Writing from Brooklyn NY as we are visiting my brother, sister-in-law, and new niece!
Thinking about routines for the next school year. I really loved the idea of musical cues from Matt Vaudrey at last years TMC. I even bought a Bluetooth speaker for my classroom but just never got around to setting it up. I'd like to use something for problem solving (when students enter the room). For those that do this at the beginning of class, do you start when the bell rings, or have it going when students come in. I'm thinking I'd like it as a cue to record homework assignment, take out last nights assignment, and get started on "which one doesn't belong Wednesday" (for example). Or do you start when the other class leaves. Maybe I could splice together 90 seconds of a have a great day song and 4 minutes of a lets get this party started type song.
I definitely want a cut/glue song as I am going back to some sort of interactive notebook this year. I really missed it last year. Trying to decide if I want to use a separate paper each week for warm ups. I saw a few examples at a tmc warm up session, and I liked one that had a space for each day as well as a "how was your week?" prompt for the end of the week. I think this will keep in line with my goal of connecting more with students in a non mathy way. I'll post whatever I come up with (no computer on vacay- posting this from my iPhone.
I'm in the middle of reading "writing on the classroom wall" by Steve Wyborney. I really like the section I've just finished that's about the importance of writing, and that writing is a thinking process and not just a way to summarize what you've already thought about. So I think I'd like to have a song to strategically throw in to get students writing throughout math class as a way to think through what they have been learning. More to come on that to as I figure out what that might look like along with my goal to have students do not discovery based learning of concepts.
For those that use music transitions, how do you set them up so they are easy to start...thinking from my iPhone or some sort of tablet?
I don't have any answers for you, but your post made me think again about good lesson closure. I like the idea of music cues, but honestly don't know how to implement them well. Thank you for making me think and ponder about that 'between class' transition time.
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