Recorder Karate Idea Bank

I tried "Splatter Paint Composing" with my fifths, who just finished Recorder Karate. Here's what I did:

Make three lines of staff on landscape-oriented paper. Make them BIG so the staff takes up the whole page, and leave a space for a title.

Choose five to eight colors of paint. When it was their turn, our students had to know which five colors they wanted or else they went to the end of the line.

When it was their turn, each student went up to a table decked out in newspaper (and with extra newspaper on the floor) and put on an apron made from a trash bag to protect their clothes.

The paint was slightly watered down so it could splatter easier. Each child splattered three splats of each color, and the papers were then set aside to dry until the next time.

In the next class, the kids used markers and picked splats of paint that were note-head size which landed on lines/spaces of the staff that the recorder could play. We set requirements for the number of notes per line. (This could be varied with dice rhythms or something.)

The kids chose their song titles by chance. Students took a dictionary, thumbed through, and randomly stuck their finger on a word; that was their title. (The students came across very few "bad" words, and luckily enough they were good kids who either had enough sense to try again or asked first.)

To finish, the students played their compositions on their recorders.