The new school year is upon us and I’ve been crafting new bulletin board headers to spice up the area outside my door. You can enter to win a set of your own scrap-booked bulletin board headers. It’s in 2 pieces, 6″ x 12″ each. I’ll include a few pieces of coordinating…
More Listening Lessons – Schubert
The spring semester was very busy and I completed Orff-Schulwerk Level III right after school finished (Orff Certified!), so it’s taken me longer to follow up on listening lessons than I had planned. I’ll try to address the specific questions I received by email with one of my favorite listening…
Listening Lessons
All of my listening lessons tie into my regular lessons in some way. Sometimes they relate to a rhythmic element, a related pitch or scale, or even form, such as rondo. The very best listening examples have a clear melody the students can sing. Need examples? Certainly. 1. Mozart’s “Allegro”…
Tongo – Polynesian Canoe Song
This awesome folk song has multiple uses. Its pentatonic range of low la up to la (la, do re mi so la) allows teachers to use it with multiple grade levels. The syncopated rhythms and dotted quarter note and eighth note rhythms make it engaging for upper elementary as well….
Sub Plans for Music Class
I’m heading to TMEA later this week and my substitute teachers are not music teachers. In fact, there are only a handful of “music substitutes” in the area and I think they were booked for TMEA before the first week of school! What to do? Show videos to every class?…
What’s in the cards?
Choosing individual students can be challenging because some students are eager to participate, some are shy, others reluctant, but all need opportunities to participate in class and we have to assess them. Many years ago a colleague shared an idea of using a set of cards for class games, and…
Differentiation in the Elementary Music Classroom
Differentiation. It’s a word we hear in staff development all the time and most music teachers probably think, “I differentiate instruction to meet the needs of the students in every class!” Although it’s true that we do this through our activities, I’ve never done it with worksheets. However, considering all…
Hogs in the Cornfield – the first song request!
Here’s a big “Thank you” to Lori for suggesting a song to post. It was a good choice, too! Not only is Hogs in the Cornfield a useful song, but it’s a fun game for the students to play. Here are a few ways that I use Hogs in the…
Song Requests?
As a holiday gift to music teachers everywhere, I would like to open the floor for song suggestions. Is there a song you’d love to see posted as a .jpg for your visual aids? Just leave a comment with the song title and the most useful format for your song….
Choir Notes
My 4th and 5th grade Advanced Choir performed on Thursday night and Friday afternoon and did a wonderful job! They started a new tradition last year of signing the board after a performance, sometimes leaving little notes for me. How could I be upset to find such heartfelt messages from…