My Brand New Sub Plans Bundle and Nine Week Musical Unit Bundle are now on JW Pepper too!

Some teachers cannot use school funds to purchase items on TeachersPayTeachers, so I often put my biggest bundles of work onto JW Pepper.

If you've followed my work this summer, you know that I created two new very large bodies of work.

As of today, my Nine Week Musical Bundle (Newsies/Sound of Music/Annie) and my New Chorus Sub Plans Bundle that includes several weeks of worth in it to help your non-music or music sub teach meaningful material while you are gone.

Make sure to check them out as you purchase materials for the new school year on JW Pepper!

QUICK! I need ideas for my choir lesson! Topic- Decoding the Choral Octavo/Score for Beginners

For beginners, reading the choral octavo/score often feels like reading a science lesson in a completely different language.  They look totally confused, and they stop singing because of it.  This creates a lack of confidence that can be hard to overcome unless we address it early and with lots of different interactive activities.  In this lesson, you’ll introduce the topic of reading choral scores, and watch a 6 minute video that will clarify it even further because it has great visuals.   I’ve also included many misconceptions about reading scores that will help your students avoid certain traps that often occur when learning this skill.  I’ve included 15 engaging, interactive “gamified” extension activities that you can use to further increase their understanding of how to read a choral score.

What topics are covered in this lesson, and how long will it take?

You will use words like the following...Score, Staff, Soprano, Alto, Tenor, Bass, how to find dynamic markings, tempo markings, composer and arranger names, Repeat signs of all sorts, misconceptions, and a lot of games and activities to increase understanding.

This lesson can take 50 minutes and you can move on, or you can make it an entire week or more if you do some or all of the extension activities.

Click here to see it in my TpT Store!

Please consider leaving a review in my TpT store. 

My New EXPANDED Google Slides Sound of Music Giveaway

You can enter this giveaway until Sunday, August 25, 2024 at 11:59 PM at the bottom of this blog post by answering two poll questions.

This is the newest version of This Sound of Music Unit, and it includes more activities than my original version that can make it last up to three weeks. Created July 2024. The original was created in August 2023. Here is the link to the original version which does NOT include the extra 8 creative extension activities (extra quiz, creative writing, debates, character diaries, research project ideas and more).

The deck has 5 slides, but it has links to YouTube videos to help you and a link to 27 pages of questions, quizzes and creative extension activities.

This unit will work best with mature 10-year-olds and up to age 15 who are in social studies and music classes and middle school choir. You will get a word find, a 60-question viewer's guide for students with a teacher answer key, two 10 question quizzes with answer key, and a discussion guide that will help you link the events of the movie to real world history. This unit will guide you in discussions about the Holocaust, Adolf Hitler, the Anschluss, Nazi's and how it relates to the dramatization of the Von Trapp's real-life experience during that time. Your students will enjoy watching one of the greatest movie musicals of all time while learning about one of the darkest times in World History. You will also get 8 creative extension activities that can make this unit last up to 3 weeks.

I showed the movie every year to my 5th and 6th graders during my 30 years teaching public school, and I led these discussions with them after realizing many of the students didn't understand why the family was hiding after the Captain avoided working with the Third Reich. Even if your students have seen the movie before, this unit will give the students a greater appreciation for it, and it will help them want to dig deeper. Side note- I took the Sound of Music tour in Salzburg, and while visiting the region, I visited the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp.

You will start with a word find that leads to a discussion before you begin watching the movie. Your students will use the 60-question viewer guide as they watch. During the days you watch, you will end with a discussion about the movie plot and relate the characters to real life events from that time period. You will administer two quizzes during the time of the unit. At the end of the unit, you can choose to watch the Oprah Winfrey interview with the actors in which they tell fun stories about the filming process and what that was like. You will also get links to reliable sites with other information about the Holocaust and the real Von Trapp Family.

If you have a deep interest this period of history and want to teach your students about more than the surface value of this musical movie, this will be a great unit for you to use with your students!

If you want to save $ and buy a bundle that includes Newsies, Annie and Sound of Music, you'll get a full nine-weeks of creative ideas that teach music AND history!

Click here to see the bundle!

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QUICK! I need ideas for my choir lesson- Topic - Developing Tones and Overtones in Choral Singing

Developing beautiful tone in your choir is so important. Teaching the students to learn to listen and self-correct and self-assess is critical.

