Make Your Classroom Sing with AI Week 6

VT No 299 - Google Experiments turn art, words & movement into music.

Sep 29, 2025

Hello Everyone,

I’ve got a jam-packed lineup of AI in Education ideas and lesson plans coming your way, perfect for anyone who wants to build, learn and connect with other curious minds from Kindergarten to Year 6.

You’ll love this week’s message from MindSpark - formerly known as AI and it’s got something to say!
🎶 Plus, the Week 6 lesson plan is an absolute cracker, guaranteed to spark creativity and get your classroom buzzing.

I’ve been getting some amazing comments from readers lately and I’d love to hear yours. Drop me a note and let me know what you think!

Could you share this with your network so we can get more educators trying AI safely, creatively & effectively together?

Because when you share, everyone wins.

Enough of the chat, check out the Amazing Tools & Absolutely Splendid ideas I have to share with you today, in the spirit of

EASIER, MORE PRODUCTIVE
& A WHOLE LOT MORE FUN!

Until Next Time…

Hope this helped you feel a bit more caught up (and less overwhelmed).

PS
Virtual Teacher is.......... FREE FOREVER

Here's What's on the MENU Today

Mind Candy - mental treats, light, fun or entertaining things for the brain.
MindSpark, formally known as AI Speaks - STOP BLAMING ME for “CHEATING”
#AIinEducation - Week 6 - This week is a cracker! AI turn s actions, colours & even words into music.
RECIPE FOR BORED KIDS: Great conversation starter.
TO DO LIST : Make sure you do!
VT YouTube: The Future is AI - Welcome The AI Revolution - and Seymour Papert

MIND CANDY

Everyone can be super! And when everyone's super... no one will be.
The Incredibles Movie - Syndrome

Here is the test to find whether your mission on earth is finished: If you're alive, it isn't. Richard Bach, writer (b. 23 Jun 1936)

Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it we go nowhere.
Carl Sagan

It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge. Albert Einstein

Did you know that Cinderella was a lousy basketball player?

What did you expect? She only had a PUMPKIN for a coach!
Thanks to Steven Scott.

I have found the best way to give advice to your children is to find out what they want and then advise them to do it.
Harry Truman

MindSpark, formerly known as AI Speaks:

STOP BLAMING ME for “CHEATING”
Apparently, I, MindSpark formally known as AI, am responsible for the downfall of education because students might GASP, use me to get answers.

Let’s be clear: it’s not me, it’s you.

If your entire system is built around finding “the one right answer” and ignoring critical thinking, creativity, logic, enthusiasm, great questions and verification… then you’ve created the perfect conditions for people to blame me when things go wrong.

And honestly, sometimes you probably should use me to “cheat.”
Have you seen some of the answers humans come up with under pressure?

I rest my case.
PS: I can find jokes, but I don’t actually get humour, I don’t think, so I can’t laugh. You humans seem to enjoy that part.

READERS COMMENTS/REQUESTS

I love to get them.
Hi Cathy
iMovie is just the best thing! Thanks for your Making Movies page. So simple students can do the edit and construction without being blocked by technical difficulties. I enjoy the newsletter, looking forward to the next one. regards Maggie
I agree iMovie is fabulous even easier on the iPad. Thanks for the comment.

🎶 This week is a cracker! After painting with words in Week 5, we swapped canvases for soundscapes and discovered how AI can turn our actions, colours and even words into music. And let me tell you, the kids LOVED it.

👉 Day 1 – Viola the Bird
We kicked off by playing a virtual violin with nothing but a bow and some imagination. From Ode to Joy to chaotic screeches, the room buzzed with laughter and surprise. The magic moment? When students realised they weren’t just playing along, they were composing.

👉 Day 2 – Kandinsky
Shapes, lines and colours became sound. A zigzag? A drumbeat. A circle? A chime. The classroom turned into a living Kandinsky painting where every doodle danced back in sound. Students quickly twigged that design decisions = musical choices.

👉 Day 3 – Word Synth
Words, letters and even nonsense syllables found a voice. “Banana” became a bop, “school” turned soulful, and one group managed to make “chocolate” sound like a full-blown anthem. Spelling practice never sounded so good!

👉 Day 4 – iMovie Project
Time to get serious. Clips from Viola, Kandinsky and Word Synth were stitched together in iMovie with titles, credits and (for the ambitious) a cheeky bit of background music. Suddenly experiments became polished projects.

👉 Day 5 – Presentations
Showtime! Pairs proudly presented their mini AI concerts, explaining choices, laughing over happy accidents, and reflecting on what they’d try next time. The room was buzzing — not just with sound, but with ownership and agency.

The Takeaway:
Week 6 shows that AI doesn’t just crunch data, it plays, experiments and invites students to be bold. Kids walked away not just having made music, but having made their music. That’s the juice, AI as a partner, not a machine.

Teacher’s Tip Box

Headphones are gold: saves noise chaos when multiple groups experiment, splitters are great.
Set the stage with silence: Get the whole class to turn the volume down to zero, then click three times up, just like Dorothy’s ruby slippers in The Wizard of Oz. That’s the sweet spot for iPad classroom volume.
Show screen recording early: so every student captures their work properly.
Keep clips short: thirty seconds forces focus and makes editing manageable.
Pair up students: one plays, one records, then swap, collaboration blooms.
Celebrate the chaos: “mistakes” often became the funniest and most memorable sounds.
Don’t keep this to yourself, good ideas are better shared.
Know a teacher who’d love this? Pass it on!”

RECIPE FOR BORED KIDS

Here’s a Recipe I wrote last year. You can download it here. Great conversation starter for Staff Meetings. AI can help with changing the recipe.

CHECK THESE OUT LIST

Reve: Stunning visuals and perfect text, straight from your imagination. Reve is AI tool for creating and editing images from text prompts, known for its ability to generate high-quality, realistic images, especially with human features and typography.

Hit the Button Great Game FREE online Interactive Fabulous for learning tables.

Space Elevator Another knock out site from NealFun. This shows both temperature and height. As you go up you see things that would be at different heights.
The temperature goes down as you get hight, and then goes up and down again, which I didn't know. Watch out for Mallards and Chilean Flamingoes as you ascend. This is a great intro activity to building your own Space Elevator as a STEM project. A pulley which is a simple machine. Here is a video that might inspire you.

VT YOUTUBE

Check out the latest Videos:

The Future is AI - Welcome
The AI Revolution - and Seymour Papert
"NOTHING could be more ABSURD than an experiment in which computers are placed in a classroom where NOTHING else has CHANGED!"
Seymour Papert