Mad Minutes

The idea for Mad Minutes is a combination of something I learned while working for Music for Young Children. I use this idea mainly with my recorder students and we start off every class with them. We started doing Mad Minutes shortly after our Floor Staff games and before we even started using the recorders.

1. I photocopied my Mad Minutes from my Recorder Mad Minute Resource.

The idea is that students are supposed to be able to name all 30 notes on the sheet in one minute. It starts off just using BAG and slowly progresses to all the notes the students will be able to play on the recorder. I will be moving up to BAGE before the students are ready to learn E.

2. I placed the Mad Minutes in a page protector with a sheet of cardstock behind it to make it a bit more sturdy. This allows me to re-use the sheets as students can write on the page protector with a dry-erase marker. I glued pom poms onto the lids of my dry-erase markers to serve as erasers. So far I haven't had many casualties as most of the pom poms are still on the lids! E-6000 glue works well. 

3. Once the students have completed the sheet they track their progress by filling in the graph. You can get a copy here.

One of my students said to me the other day, "I don't understand why we keep doing these! I just keep getting better every time." Yes - that is the point!

***Update: I have totally redone this resource and I'm pretty happy with it. I've included 5 different motivational backgrounds to promote a growth mindset along with notational fluency.