As we head into our Winter Vacation, here’s a little bit of Jingle Bell fun! 17 Funny Versions of Jingle Bells by Tony DeSare

Whew! What a whirlwind the first few weeks of school are! We’ve all settled in nicely though, and are into our normal routines. This week the Grade 7 and 8 general music classes are reviewing Treble Clef notes, and next week are starting Bass Clef. Grade 6 Chorus now has 4 songs in their folders and are learning about Meter, tempo, dynamics and rhythm reading through their music.  Chorus members *should* have brought home a notice to be signed and brought back that includes our 2 concert dates so that you can put them on your calendar… I have extras at school if they need another copy.

This week classroom music classes are learning about 2 new composers. Grade 7 is learning about Franz Joseph Haydn and grade 8 is learning about J. S. Bach. Plus!! We’re adding Bass Clef!

 

 

 

Time to go back to school!! Yeah!! Welcome Back!!!

I’m so excited to come back to school! I LOVE school supply shopping, and hope you are all ready to get started!! This year will be a little bit different and exciting!! My schedule this year includes Grade 7 and 8 General Music (like usual) but also Grade 6 Chorus!!! YEAH!! I haven’t had the chorus for a few years, and I’m very excited to get back to teaching a performing group!!

Speaking of back to school supplies 🙂 General Music students will need to bring a folder to class. It doesn’t have to be anything fancy, just a folder that can live in class for the semester (not just an area in your big binder). You will also need a pencil, it’s not a bad idea to have a pencil that can live in your folder so that it’s always here :). The last thing you’ll need is a pair of headphones, nothing fancy or expensive!! Dollar Store headphones are fine, headphones make concentrating in class with 11 other pianos playing at the same time much easier!

Chorus students will need a pencil. Music folders will be provided for you and will be chock full of fun music for us to sing!!

Don’t forget to check out the “Listen to This” tab up on the top menu bar to see the music we’re listening to in class! This week we’re starting out with Tacoma, WA saxophonist Erik Steighner. I try to find something interesting and different every week for us to check out!

**Extra Credit**

If you are new to music at the Middle School, I almost always post an extra credit assignment in my weekly blog posts.  For the first extra credit of the school year, I ask students to bring either a box of tissues or a bottle of hand sanitizer. You can imagine with 250 students coming through my classroom over the course of 2 days, we go through a lot of tissues!! If you have an extra box of tissues at home, we’d greatly appreciate you sharing!!

Lots more information will be coming, along with the re-starting of the “This Week in Music Class” posts, but for now… Welcome Back!!! It’s going to be a GREAT year!!

**Warning!! This post contains many images, and will most likely be VERY long because it was AMAZING and I want to share it 🙂 You have been warned :)** Oh, and… I’m posting it on both my home and school blogs.  It was that amazing (did I mention how amazing it was??) !! 🙂

I was honored to be invited to attend the Google Teacher Academy in Mountain View, CA. You heard that right!! I got to go to THE GOOGLEPLEX!!! I applied along with (from what I heard) 2000-ish other hopeful attendees and was among the 65 chosen to attend the GTA in Mountain View and become a Google Certified Teacher!

It was an amazing experience! I’m finding it hard to describe though… I think it’s like when we visited the Grand Canyon, you’ve seen the pictures and you’ve read the descriptions, but words and pictures can’t capture how really amazing it was… That’s how I feel about the GTA!

Just after getting the invitation to attend, we were also all invited to a G+ group so that we could start connecting, and that’s exactly what we did! The conversations started flowing and we all started connecting. There were discussions to get to know each other, connections between people who were fairly local (I got to meet 2 of our cohort at the Connecticut Google in Education Summit in June, Allison Mollica and David Saunders). We got started creating t-shirt designs and shared ideas about how to connect implement Google Apps and Tools in our classrooms. One of our cohort organized a get-together at a local restaurant the evening before GTA so that we could meet up and connect even more!

We arrived a little early and checked out a little of the campus… We were fascinated by the Google bikes!! How cool!! The Googleplex is huge, and to make it easy for everyone to get around, they leave Google bikes all around the campus! Need to go to building 6? Plop your laptop in the basket and ride over! We saw lots of Googlers do just that!

Finally it was time to get started! That’s me, waiting for them to open up the doors!

We were greeted with a wonderful breakfast (one thing about Google, you’ll never go hungry!! There’s food everywhere you look!! Micro-kitchens around every corner).

There was a presentation running to welcome all of us! With our G+ photos 🙂 So fun to see ourselves on the screen 🙂 We’re just like the kids!

The day was filled with LOTS of workshops and activities… It was amazing to spend (the LONG) day with so many other educators who were SO EXCITED to be there and share their experiences. We didn’t pause much for photos, but I couldn’t resist one with the “owl” Google sign 🙂 We know I have a “problem” with owls!

The day was packed full of activities… And at the end of it… THIS happened!! We all officially became Google Certified Teachers!!

After our amazing day, we were treated to a wonderful celebration supper (there was lunch and snack in between too!). Here’s me with the amazing Becky Evans after the celebration!

The next day was just as amazing! Starting again with yummy breakfast, and the entire day devoted to learning and collaborating! I got to chat with 2 of the Boston based Googlers who were in for the Academy!!

After we were officially done, we took a little field trip to the official Google Store…

Google Certified Teachers on the move!

You are HERE!

After a trip to the store, we took a little ride around the campus to see some of the cool sights…

One of the main buildings…

 

Well, hello Jelly Bean and Ice Cream Sandwich 🙂

And the Streetview Car and Pin!

 

And, of course, if you were going to find the answer to everything, it would be at Google!!

 

The final day was complete with one more pit stop… You can’t go to California and not stop HERE with your new friends!

I’m currently working on my Action Plan and can’t wait to share all the Googley knowledge I’ve gained… More on that once it’s ready 🙂 Thanks so much for hanging in there if you made it to the end!! I know that there were a lot of pictures, and they can’t really do the experience justice, but trust me, it was AMAZING!

 

I also want to mention… A VERY SPECIAL THANK YOU to the Wilmington Educational Foundation who gave me a Summer Educator Grant to help pay for the expenses of getting out to California for this amazing experience!! Thank you so much!! It really was the experience of a lifetime!!

 

I can NOT believe how fast term 4 has gone by!!  Time really does fly when you’re having fun!! We’ve been so busy, we just finished up our unit on Guitar by playing a final song (student choice-Go Tell Aunt Rhody, Skip to my Lou, or Paw Paw Patch) and have just a couple more things to get done before we end the semester!! Mrs. Kelley has a very busy and Google filled summer coming up!! She was chosen as one of just 65 other teachers from around the world to attend the Google Teacher Academy in Mountain View, CA this July and she was also recently named as an Authorized Google Education Trainer… It’ll be a wonderful and crazy busy summer at the Kelley house!!!! We hope you all have a wonderful summer, keep listening to great music and we’ll see you in the fall!!

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!!! Check out what we’re listening to this week over on the sidebar! Fantastic traditional Irish Music that I had the absolute delight of seeing live last weekend, and then again this past weekend.

In other school news, check out who was on “In The Loop” this month talking to the Assistant Superintendent about Google Apps!! Mrs. Kelley and Mrs. Downer!!! Ha! We’re famous 🙂

In The Loop – March 2014 from Wilmington TV on Vimeo.

For extra credit this week watch the video and then fill out the following information…