If You Give a Music Blogger a Problem… She’ll Make 3 Free Resources
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.
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.
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!!)
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. 😉
