Looking back at the First Week of School and 2 great links

We have finished our first week of school and I was exhausted by the end of Friday. I was lucky though to end the day with a very pleasant group of 4th graders. A nice way to go into the weekend. I would have to say the first week went rather well. My kindergarten class this week was a nice surprise also. In fact, I recorded them singing a song and place a clip on my St E Music Wiki. Take a listen!I always enjoy seeing our students come in with their fresh out of the package uniforms. You could see that some shirts still bore the marks of manufactured pressing and folding and knew they opened the wrapping that morning. Their attitudes were as fresh as their new uniforms and we teachers greeted them with smiles and our own "fresh and rejuvinated" outlooks. It felt good and comforting. A good omen I think.

I don't think I shared this site yet, and cannot remember where I first saw it listed. I am sure on one of my favorite blogs so I appologize to the original poster. I am always on the lookout for free music or sound effects and this one is very cool. Free Nature Sounds lets you mix and create a variety of nature sounds that you can link to or export it as a wav file. Very nice.

And if you were not aware of Monkey Machine this is another online drum machine but great fun to use and create drum beats. I used Monkey Machine when my class of 6th grade girls created a math rap. Very easy to use with lots of options.



This week will be a full week. We will have our first student mass on Friday. Each week a different grade/homeroom prepares the mass. 8A will do this week so that means lots of singing for me. Time to talk about proper singing and posture, breathing and so on. I need to find or create a singing "checklist" for the SmartBoard. I'll have to do some research and see what I can find. More to come!