Second Grade · just a little more

Technology and the Orchestra unit

Green Screen

In the style of “Honey, I Shrunk the Kids,” we used Green Screen technology to crawl inside the instruments of the orchestra.Using the Doink Green Screen app, students took turns directing (looking at the alignment of students to image) and filming to get just the right trick shot for each fact. I set up the scenes on my iPad before class and students came prepared with information to share. Here is one example of the “Let’s Go Inside” series of videos my second grade students produced.

Seesaw

Combining music and math, second graders measured the length of Brass instruments (uncoiled) to investigate the relationship of size to pitch. They recorded their findings using Seesaw. With Seesaw, each one of my students is able to reflect and post to his/her online journal at the same time. Here is a 20sec. example:

Peter and the Wolf: Explain Everything Reflection

Hire an Orchestra and Explain it using your iPad

A FedEx envelope arrived with word that the members of the St. Louis Orchestra had all come down with the flu. My students were given the responsible of hiring substitute musicians for an upcoming concert. Using our lessons and information in our SMART Notebook file, students had to find out how many musicians to hire for each section of the orchestra. They could look back through our lesson (on the SB) for help telling apart the viola and violin, etc. Once they set up their orchestra, I went around asking WHY they put instruments in certain positions, etc. Students used their iPads to tell about their orchestra and explain what they learned. Although we used manipulatives for this project and I could assess by observation, it was the individual reflection using their iPads that truly demonstrated understanding.

AURASMA Monster Musicians

One way for my students to experience orchestra instruments is to bring them to life using AURASMA. I created twenty unique images and linked them to gifted child-performers. In this activity, the problem was that the musicians were lost and my students needed to help them find their way back to their home. Students scanned each image and sorted them into instrument families. As you can tell from the video below, Augmented Reality makes learning such an adventure.

Magic Stems

After learning about stems that go up or down, students used the Magic Pen on the SMARTBoard to beat the vanishing ink in a stem game.

Then they created a tutorial using Seesaw on their iPads to further demonstrate understanding.

SMARTBoard Interactive Technology

Students drive the learning in a technology infused classroom. Engagement abounds in this example.

iPads in the Music Room: Active and Engaged Learning