Musical Alphabet in COLOR! = better letters!

Today I put up my new word wall!  I was so excited to put together all of my musical vocabulary words and my musical letters. 

First I put it here on my cabinets..... and then I thought..... NOPE!  That will only last 5 minutes.... my students have to walk by my cabinets to get in and out of the room and things that I put on my cabinets tend to walk off.  

Then I decided to place it here and thought..... This is WAY better!..... BUT I can't see the letters!  

See - they blend into the wall....

Especially the yellow letters

I'm glad that I was able to get up to school a couple days early to problem solve because this is a problem I can solve!  I redid the letters so that they will be easier to see.  I thought I'd share my "better letters" with you! 

Click HERE to download the alphabet cards in COLOR

I got the clip art that I used in these letters from the following sites MSN clipart, ICLIPART, Clip Art ETC, WP Clipart .

Now my new word wall looks better than EVER!

MUCH MUCH MUCH easier to see! 

The yellow letters are much easier to see now! 

Poor "I" doesn't have any words  : ( as I was putting
up my word wall a teacher friend reminded me of the word "Imitation".... I'll have to add it! 

Grade Level Labels - Do I ever have enough?

If you are a teacher who doesn't teach a classroom full of students, but a grade level full of students, then these labels are for you!

Labels are Pre-K through 6th grade

This is what the pre-kinder -6th grade labels looks like
 (minus the black line across the top)

CLICK HERE to download 4.25 x 4.5 labels! 

CLICK HERE to download 4.25 x 1.5 labels 

Musical Word Wall - Proof that Learning is Doing

I took some pictures of my "word wall" adventure.  I hope that these pictures might answer some questions that you may have.

If you would like to download my word sets click HERE!

Got these at Teacher Heaven

1. Here is a picture of the sentence strips that I purchased. The key to printing on them as I did is that the back side is blank. I printed them on the blank side.

What I saw on my screen.

2. Based on this picture on the screen and my printer settings, I thought I would have a white edge all the way around the word.  

3. This is what my words looked like when I got finished printing them..... They had 3 sides? of white and many of the shorter words were in need of trimming.  I LOVE my paper cutter!  Without cutting the the words didn't fit into my mini pocket charts..... I don't know if I'll use them with the pocket charts, but I want the choice to do so, so before I was done, I ended up cutting all of the words.       

I got these from Lakeshore!  Aren't they Awesome?

4. Here is what they looked like after trimming

5. See - they fit in the pocket charts just fine!

A Musical Word Wall!

So all summer I've been working on creating a word wall that will work in my classroom..... maybe my word wall will work for you too..... Feel free to download it and print.

You might also enjoy the  Musical Alphabet that I created earlier in the summer. 

There are two versions of the word wall.  The first is intended to be printed on 8.5x11 card stock and does not include the colorful background.   The second version is intended to be printed on 3x11.5 sentence strips which depending on how the supplies work at your school may be easier to get a hold of than regular card stock.  I first learned about printing on sentence strips from pinterest.  Please visit the awesome blog that provided those very detailed and useful instructions click at  "A Turn to Learn" .

The pictures give an example of each sub group of words.  Don't be fooled by the pictures.  The height of each word and most font sizes are identical throughout the entire collection. The clip art I used came from the  following sites: MSN clipart, ICLIPART, Clip Art ETC, WP Clipart .

Instruments

Set 1 (Instruments) 3 x 11.5 sentence strips

Set 1 (Instruments) 8.5 x 11

Notation and Theory

Set 2 (notation and theory) 3 x 11.5 sentence strips

Set 2 (notation and theory) 8.5 x 11

Musical Elements, vocal and instrumental words

Set 3 (Musical Elements) 3 x 11.5 sentence strips

Set 3 ( Musical Elements) 8.5 x 11

(Musical Elements 8.5 x 11 corrected on August 21, 2012) 

Ensembles and Occupations

Set 4 (Ensembles and Occupations) 3 x 11.5 sentence strips

Set 4 (Ensembles and Occupations ) 8.5 x 11

Types and Elements of Song

Set 5 (Types and Elements of Song) 3 x 11.5 sentence strips

Set 5 (Types and Elements of Song) 8.5 x 11

Performances and Genres

Set 6 (Performances and Genres) 3 x 11.5 sentence strips

Set 6 (Performances and Genres) 8.5 x 11

Tempo and Dynamics

Set 7 (Tempo and Dynamics) 3 x 11.5 sentence strips

Set 7 (Tempo and Dynamics) 8.5 x 11

Pictures of this word wall in my class are coming soon!

MelodySoup Costume Solutions: The Brown Clown

Brown clown costume dressed up as gingerbread men. 

One of the most versatile and reusable costumes I have ever made has been my plain, brown clown costumes.  All you need is a clown costume pattern:  (Here s the McCall's pattern -  clown pattern ), some brown fabric and an imagination.  

As far as the sewing goes, just remember, no one who watches your elementary school show is going to inspect your seams......unless the costume falls off during the performance, so although your sewing doesn't have to be pristine, it does need to be serviceable.

McCall's clown pattern

Over the years my brown clown costumes have been gingerbread men, reindeer, the big bad wolf, 3 bears, dogs, cats, and chocolate. They would probably make pretty good tree trunks, weeds, or a beetle.  Anything that COULD be brown, will work.    The trick is to use accessories that are easily removed from the base costume so that your "brown clown" can be anything