The CASE Method

In college I had a professor who used to tell us to use the CASE method of teaching: Capture And Steal Everything!

I was reminded of that today as I popped into my colleague's room and saw her doing an awesome activity. I immediately said to her, "I'm stealing that!" and whipped up a quick little Smart Notebook to incorporate it in my next lesson.

What I saw was this brilliantly simple way of writing out text so that it matches the melodic contour of a song:

Writing out the melody like this was a great transitional way to help my 2nd graders to recognize higher and lower pitches with a visual.

Then, I transferred the song to the staff. In our last lesson we practiced finding so and mi on the staff with my game "Help Me Find Me" (which is still 28% off in my TPT store until midnight tonight) so we were ready to identify the line and space notes of this melody and sing it with solfege:

Now I just threw this little notebook file together during my lunch break today, so it doesn't have any bells and whistles, but you're welcome to download it for free and try it out. See if your students respond as well as mine did to the visuals!