Storage Solutions

We are fortunate to have strong (and big) band and orchestra programs at my schools, which is great except that storage is kind of a problem.  At one of my schools, we have over 100 orchestra students and 75 band students.  That's a lot of instruments and we don't have a lot of space.  There is just enough room for kids to store their instruments if they put them where we ask them to.  That's a big "if!"

I feel like I've tried a lot of things... I have picked instruments up and put them where they belong, I have moved them to a different spot so the kids come ask me where they are and we have the "was it where it was supposed to be?" conversation, I have tried letting them leave them wherever they want... it's driving me crazy!  So today I had an idea:  if we can keep our instruments put away for the next three weeks until President's Day break, we will have a party the last day before break.  The kids seem jazzed about it and already the room is much neater, which makes me a more relaxed and happy teacher :)  And hopefully three weeks will be long enough to make it a habit!

Neat room = happy teacher :)

My question is this:  how do I enforce?  If there's one chronic instrument laying around, does everybody else lose the party too?  What if a kid moves another kid's instrument so they can put theirs where it belongs?  (Believe it or not, it DOES happen!)  I'm going to make it "all-or-nothing," so that either everybody earns the party or no one does.  After all, we are a team and we all need to work together to keep this place organized!  Maybe we can have a few "strikes" so one stray instrument doesn't ruin everybody's chances.

Leave me a comment if you have an idea.  I am counting the days until we are in our new room!  Which, by the way, is next year!! (AND we will have more storage!  Yeah!)

Superstars!

I have to admit, I stole this idea from a colleague, but it's so good I have to share it.

The method book we use is Orchestra Expressions published by Alfred.  I LOVE it, and they are not paying me to say that!  Although it's not perfect (no method book is!), it's probably the best I've worked with.  My favorite thing is that they provide rich accompaniment tracks as part of the teacher package, so the kids feel like they're making music even when they're just playing one note... but that's a different post :)

Anyway, the book identifies a couple of tunes per unit with asterisks and wants the kids to memorize those tunes.  My colleague came up with the BRILLIANT idea to type a list of those tunes and hand it out to the kids:  the "Star Chart."  When a student has one of the songs memorized, he or she can play it in the last 5 minutes of class, reserved for "Star Chart Time."  The kid earns a sticker for each Star Chart song memorized.  My colleague also gives a Frootie for each memorized song (see previous post about how much I love Frooties!), but I don't.  I suppose I could.

I decided to take it one step further and create a "Superstar Board" in my room.  For every 5 stickers earned, the student gets to decorate a star and hang it up where they want.  

The hope was that this incentive would increase home practice, but the jury's still out on whether or not it really helped.  I have 4 schools, and the kids seem really motivated at some schools, but not so much at others.  My hunch is that the kids who are earning stars are the ones who practiced before, and the non-practicers are still not practicing.

How do you motivate your students to practice?  We'll save the great "Practice Log" debate for another day.

Remember Frooties?

They used to have them at the bank when I was a kid.  My family also used to go to a Labor Day parade and the people on the floats used to throw them.  I loved filling my bag with all the different flavors--and they come in TONS of flavors.

I recently discovered that a local drug store sells them!  The bags they come in are enormous and they are cheap!  So I decided to have a "book check."  On a randomly selected day, any kid who had all their materials earned a Frootie.  I couldn't believe what a big difference it made!  Suddenly, I had kids saying, "I have my instrument and book today--is it a book check?"  "When are we having another book check?"  Lost books magically appeared, and kids who couldn't find theirs started coming up with money for replacements.

A teacher I work with said to me last week, "It's amazing what kids will do for ONE Tootsie Roll."  True story!

How to Get a Good Sound

One of our big 4th grade objectives for this quarter is getting a good sound out of the instrument.  It's hard!  Lots of things have to be just right to get a nice tone.  The bow needs to be in the "sweet spot."  It needs to be straight.  It needs to be on the right string.  The left hand fingers need to be all the way down to the fingerboard.  Not to mention it's almost impossible to get a good sound with poor instrument position or bow hold.  Bless these kids for not quitting!

Our curriculum is great in that it includes a lot of preparatory exercises.  We use bow tubes (aka toilet paper tubes) to practice getting a straight bow before we even put the bow on the instrument.  After that, it's lots of open strings, and the kids seem to get a great sound.  Then we put fingers and bow together.  Suddenly, it's much harder to get a good sound.  I do a lot of demonstrating this time of year and a lot of moving kids' bows for them.  Cello players seem to have the toughest time, which is weird, because I'm a cellist.  What are you doing to help your kids get a beautiful sound?

Where are all the Orchestra Bloggers?

I love Pinterest.  I love pinning stuff for my orchestra classroom.  But a lot of the things I pin are for the elementary general music classroom and I have to adapt them to use with my 4th and 5th graders.  Although I have found a lot of good "adaptable" stuff, I discovered another orchestra teacher's blog on Pinterest a few weeks ago and started wondering:  Why aren't there more of us doing this?

So here we go!  My hope is that through this blog, I can share some things that have worked for me and gain some knowledge from all the fabulous orchestra teachers out there.  Some days, I don't feel like I have it together at all, but maybe we can all muddle through together!

Let's jump in with both feet, shall we?  I'm looking for advice on how to handle kids who want to quit.  I find that this time of year is particularly challenging.  The 4th grade beginners are starting to learn more notes and skills and it's getting harder.  The 5th graders, who have one year of playing under their belt, start to learn music with multiple parts for spring festivals and concerts this time of year.  It's not easy!  And I have a handful of kids who want to give up.

I really think I'm in the business of teaching life skills just as much as teaching string technique, so I try to find out why a student is losing interest.  More often than not, it is because the material is getting harder.  I try to work through the problem with the kiddo and find out a solution.  I've even been known to have the "we need to finish what we start" conversation.

There's one little guy in particular who has probably missed 3 weeks of class and who just doesn't want to play anymore.  I've tried talking with him:  Is not coming to orchestra going to make it easier or harder?  Why is it important to finish what we start?  I've tried coming down hard:  When we sign up for orchestra, we sign up for the year.  I've tried getting his classroom teacher on my side.  Nothing has helped.

So help me out!  How do you handle tough kiddos like that?