How To Create an Online Music Camp

02/09/2020

Now it is your turn! You are ready to start your own camp! Make sure to be patient and enthusiastic every step of the way!

Please pass on this page to anyone else who may interested in creating their own virtual free music camp for elementary students! It is important that children have access to music even if it is virtual. Music is what brings us together in such hard times. Even virtually, we are all connected by music.

“But bringing people together is what music has always done best” - Rob Sheffield

02/09/2020

What I learned:

-Be patient
-Do not be set on a certain live lesson as you may have to adjust along the way based on time and speed.
-Change the lessons if something isn’t working.
-Make sure to offer as many live classes as you can! Especially during this time, many kids need interaction, and by having zoom classes, you are offering this needed interaction.
- Stress the importance of vocal warm ups!
- Offer one-on-one lessons for those struggling.
- Do not put a student on the spot unless they want to be.
- Let kids socialize and talk during lessons, they miss interactions from before the pandemic.
- Have fun along the way!

02/09/2020

Make sure at the end of your camp to send out a feedback form, so you know what you could improve on if you run the camp again. Here are some pictures from my feedback form.

02/09/2020

Great song choices to teach your elementary students!

- “Let it Go” from Frozen (everyone is very enthusiastic about this one)
- “Under the Sea” from The Little Mermaid
- “Here Comes the Sun” by the Beatles
- “How Far I’ll Go” from Moana
- “Count On Me” by Bruno Mars
- “You Are My Sunshine”

02/09/2020

Lessons for Younger Students
- Do Re Mi
- Dynamics
- Tongue twisters
- Create your own instrument
- learn new songs
- Singing with different expressions ex. Happy or sad
- Vocal warm up

02/09/2020

Recommended Lessons for Older Beginners

- Dynamics
- Notes on Staff
- Notes on Piano
- Vocal Warm Up
- Do Re Mi
- Vocal Health
- Rhythm
- Learn new songs
- Space when singing
- Discuss voice parts
- mixed, chest, head voices
- different genres of music
- harmonic minor scale
- On and off pitches

02/09/2020

Music games!

The great thing about Google is that you can find many fun music games to help reinforce what the campers had learned! I used more of these for the older campers as they learned more music theory than the younger campers. Attached are some great sites I highly recommend using.

https://www.musictheory.net/

http://www.musiclearningcommunity.com/

Introductory and intermediate music theory lessons, exercises, ear trainers, and calculators.

02/09/2020

Learning notes on the staff!

As you probably know, it is very helpful to learn the notes on the staff by a series of words. Ex. Every Good Boy Does Fine for the treble staff lines and of course, FACE for the spaces. I taught them in a zoom call and a refresher video the notes on the staff and told them some of my examples. It was then up to the students afterwards, to come up with their own phrases and share it with me! This way they could be creative and find a way to help themselves learn the content.

One cute one a camper submitted was: Every Gross Bug Does Fly!

This allows them to be creative and think of music as more fun! For the 2-4 graders we focused on only the treble clef, but the fifth graders were to learn both clefs as some already had learned the notes at this point in their music experiences.

02/09/2020

Apply Lessons to Well Known Songs

What I found was very helpful for the younger ages is to teach an idea through the use of a commonly known song. For example, I taught the idea of dynamics to the K-1 (though we did not use the actual terminology we just used soft, medium, and strong) through the song “How Far I’ll Go”. We discussed are we going to be strong at the beginning or maybe will we sing a little softer? This allowed them to consider what they were singing even if we didn’t use the actual terminology.

This is just one example of when I used a well-known song like this to teach a lesson. When the child knows a song and is excited about it, it helps them to be encouraged to add this new idea. Another example of when I used this tactic was when I taught the 2-4 graders dynamics as well. I taught them in a video the actual terminology for the more basic dynamics, and it was their task to record themselves singing their favorite song and applying dynamics to it. They then had to walk me through why they were singing piano and why they were singing forte.

