Tammy Axt – Page 13

November 17, 2015 Tammy Axt Mental Health, Wellness

Personal Wellness

It is that time of year where your steps are getting a little slower and your energy is starting to dwindle. There are concerts coming up, progress reports to write and a million other little things to do before the next five and a half weeks wrap up. Usually I handle this chaos with a steady stream of caffeine and a total stoppage to all things at my home including cleaning, shopping and spending time with friends. However, this year, a member of my family and my teaching partner are both suffering with a critical illness. This has forced me to slow down and take care of my personal wellness.

This year, I am trying to take time to exercise regularly. I attend swimming lessons and belong to a running group. I attend them at least a couple times of week. Nothing like a good sweat or your face in the water to let go of the day and just relax. The weather has been fantastic this fall which has also made being outside just awesome!

I also have committed to only one extracurricular this fall. This was a tough one for me but necessary. Only giving up two breaks a week will ensure that my sense of humour, energy and general cheeriness stay intact.

At my school, my team and I decided to change some long standing practices around things like the Remembrance Day assembly. I realized that doing an elaborate wreath processional, a choir, and a tableau presentation was not necessary for the act of showing respect to the members of the military. This year, I taught all of my classes the same songs and we sang them together. We all stopped for a moment of silence and watched a beautiful tribute on our screen. The singing sounded awesome with 300 students singing together. It was a simple but meaningful tribute to the amazing men and women who deserve our reflection on the eleventh.

Overall, I am trying to find a balance between home and work. This is something that I am definitely still working on and will continue to strive towards for the next 27 years.

October 31, 2015October 31, 2015 Tammy Axt Building Inclusion, Challenging Topics, Diverse Learning Needs

Is Beethoven in heaven?

Every day in our classrooms, we are asked a million questions. Where do I write my name? How long does this have to be? Where do I sit? Most are easily answered quickly. However, every once in a while a question is asked that can be incredibly difficult to answer. This kind of question came up in my class yesterday. We have been learning about Beethoven in my grade three classes and during O Canada one of my students was staring at my poster of Beethoven on the wall. Once O Canada was over, his hand shot up and immediately he asked “ Is Beethoven in heaven?” The whole class sat in silence waiting for a response.

I took a minute to decide how to respond. My classroom is very diverse with many different cultures and religions being represented. I didn’t want to say an immediate yes and exclude those in my class that didn’t believe in heaven. I also didn’t want to dismiss the idea of heaven to those who hold it as a belief. There seemed to be no right answer to this question. So I decided the only way to handle this question was to acknowledge and respect the different beliefs that are represented in my student population.

I explained to the class that different cultures and religions have different beliefs about what happens to us after we pass away. Some religions believe there is a heaven while others believe in reincarnation. I also explained that some cultures or religions do not believe in an afterlife at all. We further discussed how our familial, religious and cultural beliefs make us all special.

We then had an amazing discussion about the music that represents our culture and religion. The students taught me all about the songs and instruments played in their Gurdwara and others told me about singing in the choir at church. I am really glad I took the time to answer the difficult question as the sharing that followed was so important to creating our community as a class.

As the class went on, I began to wonder why the initial question popped into my student’s head. I wondered if someone in his life has passed away recently. I quietly asked him the question after the students were busy working on their assignment. He told me that he just wanted to know.

I am very glad that he asked.

October 18, 2015 Tammy Axt Differentiated Instruction, Diverse Learning Needs, Equity

The Sound of the Recorder

This week in my class, my grade four students had their first lesson on the recorder. I know what you are thinking….musical bliss fills the room and everyone is transported to an elevated level of happiness. Unfortunately, day one of the recorder doesn’t quite bring up those feelings. As the students are still learning breath control and finger placement, day one sounds closer to possibly the worst sound that can be produced by 25 children simultaneously. Since I have been teaching recorder for a couple of years now, the day one sound no longer phases me and I know that after a couple of lessons the recorder will sound more like music and less like noise. However, this week I had an unusual experience on day one of the recorder with one of my grade four classes.

On Thursday afternoon, my last class was preparing for the very exciting first blow into the recorder. I reminded them about not blowing too hard, putting your left hand on top, covering the holes and away we went. One of my students, who is hearing impaired, quickly took the recorder out of his mouth and made a very pained facial expression. I went immediately to him and asked what was wrong. He told me that the noise was too loud. We spoke for a few minutes and we decided that he would move his chair across the classroom and try the lesson from there. We played for another 10 minutes or so and I checked in with him again. He told me that he was getting a headache from the noise so we put our recorders away for the day and switched over to playing a game about the staff.

