Saturday, April 6, 2013

Recorder Karate Belts Solved

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 the bottle, but I use a thin metal tool to get under it and wind it off quickly. (Luckily, I hadn't returned bottles to the recycling machine in a long time :)).  So, I came up with about 75% of what I needed.  Some kids are bringing in their own.
Our recorders have 3 pieces.  Take the bottom 2 pieces apart and slip the bottle cap-ring over the recorder.

I bought ribbon at the fabric store.  Each spool costs 50 cents.   The students begin by earning the white belt.  The order of colors I use are:  white, pink yellow, orange, green, blue, red, purple, brown, black, and then a STAR CHARM completes it.

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