Recorder karate belts

Recorder Karate. What a motivation! The kids love this idea of earning 'belts' for their good work. I am teaching recorder to 3rd grade - 8th grade... that's a lot of kids. So, I had to think 'cheap'. I heard you could purchase 'O' rings at the hardware store, tying colored belts to it, which hang around the recorder. I figured I wouldn't want to buy about 150 'O' rings. So, I came up with the idea of the soda bottle cap-ring. It has worked very well. They are sometimes difficult to pry off…

I love the idea of tracking and celebrating student growth and progress in a public way. With a task as complex as playing a melodic wind instrument, there are a lot of variables to master. It takes real practice and work to learn to play the recorder in a fun, […]

Welcome back to Teacher Tuesday! Earlier this year I shared my current system for organizing and storing the students' sheet music for the Recorder Karate program. I've included the link to that post at the end of this one so you can read more about it if you're interested. Today's post is about my new recorder belt storage solution! Last year I started using loom bands as my "belts" and it was the best.decision.ever. No more cutting little pieces of yarn, no more tying things onto hundreds…

Music teachers, if you’re like me – you have to teach recorders at some point in your curriculum. It takes a lot of time and patience, but it can be a wonderful learning experience for students. As many of us, I use Music K-8‘s Recorder Karate framework for music learning. The premise behind the book […]

This question was posted the other day and I thought it may be something that others were interested in: I am starting Recorder Karate for the first time and looking for an idea pertaining to the belts that is more cost effective. I see you have yarn. Can you explain how you utilize the yarn as belts and what holds it into place? I hear you on cost effectiveness. My school started out at just under 600 total population and now we are at around 900. I have always used yarn for belts and…

I've mentioned in previous posts that I teach music classes to homeschool groups. It's a great way to fill in some of those free mornings or early afternoons. It's also a great way to build your reputation. I have one particular homeschool group that has loved the classes we have done and requested a way to incorporate some sort of collaborative playing. Since most of them do not take any music lessons (I'm working on that!) recorders seemed the easiest, least expensive way to get them…

View user-submitted photos of Recorder Karate in use. Recorder Karate, created by Barb Philipak and published by Plank Road Publishing, is a highly motivational recorder teaching method for elementary school students.

What's the big deal? Learn more about Recorder Karate Songs and Belts.

I love the idea of tracking and celebrating student growth and progress in a public way. With a task as complex as playing a melodic wind instrument, there are a lot of variables to master. It takes real practice and work to learn to play the recorder in a fun, […]

I was working on this post before the craziness of the end-of-the-year began and realized I never finished! Even though we have been on Summer break for awhile now (woohooo!), I thought I'd go ahead and tell you a little bit about our 5th grade recorder program. Each Spring, 5th graders have the privilege of participating in the "Recorder Karate" program. It is one of my favorite units to teach because the students love it so much! Recorder Karate is a motivational recorder program that…