After the class, I immediately spoke with the classroom teacher and asked for the contact information of the consultant who is familiar with this student’s case. We had a meeting the next day where we both brought up concerns around damaging the child’s hearing further and the ability to limit the noise but still continue to hear the teacher. During the meeting we came up with a few strategies that I could use to minimize the impact of the sound. I also had a meeting with my vice principal to ensure that he was allowed to go into the hall to work with a partner if he needs break from the sound (which is not common practice at my school).

Tomorrow, I will bring all of the strategies to my student to be discussed further. It is important that he have input into his learning and that he not feel like he is being excluded from the classroom. I will ensure that he has a lot of choice and that we can change things at any time if it is not working for him.

Finally, later this week, I will be calling home to discuss the plan of action and to inform the family of his reaction to the recorder which may be important in their next meeting with their audiologist.

September 29, 2015September 29, 2015 Tammy Axt Learning About Your Students

A music lesson inspired by the awesome BLUE JAYS!

If you are like me, you have been watching every Blue Jay game with excitement as they get closer and closer to becoming the AL East Champions. I decided instead of fighting the desire to spend every waking minute talking about them, I would incorporate this excitement into my music program for September and early October.

I started off by introducing my favourite player’s names and practiced saying the names to a steady beat. I chose different names according to the curriculum expectations for that grade. For Grade Three and Four classes I chose Tulowitzki, Price, Pillar, Smoak, Revere and Goins. For Grade Five classes I chose Donaldson, Bautisita, Price, Pillar, and Revere. The initial goal was to get the students to feel the rhythm of those names before they had to label them with standard notation.

In groups, students then chose their 4 favourite players from the list and put them into an order. Their first job was to get everyone in their group to say their players in unison to a steady beat. After they completed that task successfully, they took the player’s names and did it with body percussion. They could clap them, stomp them, snap them as long as they made the rhythm of the names to a steady beat. After that, they took their rhythmic composition and chose an instrument to perform their creation.

After the students could say those names comfortably we labelled them together. Tulowitzki represents 4 16^th notes which is pronounced tikatika, Donalson represents 2 16^th notes connected with an 8^th note which is pronounced tikati and Bautista represents 1 8^th note connected with 2 16^th notes. All two syllable names represents 2 eighth notes which is pronounced titi and all one syllable names represent 1 quarter note which is pronounced ta.

Once we labelled their rhythms, each group made a final composition. They could use the names of the players, body percussion or instruments in any order they wanted. They were encouraged to add different dynamics and to use their different members of the group for solos or duos. Some of my groups added Beat Boxing or awesome stomping to get a good beat going. My instructions were to be as creative as they could be.

We then put all of their presentations together in a rondo form ( A B A C A D A E A F etc.). The A part of the song could be any short chant or baseball song. I took the song Alabama gal and changed the words to “Let’s hit a home run, Let’s hit a home run, Let’s hit a home run, Toronto Blue Jays”. Then I assigned each group a letter such as B, C, D, E etc.

I learned so many things about my students through this fun project. I learned that very few of my students know anything about baseball as they often compared the positions in baseball to the positions to something they were more familiar with, such as cricket. I also learned how passionate they are about sports. I feel like I have tapped into a whole new hook when I feel their energy is lacking later in the school year.

Next Friday, hopefully when the Blue Jays are getting ready to play their second game in the American League Division Series, I will be holding a kick ball tournament during the day at my school. The gym teacher and I decided to celebrate our students’ music by holding an opening ceremony where each class will share their creations followed by the game they have been learning in gym. I am sure we will probably even take some time to sing “Okay, Okay, Blue Jays, Blue Jays, Let’s Play Ball”.

September 22, 2015 Tammy Axt First Week Reflections, General, Learning About Your Students

Getting Started With Music

Hi everyone! My name is Tammy Axt (formerly Tammy Gallant) and I am a music teacher for students in grade 3, 4 and 5 in the Peel District School Board. This is my fifth year as a music teacher and I hope to be able to assist those new to the planning time role in schools across Ontario. My school is a suburban school about 30 minutes outside of Toronto with a very high ELL population. In addition to music, I also have planning time coverage in a contained Autism Spectrum Disorder class.

At the end of June last year, one of my students was very surprised to learn that my family lives in PEI. I realized when she mentioned that fact, that I don’t talk or mention things about myself very often. We are so busy in my music class creating or practicing that I rarely share things that happen in my life. So I decided this year to start off by doing a music activity where both the students and I share a little about ourselves.

To share the things I did during my summer, I created a “Prezi”. Prezi is a great online program for preparing presentations that are a little bit more exciting than PowerPoint. I made slides about learning to ride a motorcycle, getting married and hanging out with my nephews. All the things that I love and that made my summer so great. You can see the Prezi I created at https://prezi.com/rl-hlpfivx5q/my-summer-vacation/. While completing the prezi, I made sure to include things that I did that could have clear and obvious sound effects.

