Autumn rhythms to read!

Rhythms in 4/4, 6/8, and 3/4 to read! The rhythms are straight from the Learning Sequence Activities! Download them here!

Autumn leaf rhythms to read!

Here are 5 different autumn leaf printables with duple meter rhythms to read. All rhythms are 4 beats long, and have just quarter notes and eighth notes.

3 of the rhythms come straight from the first duple meter Verbal Association LSA, representing the  Easy, Medium, and Difficult patterns that the kids learn to chant.

Download the leaf rhythms here.
Print these on autumn-leaf-colored paper (I used red, orange, yellow, brown, and green, and printed 6 of each pattern), cut, and laminate, for a cute rhythm reading activity where the kids can hold different rhythms they'll get to read!


As an extension to the activity, print out BLANK leaves, and have small groups write their own 4-beat rhythms!  Then have the kids perform the rhythms for each other in a Rondo form using a fall song as the A section of the rondo, and each small group as the B/C/D/E sections! (I use a song called "Fall Canon," which I got from an Orff class.)

Resources for tracking Learning Sequence Activities

My administrators LOVE how LSAs differentiate instruction by students' aptitudes, and how LSAs not only help sequence students' learning but also help assess students' learning.

I keep track of students' progress in the LSAs on my iPad.  For instructions on how to use an iPad to track LSAs, scroll down to the middle of this page on Jennifer Bailey's blog.

Don't have an iPad? No problem. You can put these downloads into a binder too and mark on them with a pencil.


Download the FREE, editable Excel file for tracking your students' LSA progress here. 

After the students take their aptitude tests, I color-code their seating chart by aptitude. (By the way - these seats aren't desks or chairs, they're "squad seats" where students are sitting on the floor in rows.)

• A student whose name has a purple background has a high rhythm aptitude.
• A student whose name has an orange background has a low rhythm aptitude.
• A student whose name has blue type has a high tonal aptitude.
• A student whose name has red type has a low tonal aptitude.
• A student whose name has black type and a white background has average tonal and rhythm aptitude.

As the class is doing their LSA, I mark each student's progress. I mark rhythm LSAs above the student's name and tonal LSAs below.

I mark a vertical line for teaching mode, then the horizontal line crossing it for evaluation mode. If a student wasn't quite successful in one pattern, I put a tick mark instead of a horizontal line (see Luna, Amelia, Ghieth, and Anaija in this sample below).

Here is a SAMPLE chart --it's not actually how students performed on a given LSA, or their actual aptitudes. This is about how it would look after 1 day on the tonal LSA and 1 day on the rhythm LSA.

So for example, on this chart (again, not real):

• Grace Zelenak chanted the rhythm LSA's Easy pattern in teaching and evaluation mode, and the Medium pattern in teaching mode.
• Ian Strachan chanted the rhythm LSA's Easy and Medium patterns in teaching and evaluation mode.
• Anaija Herring successfully chanted the Easy pattern in teaching mode and evaluation mode and the Medium pattern in teaching mode, but had trouble with her first attempt at Medium pattern in evaluation mode.
• Ryan Murphy has performed the rhythm LSA Easy pattern in teaching mode, and the tonal LSA Easy pattern in teaching and evaluation mode.
• Amelia Smith has had two unsuccessful attempts at evaluation mode on the rhythm LSA's Easy pattern.
• Luna Shkembi has had one unsuccessful attempt at evaluation mode on the tonal LSA's Easy pattern.
• etc. 

I also write which LSA we're on at the bottom of the seating chart, which streamlines the process during class so I know exactly which one we're doing (all my classes seem to progress at different rates)!

It's a seating chart color-coded by aptitude!!!! (same download as above.)

2nd grade demo: Learning Sequence Activity and rhythmic improv!

One of my classes has the honor of being selected to be part of a book being published about music teaching methods!  The book, which will be published by Oxford University Press, will be titled Approaches to Teaching Classroom Music.  Dr. Cynthia Taggart, one of my former professors, wrote the chapter about the method of music teaching called Music Learning Theory.  She asked many teachers she knows for video of students learning music with MLT.  This video was one of only 3 videos selected for the book chapter! 

The book will have a QR code linking to the video that readers will be able to scan on a smartphone or iPad. In the video, 2nd graders are singing in their Learning Sequence Activity patterns and improvising rhythms with a song called “Someone Special Gets the Drum”! Congrats to these 2nd graders on their accomplishment!!!