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Time OUT!: And, I mean that in a good way!

© Deborah Jeter

If you want to find something productive AND fun for your students to do over the summer months, slip these sites on for size. The kids'll have a blast and not even realize that they are learning, too!

NOTE:After having this article up for over a year, I recently visited some of these pages at what used to be THE BRAIN OPERA site, where there were interactive games called: Web Choir that was a wild experience, The Rhythm Tree, where you could create your own polyrhythmic patterns, Cyber-Metal for those 'discerning metal heads' and Groove Net which was basically a mixing board with a little dancing man attached to it, BUT all of these pages could no longer be found. It was disappointing to say the least, but that is the way of the Web! Ever changing! Sites are pronged to disappear with no "forwarding" address and at a moment's UN-notice.

I had so much fun at these sites and it was a pity to see them gone. It was a great way to refresh the students on chords, major, minor, pentatonic, and whole tone scales. It was made with Java so it took a little bit to load, but it was worth it. The various sounds they used sure had me laughing! My dog left the room, but then she's always been afraid of bodily function sounds, but that's a whole 'nother story.

However, I did discover another fun site that IS working (at least for now) and you can visit it by going to Yuk-Yuk. This has a few sections that are musically oriented. I enjoyed my stay immensely, but one needs to have a dry sense of humor, at times, to fully appreciate this site. It's cleverly done and a very innovative way to teach many subjects.

The next great site featured is Play Page. The intro has exotic sounding music. There is much to be explored amidst this site with jungle music drumming up the wild side in all of us.

If you'd like to mix a little art and music, try Terbo Tool which can be found at the "Play Page" site. You'll need Shockwave, but the good thing about this application is that Shockwave loads more quickly than the Java applets listed above. If you are "into" a '60s frame of mind, you'll probably appreciate the short sound clip used which is by The Who and of course, what's the '60s without flower power!