In this lesson, you'll get-

A link to a Google doc that is 19 pages long and includes a lesson plan to introduce the topic with ideas for guided and independent practice closing activity and extension idea and even homework if you want it, followed by ways to assess your students understanding of overtones, followed by specific exercises that encourage overtone production, followed by ideas on how to integrate overtone work into your class, followed by 14 choral works that encourage overtone production with many YouTube performance links to examples of the songs being sung by great choirs, followed by ways to encourage overtone production when you first introduce a song! I even made a couple of short videos to demonstrate things. They are unlisted on my YouTube Channel, so you only get the links in the lesson!

Whew!

I hope you enjoy! Please consider leaving a review on TpT!

It's here in my TpT Store!

Do you have a curriculum map for S-Cubed Sight Singing Program? Well...not a tradition one...but...

It’s not a traditional Map for the program but nothing about the program is traditional.

I get this question a lot… What is in the program? Do you have a curriculum map?

When I made the program, I spent enormous amounts of time, writing the product descriptions, so that teachers would know what was in every single lesson.

At the end of each product description, I put a link to the next lesson. That goes all the way through the end of level two so you know exactly what you’re teaching in each lesson.

So here is the link to lesson one, forbidden pattern the game. Read the product description. Scroll to the bottom. Find the link that says click here to find what’s in lesson two. 

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/S-Cubed-The-Game-Lesson-1-Forbidden-Pattern-826815

QUICK! I need ideas for my choir lesson! Topic- Breathing for Singing!

I've just released my fourth lesson in the "QUICK!" series, and the topic is breathing for singing!

*The link to the google doc is 12 pages long and includes a lesson plan to introduce the topic with ideas for guided and independent practice and closing activity and extension idea and even homework if you want it, followed by 7 creative activity suggestions to extend their knowledge and understanding in fun and engaging ways.  If you employ these ideas and extension activities, you can extend this unit for a few days. 

*At the end, you will find 4  links to resources and videos focused on the topic of breathing.

*...And hopefully, some of these ideas will stimulate your OWN creativity too!

Here is the link to it in my TpT Store!

QUICK! I need ideas for my choir lesson! Topic-Vocal Health and Vocal Hygiene

This is the third release in my new series designed to give you ideas in a hurry for your choir lesson.

It is so important to help our students learn how to take care of their voices. This lesson is designed to help you do just that.

You'll find-

*A topic introduction lesson plan with two video links to drive the point home.

*Common misconceptions about vocal health

*14 extension activity ideas. You can use one of them or all of them if you want to really have a big unit plan.

*A list of 24 resources focused on vocal health which includes video links, links to websites that have even more information about vocal health, and more activity ideas for you and your students.

Click here to see the lesson in my TpT Store!

2024- Most New Products Ever From Mr. D! Back to School Sale- August 6-7

If you are on my email list (Write "Subscribe" in the subject line at inthemiddlewithmrd@gmail.com),

you are already aware that I've been pumping out lots of new work.  From my new line of sub plans, musical unit plans to my "Quick!  I need ideas for my choir lesson", I am working hard to help make your daily life as a music teacher easier!  As always, I offer the lessons as single purchases, and also in bundles.  The New Musical Bundle includes material for Newsies, Annie and The Sound of Musical, and the unit can last up to 9 weeks.  

My New Sub Plan Bundle can supply up to two months of valuable lessons to help your choir continue to learn about real choir stuff and can be used by a music or non-music sub.

You will get tons of creative extension ideas that include creative writing, acting, interviews, art work, and so much more to help increase understanding while having a great time doing it!

My new line of products called ""QUICK! I need ideas for my choir lesson"" are designed to give you direct instructions on ways to approach teaching things like your vocal warm-ups, dynamics, tone, pitch accuracy, rhythm and all things that a choir needs to know to be a great choir!  Some of my ideas will likely help your creative juices too.  Once I finish the new product line, I'll bundle them, but until then, I'll release one or two weekly in the coming weeks.

The TpT Back to School sale is happening Tuesday/Wednesday, August 6/7, 2024.

QUICK! I need ideas for my choir lesson- Topic- Dynamics

Getting our young singers to sing with dynamic contrast can be tricky. In this lesson, you'll get ideas for games and teaching techniques to help your students sing pianissimo, piano, mezzo piano, mezzo forte, forte, and fortissimo. You'll get a list of songs from several genres that demonstrate dynamics. That list may give you ideas for other songs that could be useful in teaching dynamics.

The idea behind my "QUICK!" series is to help you quickly with creativity in specific areas of teaching choral music. I want you to be able to put it in your cart the buy it the day before or the day that you need it, and to have a quick idea you can use. You'll find that there are so many ideas in each lesson that you'll have stuff you can use and develop for weeks and months!

More lessons and more topics to come!

If you have a suggestion for a topic, please comment!