Kindergarten is a year of preparation. It’s a year to teach a variety of repertoire and allow students to experience a mixture of songs, games, instruments, folk dances, and other activities. Every concept seems to stem from the idea of same or different: singing vs. speaking, fast vs. slow, loud vs….
Category: Melody
Differentiation Part 3 – Recorders
In a few weeks my fifth graders will dust off their recorders and begin using them in music class again. Many of them loved playing recorders in fourth grade, but some of them struggled. We spend the bulk of our time on whole class recorder instruction, but I also offer…
Solfége Problems? New Strategies to the Rescue!
At workshops, teachers often ask me, “Can your students really read that solfége?” Or sometimes it isn’t an outright question, but it’s a statement such as, “I don’t like teaching solfége because it’s hard.” Although I understand where you’re coming from, just because something is hard doesn’t mean it should…
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”…
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…