After I presented the Prezi to my students, I gave them an opportunity to talk with an elbow partner about some sound effects that go with some of the activities that I did over the summer. I encouraged the partnerships to make the sound effects with their body or their mouth. I showed the Prezi again and we added all sorts of crazy sound effects to the slides.

After hearing about my summer, the students chose one thing they did over the summer and created a sound effect that went along with their activity. Listening to all of their sharing, it gave me some really great insights into my student’s lives. Some of them come from BIG noisy families, some had great tragedy over the summer and some of them love sports. All of this information will help me in planning our upcoming lessons and helping them all be successful this year!

June 19, 2015June 22, 2015 Tammy Axt General, Year End Activities

Do you like the band Rush?

Do you like the band Rush? I guarantee no matter how much you think you love Rush, you are no match for the man who sat beside me at the Rush R40 concert last night. He knew every drum beat that Neil Peart played, every lyric that Geddy Lee sang and every guitar solo that Alex Lifeson wailed. He didn’t just love their music, he loved their music and worshipped the band. We all have music that speaks to us in that way. For me, when I hear Fleetwood Mac or Michael Franti, I have an emotional connection to their music that is unlike any other.

During the school year, my students spend a lot of time writing music or playing music that is from a variety of cultures and time periods. This June, I decided to let the students create a list of what songs they would like to sing in music class to tap into the songs that they love. Most songs that they chose were modern pop, rap, hip hop or alternative songs. The goal was to give my students the same experience that the man at the Rush concert had when he cheered and high fived me for all his favourite songs.

I took the lists that they created and went on line and previewed the lyrics. Some songs had just one or two bad words and with the magic of “YouTube” I found clean version of the song. Songs that had inappropriate themes got omitted from the list. After the list was created, I made a word document that had all the YouTube URLs. I projected the lyrics on my screen and had a good old fashioned sing-along.

These sing-alongs were also a great opportunity to talk about musical tastes with the students. I started off every class by telling the students that “I guarantee that there will be at least one song that you do not like today.” I asked the students what they should do when they hear a song they don’t enjoy. The students quickly said that they should be respectful of someone else’s choice. I added on a quick conversation about how musical tastes develop and that interests in music are very personal.

I have spent the last two weeks singing songs like “See you Again” and “Firework” with my students at the top of our lungs. We have been high fiving each other when we hear our favourite songs. It has been a great way to end off the school year!

June 15, 2015 Tammy Axt General, Year End Activities

Gearing Up For The Last Day of School “WOOT WOOT!”

With 9 days left of school, many classrooms around the province are starting to wind down. But not us! Here at my school, we are gearing up to the craziest, wildest show that will take place on the last day of school.

The idea for what is now known as the “variety show” came out of a need for something to keep students engaged on the last day of school. The premise began and has remained very simple. If your class would like to attend an entertaining performance, then they must prepare something for the show. Also, anything and everything is welcome in the show. In past shows we have had classes tell jokes, make up a play, do dances or sing songs. This year, we will be entertained by a glow stick dance, a stomp inspired basketball routine, kazoo “name that tune” and a variety of other performances. Classes usually use the last two weeks of school to practice a little bit every day.

Sometimes teachers approach the music or drama teachers to help with ideas and we are happy to help. Many of my ideas that I share come from YouTube. I just search something like “grade 5 basketball stomp performance” into YouTube and tons of ideas come up.

In between each performance, the drama teacher and I (decked out in a crazy costume) entertain the audience. We use chants like Boom Chicka Boom or tell cheesy jokes. We also do lots of cheering and build up school spirit. In the past we have ended the show by singing a song like Bruno Mars’ “Count On Me” as we celebrate all the friends we have made this year.

The drama, music and gym departments work together to make the schedule and provide any technical support required. We plan the show so that the groups alternate the performance space between the stage and the gym floor. This keeps the show moving at a very quick pace and keeps everyone on task. When each class is done performing, they go right back to their spot in the audience.

Sometimes when we are feeling extra energetic, we put a staff act into the mix. The students always love seeing their teacher dance or sing to Beyoncé or Rush.

Our “Variety Show” Keeps things positive until the final school bell rings.

May 28, 2015May 29, 2015 Tammy Axt General, Making a Difference Through Education

Top 10 things I learned from Linda Beacham

For the past seven years I was so lucky to work with an amazing colleague and special needs advocate, Linda Beacham. She passed away on Monday and she is going to be greatly missed by myself and all those who had the pleasure of working with her. She was famous for her sense of humour and creating the best top ten lists. Today in honour of my dear friend and colleague who taught me so much about working with children, here is my top ten list of things that I learned from her.

