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The Music Toolbox Blog is a place for us to update you on our business and our products, and chat about our time spent with you at the various conferences we attend around the country. You may also share your comments regarding our products with your fellow teachers, as well as with us. Please subscribe to receive regular email updates as well as special product pricing. |
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| IF YOU HAVE A COMMENT TO MAKE ON OUR BLOG, PLEASE EMAIL IT TO US AND WE WILL GET IT ON HERE! THANKS IN ADVANCE! 2010 has been a busy year for The Music Toolbox. So far this year, The Music Toolbox has attended the Florida Music Educators, Colorado Music Educators Association, Texas Music Educators, Washington Music Educators, and Suzuki of the Americas shows. All have been very successful. Coming up in July is the American Harp Society show in Tacoma, WA. See all of you harpists and teachers there. We have exhausted our inventory of classroom size rhythm flashcards. Music Magnets by the Inch is a terrific collection of magnets, designed to help less experienced students come to grips with the concept of note and rest values, and also to help them begin to work with rhythms, time signatures, and bar lines. We have a few suggestions to help you get started. Put a whole note magnet on the dry erase board. Tell the students that the whole note is 4 counts. Have the students play or hum a single tone for 4 counts. Then, tell the students to select magnets that each have 2 counts, and put them either directly on the whole note magnet, or just beneath it. Have the students play or hum these notes, for 2 counts each. Then, tell the students to select magnets that each have 1 count, and put them directly on, or just beneath the half note magnets, etc. You can continue all the way through eighth or sixteenth notes. Then you can start having fun, by having the students select different combinations of notes, all totaling 4 counts, then playing or humming them. After students are comfortable with combinations of notes that total 4 counts, you can put the 4/4 time signature in front of the 4 count collection of magnets, and instruct them about the meaning of this time signature. After that, you can put the 3/4 time signature in front of the magnets, then remove all of the magnets, put up a dotted half note magnet, and start all over. Camille and Warren Jordan Giglio, North Elementary School, Lakeworth, FL told us that he puts up a whole note magnet, then places 1 or more magnets immediately beneath it, leaving a blank space. Students then are asked to "fill in the blank". Thank you, Jordan! April 2010 Check out our changes to the Classroom Size MUSIC MAGNETS by the INCH. We made these changes because we felt that going from whole notes down to 8th notes clearly demonstrated the note value regression, and that it was not necessary to include all of those 16th notes and rests. We did include some of them, though, to help with teaching rhythms. We also changed the width of the bar line magnets. Some teachers using this product in their classrooms felt that the 2 inch wide bar line magnets were confusing to the children, possibly indicating some time value to the bar line, which is, of course, not the case. The new single, double, and end bars are all black, 1/2 inch wide and 4 inches high. The repeat bars are 3/4 inch wide and 4 inches high. We also changed the numbered time signature magnets, putting both numbers on a single magnet. Just made more sense. Camille and Warren |
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