How to Create a “Spotlight the Rhythm” Activity In Seesaw & Google Slides

How to Create a “Spotlight the Rhythm” Activity In Seesaw & Google Slides
How to Create a “Spotlight the Rhythm” Activity  In Seesaw & Google Slides

Are you looking for an easy and fun way to assess your students’ understanding of basic rhythm patterns? Our community coordinator for Midnight Music, Amy Burns, inspired by Kris Szajner’s Youtube Channel, has the perfect activity for your students that works in either Seesaw or Google Slides. Follow these simple steps to create your very own “Spotlight the Rhythm” interactive activity. 

For more Seesaw inspiration and other music tech activities, check out Amy’s book, Using Technology with Elementary Music Approaches or visit her website, amymburns.com.

View Amy’s video by clicking below. Step-by-step directions are given below the video for your convenience. 

Seesaw How-To

Create the Project

  1. Log-in to Seesaw Online
  2. Click “Create a New Activity”
  3. Click “Add a Template” 
    1. Select “Drawing” 
  4. Add a background (if you desire) such as music staff or clef signs. 
  5. Click the 3 dots & select “Shapes”. Insert a box which will hold your rhythm examples. 
  6. Change the box’s color to BLACK. 
  7. Click the 3 dots underneath your black box and select “lock”. 

Create Your Rhythm Patterns

  1. Option 1: Create your own rhythm example in Seesaw using uploaded images from Midnight Music’s Free Notation Library
  2. Option 2: Screenshot a rhythm using Rhythm Randomizer.
    1. Go to RhythmRandomizer.com
    2. Click on the gear icon on the left side of your screen and edit your example length, time signature, and included note values. 
    3. Once you have a rhythm pattern you like, take a screenshot of the example and save the image to your computer. 
    4. Upload the image to Remove.bg (a free online background removal tool) and check that the background is removed by looking for a checkerboard pattern behind the image. 
    5. Download the edited image. 
    6. Upload your edited image into Seesaw or drag and drop the download file into the Seesaw workspace. 

Make Your Rhythm Boxes

  1. Resize your rhythm to fit inside of your black box and drag it over top of the black box. 
  2. Click on the 3 dots underneath your rhythm image and select “Order”, “Bring to Front”. 
  3. Click the 3 dots underneath your rhythm image and select, “Lock.” 

Add a Spotlight

  1. Click the 3 dots on the left side of your screen & select a circle shape. 
  2. Change the color to YELLOW. 
  3. Drag your yellow circle over your rhythm image/black blox. 
  4. If you can see your rhythm, you are DONE. 
  5. If you cannot see your rhythm example:
    1. Click your rhythm image. 
    2. Click the 3 dots underneath the image. 
    3. Select “Unlock”
    4. Click the 3 dots underneath the image again. 
    5. Select “Order”, “Bring to Front”
    6. Lock the image by clicking on the 3 dots underneath one final time and selecting, “Lock”
    7. You should now be able to see your rhythm when you drag the yellow spotlight over it. 

Design Your Directions

Amy suggests using a BitMoji character to put directions on your project. She puts a chat bubble shape above her BitMoji picture and adds text & emoticons to convey her directions. Whatever directions you put inside your Seesaw project, make sure to put it on your project outline too so students will see directions before they open the project as well as when they are inside of it. 

Google Slides How-To

  1. Make a slide with your directions. 
  2. On your second slide, make your background BLACK. 
  3. Insert rhythm examples in miscellaneous places on the slide. 
  4. Create a flashlight using colored shapes. 
    1. Select “Insert”, “Shapes”
    2. Recolor shapes by selecting them and then clicking, “Fill Color”. Change to desired color. 
    3. Add in additional shapes (watch Amy’s video for an idea). 
    4. Once you have your ideal shape, select each shape by holding down the SHIFT key. 
    5. Once all shapes are selected, right-click and select GROUP. 
    6. Your images will then all move together (just like a flashlight!)
    7. If you cannot see your rhythms, right click your rhythm image, select “Order”, “Bring to Front”. 
    8. Double-check that you can now make your rhythms appear with your shape-created “Flashlight.”

Download your copy

Would you like to take a copy of this with you? Click the button below and a copy of this will be sent directly into your inbox.

Looking for More Resources for Music Teachers?

Hello! I’m Katie Argyle – an Australian music technology trainer and consultant with a passion for helping music teachers through my business Midnight Music.

I’m a qualified teacher but no, I don’t currently teach in a school. I help teachers through my online professional development space – the Midnight Music Community – where there are tutorial videos, courses, links and downloadable resources.

MMC Mockup new

I like to focus on easy ways to incorporate technology into what you are already doing in your music curriculum through a range of creative projects. I also run live workshops and have presented at countless conferences and other music education events.

If you want simple, effective ideas for using technology in music education, I would LOVE to help you inside the Midnight Music Community.

Learn more and take a sneak peek inside

Leave A Comment

You might also like...

Introducing

The Midnight Music Community

An online community where music tech professional development, lesson ideas, and accountability come together.
Ultimate Free Music Tech Resource Guide Guide 2023/24

Download Now for FREE...

