Submitted by Artie Almeida, Orlando, Florida
Idea posted June 3, 2004
I have had great success with my Teddy Tickets. (Our school mascot is the Bear Lake Bear.) I cut out teddy bears with the Ellison machine and put music symbols on them, according to what we are studying. For instance, the second graders might be studying dynamic markings. The second grade's teddies would have pp, p, mp, mf, f, ff, crescendo, and decrescendo on them. To send kids to instruments or groups, the teacher calls out the definition, and the child with the correct dynamic marking moves (i.e., The teacher says, "The medium loud group - go to drums," and all kids with "mf" on their teddy get to go to the drums.) After sorting into groups, you can help any lost sheep find their place. By giving the definition, you make it a little higher order thinking, and it makes for a good review before you even start your lesson.
Other tickets include tempo markings; note or rest values; instruments (sort by family); and music symbols like staff, repeat sign, treble clef, etc.
During Easter week, I hid notes/rests in eggs for the fourth graders to find and go get into groups. To avoid religious wording I called them eggs and not Easter eggs. The second graders hunted eggs that had tempo markings in them to get into their groups. The definitions (whole note, half rest, slow, very fast, etc.) are on signs on the floor for the groups to find.
As silly as it seems, just the fun of the egg hunt and the search for the corresponding definition on the floor made the day a little more exciting for them. I also got the benefit of groups that were not made up of chatty best friends.