All of my fourth grade students learn to play the recorder, and we hit treble clef note names hard right before the recorder unit. I like the kids to know the treble clef really well before we start playing so they can concentrate on their technique. Many music teachers will agree that nothing works as well as speed drills when it comes to memorizing those treble clef note names.
I have found that having the students track and chart their own note naming speed is a great motivator and a quick, visual assessment for me. In the past, we have done paper and pencil "mad minute" worksheets and used graph paper to chart the kids' progress. This year, I teched it up, and it worked fabulously! The kids enjoyed the practice more than in previous years, and their charts turned out great. Below is a close up view of one student's excellent chart.
There are lots of note naming drill games out there on the web, but my favorite one is from Piano Pedagogy Plus. We used the beginner treble clef game (embedded below) which gives the player 25 seconds to click on as many note names correctly as possible. It subtracts points from the total if you click an incorrect note. I like that feature because it forces the kids to really think before clicking. When we practiced in the computer lab during class time, the kids worked at a computer with a partner, taking turns playing the game. Students raised their hand whenever they achieved a new high score, and I tracked those scores on the board. At the end of the practice session, the kids wrote down the date and their high score from the board on a score sheet. Sometimes we practiced for 15 minutes, sometimes longer, but the kids would have been perfectly happy playing the game for the whole 50 minute class period because it was a "video game," and they were trying really hard to beat their own personal best.
[swfobj src="http://www.klsriley.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/treblebeg.swf"]
After tracking their progress for a few class periods, I showed the kids how to enter their data from their score sheets into chartgo.com using the SMART Board in my classroom. I had all of the steps written on chart paper posted in the computer lab so they could refer to it while creating their own charts. All the kids had to do was follow the steps, plug in their personal information from their score sheet, make some formatting choices, and voila! Beautiful charts, all the same size in different colors, ready for me to grade and turn into a bulletin board display! I put die cut stars on some of the students' charts to draw attention to the kids with the highest score, whose score went up each time, and who made the most progress from beginning to end. Added bonus: younger kids have been asking about the charts and are already getting excited to play the recorder when they are in the fourth grade!
I recently presented at the TI:ME National Conference (concurrent with Ohio's OMEA state music educator's conference) in Cincinnati, Ohio on using a SMART Board in elementary general music. The session provided an overview of the SMART Notebook collaborative learning software that runs on SMART Boards. You can view my presentation in 5 parts below (I apologize for the very quiet audio). In addition, the Notebook file I used in the presentation and some of my other SMART Board files can be downloaded here.
Part 1: How the SMART Board works, layout of the Notebook software, using the Sidebar (page sorter, gallery, links, properties tabs), using the toolbar's familiar buttons, the insert table tool.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KwrRYp3fYvI&w=500&h=400]
Part 2: Some toolbar buttons unique to Notebook, manipulating and animating objects.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2MU_xcrIUuU&w=500&h=400]
Part 3: Screen capture tool, cloning and infinite cloner, attaching links and files to objects, using Flash games from the gallery.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZoPADk9GAk&w=500&h=400]
Part 4: More on Flash games, erase to reveal.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2nSg2g5uV0&w=500&h=400]
Part 5: Scan in old favorites (worksheets, transparencies, book pages, etc.) to use in a more interactive way, grouping pages in Notebook, customizing the gallery.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3i-7HOXJnfM&w=500&h=400]
SMART Notebook and the other SMART software can be downloaded for free from SMART Technologies. You get a 30-day free trial, then you must enter a product key (which can be found on the back of a SMART Board) to continue to use the software. If you have a SMART Board in your school, you can enter that product key so that you can create and edit your lessons at home. SMART also has an amazing compilation of pre-created lessons using their SMART suite of software. Here is a search for "music" resources from the SMART Exchange.
If you are new to using an interactive whiteboard (IWB), there are lots of great resources on the web with suggestions and pre-created lesson files. Katie Wardrobe's Midnight Music site has a great list of ideas for integrating an IWB into your music curriculum. The Mustech Wiki also has a slew of downloads for SMART Board (the Peter and the Wolf lesson is my personal favorite), Promethean, and even PowerPoint. Whether you're an expert or a novice, these downloads are a great resource to use to create IWB lessons tailored to your teaching needs. And of course, never underestimate the power of a good Google search.