The Ultimate Music Tech Resources Guide for 2023-2024

Claim your copy of our annual guide to free music technology resources, designed especially for music teachers. Discover interactive music websites, software, productivity tools, and assessment resources you can use in your music classroom for free.

Follow Me on Social Media

PRIVACY POLICY

This is the Privacy Policy for the Midnight Music website located at www.midnightmusic.com (“Site”).

The Site is operated by Midnight Music Pty Ltd ABN 87 619 652 603 (“Midnight Music” or “Company” or “we” or “us”).

Midnight Music understands the importance of protecting your personal information and undertakes to adhere to this privacy policy at all times to ensure your personal information is effectively safeguarded.

Information you provide to us

The Site provides various places for users to provide information. We collect information that users provide by filling out forms on the Site, communicating with us via contact forms, responding to surveys, search queries on our search feature, providing comments or other feedback, providing information when ordering a product or service via the Site, and other circumstances where collecting personal information is reasonable and permitted by the Laws of the State of Victoria, Australia.

We use information you provide to us to deliver the requested product and/or service, to improve our overall performance, and to provide you with offers, promotions, and information.

Information we collect through automatic data collection technology

As you navigate through the Site, we may use automatic data collection technologies including Google Analytics to collect certain information about your equipment, browsing actions, and patterns. This will generally include information about your location, your traffic pattern through our Site, and any communications between your computer and our Site. Among other things, we will collect data about the type of computer you use, your Internet connection, your IP address, your operating system, and your browser type.

The information we collect automatically is used for statistical data and will not include personal information. We use this data to improve our Site and our service offerings. To the extent that you voluntarily provide personal information to us, our systems will associate the automatically collected information with your personal information.

Use of cookies and pixels

Similar to other commercial websites, our Site utilises a standard technology called “cookies” and server logs to collect information about how our site is used. Information gathered through cookies and server logs may include the date and time of visits, the pages viewed, time spent at our site, and the websites visited just before and just after our own, as well as your IP address.

A cookie is a very small text document, which often includes an anonymous unique identifier. When you visit a website, that site’s computer asks your computer for permission to store this file in a part of your hard drive specifically designated for cookies. Each website can send its own cookie to your browser if your browser’s preferences allow it, but (to protect your privacy) your browser only permits a website to access the cookies it has already sent to you, not the cookies sent to you by other sites.

The Company reserves the right to use technological equivalents of cookies, including social media pixels. These pixels allow social media sites to track visitors to outside websites so as to tailor advertising messages users see while visiting that social media website. The Company reserves the right to use these pixels in compliance with the policies of the various social media sites.​

How we manage personal information

Midnight Music undertakes to take all commercially reasonable steps to ensure that all personal information collected by us is accurate, up-to-date, complete and stored securely. When your personal information is no longer required for the purposes which Midnight Music uses personal information, all commercially reasonable steps will be undertaken to securely destroy that information.

How your personal information will be used

We use personal information for purposes of presenting our Site and its contents to you, providing you with information, providing you with offers for products and services, providing you with information about your subscriptions and products, carrying out any contract between you and the Company, administering our business activities, providing customer service, and making available other items and services to our customers and prospective customers.
From time-to-time, we may use the information you provide to us to make you offers to purchase products and services provided by third parties in exchange for a commission to be paid to us by such third parties. Should you opt to take part in such promotions, the third parties will receive your information.

Disclosure of your information

Midnight Music considers personal information we collect about you to be confidential and will not disclose such information to third parties except in the following circumstances:

  • Where you have consented to your personal information being provided to a third party;
  • Where Midnight Music is required by law to disclose your information; and
  • Gaining access to your personal information held by Midnight Music

Except in circumstances where access to your personal information may be denied by the Privacy Act or other Law of the State of Victoria, Australia, your personal information will be provided to you upon request.

Visitors’ General Data Protection Regulation rights

If you are within the European Union, you are entitled to certain information and have certain rights under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). These include the following:

  • We will retain the any information you choose to provide to us until: (a) you ask us to delete the information; (b) we decide to cease using our existing data providers; or (c) the Company decides that the value in retaining the data is outweighed by the costs of retaining it.
  • You have the right to request access to your data that the Company stores and the rights to either rectify or erase your personal data.
  • You have the right to seek restrictions on the processing of your data.
  • You have the right to object to the processing of your data and the right to the portability of your data.
  • To the extent that you provided consent to the Company’s processing of your personal data, you have the right to withdraw that consent at any time, without affecting the lawfulness of processing based upon consent that occurred prior to your withdrawal of consent.
  • You have the right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority that has jurisdiction over issues related to the General Data Protection Regulation.
  • We require only the information that is reasonably required to enter into a contract with you. We will not require you to provide consent for any unnecessary processing as a condition of entering into a contract with us.

Contact us

Should you have any queries in relation to the above or require further information regarding the Privacy Policy please contact us:

Midnight Music Pty Ltd
PO Box 219
Glen Waverley
Victoria 3150
AUSTRALIA

Email address: support@midnightmusic.com