Submitted by Becky Olson, Union Grove, Wisconsin
Idea posted November 1, 2002
My husband and I were shopping last week, and in the pasta aisle I stopped to check out the Barilla pasta box that said "New Shape" in bold letters. The new shape is a circle with a honeycomb effect inside the circle. I had to have my husband get the box down from the top shelf, and I was saying "Notes! Notes! These are perfect notes!" My husband, bless his heart, voiced the opinion that food was for eating, not making into craft projects at school. Silly husband! He ought to know by now...
Anyway, the pasta sticks to construction paper in spite of the honeycomb center if you put a small puddle of Elmer's Glue-All under it. (Don't use Elmer's School Glue. It's thinner and doesn't hold as well - part of the 'being able to wash it out of clothes' thing, the art teacher tells me.)
So, next week, my second graders, who have been working with lines and spaces of the treble clef, are all going to get a staff run off on construction paper and some pasta "notes" to glue onto the lines and spaces. There will be room at the bottom for them to identify the notes.
Messy? Probably, but definitely tactile for those students who need to feel the note in their hands, and a lot more fun than a worksheet. I can hardly wait! Now, to gather up every old newspaper I can find...