Harrington Elementary Music
6th Grade Music Technology Class Blog
—>Enter Here<—
The 6th Grade Music Technology Class Blog is a collaborative blog that houses the creative projects posted by 6th graders in the Harrington Music Technology Elective. Students work on collaborative projects such as podcast interviews, composer and Broadway Musical reports, and other creative works in their free time. Students are encouraged to post comments on the blog to have practice critiquing and evaluating works of art. All comments are monitored by Ms. Johnston.
Electronic Music and Keyboard Links
Play a Virtual Piano!
(Must have Java Script installed)
Famous Pianist Word Search
(Choose “Print” from the File Menu too print a hard copy)
Strange and Unusual Pianos
Music/Piano Jokes and Funnies
Test out some Virtual Drum Machines!
Recorder Links
Rockin’ Recorders by Kay Greenhaw
Sillick’s Rockin Recorders- Handouts you can print at home and a PlayAlong
Here you will find audio examples of professional recorder ensembles, a fingering chart , and much more.
There are some awesome recordings on this page. Check out the E-recorder (an elecrified contra-bass!)
Forgot your fingerings? Click here. Interactive Fingering Chart
Rcorder Rock Star- Test Your Fingerings
Team name: Harrington
Get the Access Code from Mrs. J.
Students: Click on the name above to enter the Recorder Karate Dojo. The username is karate, and you will have to get the password from Mrs. Johnston.
Photos
Check out our new music room! We are so fortunate to have more space! Ironically, the classroom theme for 2008-09 is Space, thus the stars, constellations, and planets you see hanging everywhere. Our new music technology lab is attached to the back of the music room and houses our VH1 keyboard lab as well as new iMacs recycled by Mr. Cordova! Harrington kids are so lucky!!
and the Lab…
Garage Band Projects
iMovie Composer Projects
In two fifth grade classes last year (2005-06), students formed teams and studied classical and romantic composers. They found a MIDI file of the composer’s music, “updated” the music in Garage Band, found images of the composer on the Internet, and put the images and clips together in iMovie.
TEACHERS: Click here for a PDF file of the lesson I modified from Apple’s Garage Band in the Classroom site.
Games and Extras
** Students: You may visit these sites after you have completed class projects. Make sure you have parent permission before surfing the web at home!
Morton Subtonik’s Creating Music
DSO Kids Games- Time Machine, Beethoven’s Baseball, Hangman, Music Match, and More!
Composer Time Machine, Note Name Game, Compose Your Own Music, and Rockin’ Rhythm Master
FunBrain Music Games- Stay Afloat, The Piano Player, and Scramble-Saurus
NY Philharmonic Game Room- There’s so much to do here, you could spend all day!!!
NAME THAT NOTE!!! -Do you know your note names on the Treble Staff? Test your knowledge here!
JamStudio.com- Compose your own Jams, save your mixes and e-mail them anywhere! You must have an e-mail to create an account on this site. Ask your parent’s permission before creating an account. See Ms. J for the “All Access Pass” code to unlock all features of the site.
Music K-8 KIDTUNES- Here you can play and download kids music for just 99 cents each! This site has some of the songs we have performed in class such as “Rap of the Solar System”, “Halloween Rap”, and “Thanksgiving Rap”. Get your parents permission to create an account!
The Constellations Jig- Sing-A-long online presentation of he popular Science song about Constellations!
Musical Mysteries - Play along with Robbie and his friends as they solve the mystery of the missing music!
MUSICTHEORY.net – On this interactive website, choose an activity from the scroll down menus. The first menu has interactive lessons where you can learn how to read music. The second menu has interactive quizzes that you can train yourself to read note names (Note Trainer), intervals (Interval Trainer), and playing instruments(Keyboard and Guitar Trainers).
About Mrs. Johnston
Mrs. Johnston came to Harrington Elementary School in the Summer of 2005 as the General Music Specialist. She has been teaching in the Denver Public Schools for seven years. Mrs. J has taught all levels of music from ECE-12th grade including band, choir, technology, and general music. She is a Level II certified Orff-Schulwerk teacher and utilizes many diverse strategies in her classroom including singing, movement, instrument playing, literacy integration, and music technology. Mrs. J has a Bachelors Degree in Music Education from Northwest Missouri State University and a Masters in Music Education from CU-Boulder with a Minor in Music Technology. She is also a member of the Rocky Mountain Chapter of the American Orff-Schulwerk Association, MENC, and the Denver Classroom Teacher’s Association.
Mrs. Johnston lives in Westmister, CO with her husband,Shannon, six-year-old daughter Anna, and new baby Heather. Her hobbies include digital and traditional scrapbooking, playing recorders, guitar, and piano, blogging and designing web pages, surfing the net, and learning more about music technology. Mrs. J also enjoys serving occasionally on the worship team at Grace Church of Arvada, watching her husband play hockey, off-roading and camping with her family in the summer, and home decorating.
Click to E-mail Mrs. Johnston.
Dear Mrs. J – Your site is awesome! Thank you for putting it out there.
I teach middle school music in Springfield, MA. This is my first year in the school, which is a pretty rough urban school. I have brought in my laptop and let some of my students work with GarageBand. They really respond well to the program. How did you get set up with such a nice technology lab? Did you apply for grants? I would like to get some Macs with GarageBand for my classroom, but only have a budget of $1500 per school year. Any advice you have would be great.
Thanks, Eric
June 3rd, 2009 at 2:18 am