If You Give a Music Blogger a Problem… She’ll Make 3 Free Resources

3freeresources

Do you ever have an idea that just won’t go away? The kind that makes you stop what you’re doing and problem-solve until you figure it out? You know — the kind that disrupts your to-do list and leaves you staring blankly at 4 white sheets of paper at 10:30pm on a Tuesday night?

Well, this was one of those ideas.

(Keep reading to see the cool video!)

Last March I created a Circle of 5ths Pentascale Chart for my students to use as a warm-up resource… and since I’ve had Halloween on the brain lately, I decided to make a minor pentascale version of that resource.

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Click to Download the PDF

And that’s how it all started…

Ever heard of the story If You Give a Mouse a Cookie? Well, this is the “If you give a music teacher blogger an idea…” equivalent.

Well, the new Circle of 5ths Minor Pentascales Chart got me thinking about Halloween activities… which meant that I had to create a set of Halloween-themed magnet notes to use on my magnetic whiteboard staff that I made a couple of years ago.

P.S. – Get your materials to make that HERE and HERE, and the DIY instructions HERE.

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Click to Download the PDF

Of course, the new Halloween Themed Magnet Notes got me thinking about teachers who travel and don’t have a magnetic whiteboard staff… which meant that I had to figure out how to print a staff large enough that they could use these cute Halloween notes with their students.

Then I ran into some issues:

  • A large poster wouldn’t work, because it would be too big for a teacher to print.
  • A single page wouldn’t work, because the lines weren’t large enough to fit my cute Halloween notes.

… but what if I could create a multiple-page poster that folded up so that you could carry it??

Ok, Sara… get to the point here.

The point is, I had an idea, but I wasn’t sure how to get there. It took a lot of brain storming, a bit of paper engineering, and tons of wrestling with programs and apps… but I figured out how to blow up a music staff to a multiple-page PDF document.

And now I’m going to share it with you. (Hooray!!)

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Click to Download PDF

Since the directions are a little hard to follow, I made this fun instructional video. Totally going to make more of these in the future!

So… there you go… a DIY Foldable Music Staff Poster for teachers who travel or maybe just don’t have the room for a big magnetic whiteboard.

I have a lot more to say about using these resources, but I’ll save that for a blog post early next week. In it, I’ll detail how I’m using these resources with my students over the next couple of weeks.

I hope you and your students enjoy these free resources! I had fun making them.

… even if it did lead me down a rabbit hole of ideas. 😉

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