Miss Donna 4 Music

The month of March has a lot to celebrate this year!

I went back to the music classroom yesterday after being out for a month and a half to take care of some family stuff. And I got to talk to the kids about all the special days that are happening in March. Here is a small list of the ones we talked about: Pi/Pie Day; St. Patrick’s Day, First Day of Spring, Palm Sunday, and Easter. Because I teach at a small Christian school, we are all very familiar with Palm Sunday and Easter but holidays like Pi Day and St. Patrick’s Day are a little less familiar so that provided a great learning moment.

I am currently working on a Pi Day music resource—obviously, it’s not going to be ready in time for Pi Day this year (since Pi Day was yesterday) but it will be available soon to be used any time of year. However, I did do a quick no-prep Pi Day activity in class yesterday. I drew a circle on the board and divided the “pie” into 4 pieces and drew in a couple notes in 3 of the sections, 1 note in each section with each note equalling 1 beat . Then had the kids help me fill out the final section to complete the pie. We had fun figuring out all the different combinations we could use to complete the pie.

To celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, we used my Shamrock Composition activity that I recently posted in my shop. This resource has composing activities for grades K-8 (which is what I teach). There are 2 activities geared towards K-2 using simple words and pictures set to 2-beat rhythms using quarter notes (Ta), eighth notes (Ti-Ti), and quarter rest (Sh!). For 3rd-8th, there are a variety of rhythm cards meant for 3/4, 4/4, and 6/8 time signatures, where students can choose a time signature and choose 6 rhythm cards to create their own rhythm composition/song.

In addition to rhythm, the Shamrock Composition resource also provides activities for students in K-8 to compose using solfege syllables and letters on the staff. All these activities have options for all the grade levels and abilities, and you have the option to use them with the whole class, in teams, small groups, or centers! And it comes with several “teacher cheat sheets” that I have created to allow for non-music teachers, subs, or homeschool parents to use even if they don’t know a lot about music.

To bridge the gap between St. Patrick’s Day and Easter, I created a resource called Clovers & Bunnies. This is a fun activity for matching rhythms to certain time signatures. There are large clover cards with either 3/4 or 4/4 time and bunny cards with rhythms in either 3 beats for 4 beats. The object is to match the bunny rhythm to the correct time signature clover. There are a few different versions of the game to play, again with the whole class, in small groups, or centers.

For Easter in music class, there is Easter Chicks Chase, a solfege matching game. This is a great game to get your students singing solfege and practicing their ear training, but also seeing the notes on the staff and relating it to what they are singing and hearing. And there are cute little chicks and colorful Easter eggs, so there’s that!

If you’re looking for an Easter activity for Sunday school or Bible class for kids, I created Jesus Is Risen. When I created Jesus Is Born back in December, I was so surprised to see how well it did in my store! I knew I needed to do more Bible stories. Last month I created The Story of Creation, which has done well also, but I knew Easter would be the perfect time to do another great Bible story game. So Jesus Is Risen—like Jesus Is Born—is a trivia game meant to be used to either introduce the Bible story to your class or to be used as a review game after you’ve already taught the lesson. These trivia questions cover the whole story from Jesus’ Triumphal Entry leading up to the crucifixion and including the death and resurrection of Jesus, as it’s laid out in Scripture.

On a side note, I got to use my Story of Creation in my Sunday school class (which is actually on Wednesday night) this past week and the kids had a blast playing the board game! We actually had to pause in the middle and we’re going to continue the game next week.

I really enjoy creating this fun resources for my classes and being able to share them with other educators and see them using these in their classes as well! There are always more creations in the works ahead so stay tuned! If you have any requests for a specific kind of resource you are looking for, please feel free to reach out!!