So it’s been a while since I’ve taken a class that has tried to give me homework (I’m saving up my homework energy for grad school!) Last month I won the lottery to get in to one of district professional development opportunities entitled “Learn it and Earn it”. This class gives its attendees a brand new piece of technology and they have to attend 3 classes on this new technology in order to keep it for good. The money for this comes from our professional development funds our district provides to each staff member. I received a new iPad mini from this class and am one session away from it being mine!
Our homework for next class on the 31st is to create a short video or digital story on our iPad minis that we could potentially use in our classes. I love using Youtube videos to enhance my lessons and creating another video I could use was awesome, I’m starting to think about more videos that I could actually have students make or make with students.
Using the iMovie app and inspired by Quaver Music’s song “Whole Half Quarter and Eighth” I decided on the subject of identification of notes and rests. The following is my current video, if you have any feedback before I turn it in I would love to hear it!
*Music by Quaver’s Marvelous World of Music www.quavermusic.com
**This video is unlisted in Youtube and is only available through this blogpost
The Celtic Novelist 
Congrats on the ipad mini (and the training)! The whole/half rest illustration is brilliant. It definitely gave me one of those “Why didn’t I think of that?” moments. I humbly submit two suggestions for your consideration:
1.What if you made the pictures of the notes coincide with the lyrics so that whenever the song says half we see a half note etc. This would create a speeding effect as the song gets faster and we see those notes coming faster and faster. It could be like a built in test to see if the students can recognize them that fast.
2. Also, what if on one of the repetitions of half, whole, quarter and eight you only display their note values – 2,4,1,1/2. Then on the next repetition you could show the rests.
Thanks for sharing your awesome video!
Thank you! I love the suggestions! THank you so much!