying them, I smile all over because I know how much LOVE went into making them!! Thank you for the gift from the heart! Happy Anniversary, Bert! I’d love to know how other music teachers are able to use them in their classrooms! Do you have other ways of keeping “things” handy during lessons?