Whether or not you have any singing voice at all, singing out loud is really fun!
Sending an e-mail with the subject line AWESOMENESS to encourage a colleague who had an incredibly rough day working with a student with autism can lift them out of some really dark places.
There are so many things to see in the hallways of your school. Just stop and walk with someone with autism who sees things from a different perspective than you.
ERF, Teacher, TA and ECE are useless titles. Team should be the real title.
Never be nervous about making mistakes. Laugh out loud at them!
Sledge Hockey and Wheelchair Basketball are REALLY cool sports and athletes who play them are hard core!
Country music is a great genre of music for boogying to.
Kids just want to have fun, laugh and smile no matter what their needs are.
When the facilities or resources are not available so that people with physically disabilities can play sports, start them yourself. Check out Cruisers Sports at http://www.cruisers-sports.com/Home.shtml
Giving a colleague a top ten list of the amazing things about working with students with autism is a really fun way to end the year.

May 11, 2015 Tammy Axt General

Taking Your Students “on Tour” to build community within the school

I grew up in a very musical household. My family is from the Maritimes where the kitchen party originated. I always had visitors stopping by and music blaring in our house. There were guitars, keyboards, banjos or the spoons being played by anyone who could cram into our home. My parents used to listen to old country while they vacuumed early on Saturday morning singing and dancing. As a teenager, I did not find this amusing, but as a music teacher I know the power of music to bring people together as a community.

The sharing of music can take many forms from evening concerts to performances in assemblies. However, this year I decided to add in a few performances that were much less formal with the goal of letting the music be the catalyst for having some fun (very much like the Maritimes).

I started a recorder consort and ukulele club this year. (A recorder consort is a variety of recorders playing together such as an alto, soprano, tenor and bass) Usually, on the first day of a new club the students’ first question is always about when they will be performing. Both of these clubs were no exception. I told the students that we were going to be going “on tour” with our instruments.

Once both clubs had learned a song or two on their new instruments off we went. During our nutrition break time, we took our instruments and found classes that were willing to sing along, tap along or groove along with our music. We went to 2 or 3 classes per break and had a great time.

All this week as I walked down the halls, students from the classes we performed in have been waving their hands and saying hi to me and the students in the club. In our big school, it is not very often that the grade five students do something with the grade two students or the grade fours with the grade ones. The older students may have brought the instruments but just like in a kitchen party everyone was a participating member of the group. Whether you bring your voice, your stomping foot or your clapping hands the music you create together is what brings you together.

April 28, 2015April 28, 2015 Tammy Axt General, Planning

How To Write an Original Song With Your Class For 5 Dollars (With No Music Knowledge)

This year, I tried something brand new with one of my music classes. We wrote lyrics to a song, sent them off to a song writer and performed the original song called “Gymnastics” at our spring concert! This is how we did it.

The idea came earlier this year when I was trying to come up with ideas for our spring concert. I usually ask each class in January what they would like to do for the concert and then they create something to share. This year, our concert had lots of creations, including a tableau piece about anti-bullying, a Japanese fan dance with ORFF instruments, some black light performances and the original “Gymnastics” song.

The grade 3 class that wanted to do the original song was interested in working with a song writer. (I probably could have written a song, but it was WAY more exciting sending the lyrics off). Our first step was to decide what the song was going to be about.

I handed out a blank piece of paper to groups of three and told them to brainstorm some ideas for the topic of the song. After they brainstormed, I asked them to narrow it down to three ideas that they were really interested in. As a class, we did a community circle, and shared our favourite ideas. I noticed that the topic of sports came up in every group and highlighted that for the students. I asked the students to think of a sport that could show off the talents of their class. Immediately, gymnastics came up and the song was on its way! (This class is full of twisty, fidgety, wiggly students. Gymnastics couldn’t have been more perfect.)

Their classroom teacher took over the next part of the activity by letting the students do an inquiry-based assignment about gymnastics. They watched videos about, read, and studied the sport of gymnastics. By the time they came back to me, they were a fountain of knowledge about gymnastics. Our next step was to come up with ideas that we wanted to have in the song. We then compiled all of our ideas into a list and got them ready to send off to our songwriter.

We chose our song writer from the website www.fiverr.com .

www.fiverr.com is a website where you can hire people to do a wide variety of services for five dollars. There is a large section on the website for songs. You can have rap songs written, ukulele songs, etc…. I chatted with the song writer we chose and gave these simple instructions:

The lyrics can go in any order
Write the song in either C major, D major, F major or G major
Please don’t make the melody have large jumps between notes
The range of the melody should be from about middle C to D (one octave plus a note)
Make it upbeat and fun!

The song came back and it was amazing. It was a big hit at our spring concert and I am sure the kids will always remember the gymnastic song that they wrote.