This week has been another busy one with lots of little milestones achieved along the way.
I am the sort of person who likes to work towards each little step that helps me attain my goals. This week was no exception with a lot of little goals that required reaching.
My first set of goals was to assess my Year 10 Music class in both the Aural and Performance course components. This was achieved, with the exception of a few students who were away, but that was beyond my control. I needed this assessment step done so that I could mark their work, enter their results and then write their reports before I leave to go on holidays. TICK, got that one done! One milestone reached.
The second set of goals was to also finish assessing all of my Year 7 Music classes—they were assessed in three areas—Composition, Aural and Performance. Once this was done I could then write their reports. TICK, got that one done too!
I thought I was doing well, achieving this before I leave for my overseas holiday, but there was more to come.
Another little goal, which I didn’t think of achieving this week, at all, was being in the Top 100 Sellers list for High School products on Teachers Pay Teachers!!! I was sooooo excited when this milestone happened, it only lasted a week, but I was there!
This spurred me onto another little milestone—my 100th product on Teachers Pay Teachers. I was sitting on 99, and it was bugging me that it wasn’t even, so I put together a little bundle of assignments.
This is the combination of three of my most favourite assignments that I do with my Year 7 and 8 Music classes.
The first assignment, also available on it’s own (link here) is the Rock Music Design Project. In this assignment students have to create a logo, t-shirt design, album cover and a list of songs for a real or imaginary musician/band. My students looooove this one. I usually do this at the end of the Pioneers of Rock unit and we like to watch either Bandslam or School of Rock to accompany the assignment.
The second assignment is another favourite of both mine and the students—Rhythm and Rap, this is also available on it’s own (link here). In this assignment the students have to create and perform a rap as either a soloist or as part of a small ensemble. I leave this one fairly open ended as it allows for the creativity and ability to really shine through.
The third assignment is also available on it’s own,(link here) and again, another favourite, Make an Instrument Project (this is a new cover design). This project is included in the Tone Colour and Performing Media Unit of work (link here), but has not been released as an assignment previously. In this assignment students are to design, create and perform on an instrument that they make. Over the last few years I have had so many different and original instruments. Please beware, we once had a very bad smell in the staffroom and couldn’t work out where the smell was coming from. It wasn’t until my colleague asked her class to collect their instruments for performance in that lesson that we discovered the smell. A students had used a pumpkin, backscratcher and elastic bands to make a guitar—but it had started to go rotten over the long weekend before the child had performed on it. We made a new rule after that—NO BIODEGRADABLE parts to the instruments!
Included in the assignments are all of the marking rubrics, feedback sheets and reflection questions. I hope you enjoy these assignments as much as I have over the last few years, I love the creativity and originality that my students produce.
Until next time
Happy Teaching
Julia from Jooya