Applying lessons to some Disney songs or popular songs is just a great way to reinforce a lesson. It helps them put the lesson into perspective!

02/09/2020

Tongue twister fun!

So I always liked to include tongue twisters in my warm ups as they get your muscles moving. In all of my warm up videos, there were many tongue twisters we used.

During actual zoom classes, I would teach a singing pattern with a tongue twister and the students would sing along. Though afterwards, for fun, I let any student who wanted to try to say a tongue twister on the call very fast five times. They loved it because it was a silly challenge. Some campers even challenged me to a tongue twister competition!

Here are a couple fun twisters:
- Mommy made me mash my M + Ms
- Betty Botter bought some butter, “but”, she said, “the butter’s bitter; if I put it in my batter, it will make my batter bitter; but a bit of better butter, that would make my batter better.”
-He has a hat in his hands
- She sells seashells by the seashore
- Peter Piper Picked a Peck is Pickled Peopers
- how much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a wood chuck would chuck wood

02/09/2020

Video Lessons!

Besides the zoom calls, my students learned from the quick 3-10 minute videos I posted on classroom. I tried to keep them short as 1. It takes a while to upload and 2. I wanted to keep the students interested. After say teaching do re mi, I would have an assignment where they would have to upload a recording of themselves singing do re mi, and I could give feedback after seeing it.

01/09/2020

How To Work Classroom

Posting:
1. click the “share something with your class” spot in the stream section.
2. Write whatever message you would like to share with class
3. Attach a link, document, video, etc. if you would like by pressing the add section and then selecting from whatever source you would like to upload from.
4. Press post or select the arrow next to post to schedule the post to come out at a later time.

Creating Assignments:
1. Go to the classwork section of google classroom.
2. Click the create button.
3. Decide which type of classroom assignment you will be using—in this case, I used mainly assignment, so the students could attach a video assignment.
4. For assignment: Title post, decide if it is ungraded or for points, write description, and topic
5. You can add a document or link again by pressing add and attaching it or you can create a completely new document
6. You can assign a due date.
7. You may attach a rubric
8. Press assign or schedule the assignment to come out later.
9. Other types of assignments can be used like asking a question or creating a quiz, so experiment with it!

How to see students’ work:
1. Go to classroom
2. Click on a specific assignment
3. You can see who turned in the assignment and who did not and view the turned in assignments.

31/08/2020

How to Create a Classroom
1. Go to classroom.google
2. Sign in on your google account
3. Click the top right plus sign
4. Click create class
5. Create name for class
6. Press create on bottom right
7. Set background picture if you would like

31/08/2020

How I Ran My Camp

I ran my camp on Google Classroom mainly. Twice a week I would post video lessons and assignments on Classroom. The campers would be able to demonstrate their learning by submitting a video assignment. Additionally, I would host Zoom calls once a week, so the kids could socialize and be able to ask questions more easily.

24/08/2020

6. Adjust!
Make sure to adjust and revise as you go along. I created a google form after the first week to receive feedback, so I could adjust the camp.

24/08/2020

4. Lesson Planning
- What do you want to accomplish?
- What do you want to teach?
- What level of music are these kids at?
I highly recommend planning out all the lessons before the camp starts. I wrote out brief lessons for each day on a google doc.

24/08/2020

3. How will camp run?
- What platform will you use?
I used Google Classroom and Zoom mainly. I posted video lessons that students could submit their own videos to, and we met up on Zoom at least once a week.

24/08/2020

2. Community
- What community will you target?
- Now, advertise for campers!
I used FB pages to help me spread word of the camp.

24/08/2020

1. Brainstorm
- What age group will you target?
- What will be the name of your camp?
- What will be the focus of the camp?

24/08/2020

Hello this page is how to set up an online music camp, and it is based on my Gold Award project. This summer, I created a free online music camp for kids in grades K-5. It was divided into three age groups: K-1, 2-4, and 5. It was focused on singing and simple music theory. Throughout this page, there will be tips and instructions on how to start an online music camp.