Recorder

Each year I tweak things in order to make things better and easier for my kids. I have done recorder a few different ways, but here is how my program works now.

Overall Program
-My district starts band in 5th grade, so recorder is part of the 3rd and 4th grader curriculum.
-I start recorder 3rd quarter with 3rd graders. We do recorder off and on throughout 4th grade.
-Each student has a recorder they barrow from the school and it never leaves my classroom.

Specific to 3rd Grade
-We begin our Recorder Unit by having 15 seconds of craziness- Before I have taught them anything I let them play as loud and obnoxious as they want. This gets it out of their system and I have less problems later on.
-My students have music twice a week for forty minutes. For the first three weeks we focus on a specific note each week. I use rhythm Flashcards, play alongside from different method books and echo drills. Our focus is transitioning rhythm to recorder without having to worry about notes.
-This year I am using the Rockin' Recorder Method. Each student has their own packet to take home, so they can practice. We will not use these until the second month of recorders.
- I am a percussionist, so I include a lot of drums into my lessons. My students really enjoyed playing recorder when I play drum set. I used my two toms to signify the notes B and A and they had to echo my pattern.
-We focus on a lot of rhythm reading on one note and echoing patterns.
-As we focus on 1-2 notes we do student echoes and simple composition projects.

Specific to 4th Grade
-We focus more on Recorder Karate. Each class makes a goal on how many belts they must earn each semester. The second class of the week is usually Belt Testing day, but that depends on our schedule and their behavior.