Every year at Culver Elementary School, students in grades 3 and 4 begin playing the recorder. This year we started using a new method called "Mr. Everybody's Musical Apartment" to help the students learn how to read notes. It has made a huge difference in their note reading abilities!
We also started a really neat incentive program that was developed by another music teacher, Barb Philipak. The program is called "Recorder Karake" and the whole idea is based on the students earning different colored "belts" for their recorders based on the difficulty of the song they are able to play. Every second time that they come to music class, we play for belts. The kids have done an incredible job! These kids are playing much more diffucult songs that any group I've ever had before. It's amazing what a little competitions will do! Below I have listed the order of the belts and the songs that the students have to play to receive that belt. I will soon be adding 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th degree Black belt which will be beads that can be added to the belts. |
