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Thoughts from a PYP music teacher

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The Game My Kids Want All Year

Even in this crazy world, I think we can all agree that one of the most important things in early childhood is developing a sense of steady beat. Music teachers have hundreds of ways to support this, but I’ve often

Janine 10. October 202010. October 2020 Group activity, Whole class activity No Comments Read more

Playdough music center for early childhood classes

Fifteen years of teaching has taught me to be prepared. There will be days when you have no voice, or no energy, but you don’t want to waste that precious contact time. Alternatively, you will have days when you need

Janine 26. April 201926. June 2019 Group activity No Comments Read more

10 Tips for Using Learning Centers in Specialist Classes

I’ve been experimenting with learning stations, or centers, in my music classroom. I’m always intrigued when I walk into classrooms that are set up with exciting experiments, games, and other provocations for learning. But a long time passed between admiring

Janine 16. September 201820. July 2019 Group activity, Teacher Tips No Comments Read more

5 Great Circle Games from Around the World

As I wrote last week, I love to play singing games with my classes. Not only are they fun and catchy, but they offer a lot of teachable content. It’s up to you what you want to pull out, but

Janine 9. February 20182. April 2018 Group activity, Song, Whole class activity No Comments Read more

5 Great Circle Games for Your Music Class

Singing, games, and holding hands! I love playing circle games with my kids. And my kids love playing them. They love the catchy melodies, the movement, and the challenge: For some games, that’s the challenge of doing the right thing

Janine 4. February 201827. March 2018 Group activity, Song, Whole class activity 2 Comments Read more

Exploring Musical Expression using Carnival of the Animals

One of the most important concepts we teach is communication through music, or what we might call musical expression. Music, I emphasize to my students, is not just here to entertain you or fill the silence at the grocery store.

Janine 19. November 201711. March 2018 Assessment, Group activity, Inquiry, Whole class activity No Comments Read more

Don’t Teach

I’m trying to incorporate more singing games and play parties into my music lessons. They are a great way to teach not only singing, but beat, pattern, form, etc. They also develop social skills, like eye contact, holding hands, taking

Janine 2. November 201710. March 2018 Group activity, Song, Teacher Tips, Whole class activity No Comments Read more

Inquiry into Pitch

I’ve just started a sound exploration unit in Grade 2, focusing on pitch (and later, duration and dynamics). Last week was an introduction week, where the students tried singing from graphic notation. What began as the same up-and-down siren sound

Janine 21. January 20161. December 2016 Group activity, Inquiry No Comments Read more

Composing with Body Percussion

It’s a frustrating thing the day you realize that your Grade 4 students are still confusing beat and rhythm, and that they don’t read rhythms quite as well as you imagined they should. I dare say—and feel free to challenge

Janine 11. January 201626. July 2020 Group activity, Inquiry, Unit No Comments Read more

The Listening Walk, Part III: Following a Score

Now that the students had inquired into how they could make their observed environmental sounds into musical sounds (inspired by Paul Showers’ The Listening Walk; see my Part I and Part II posts), we took it a step further. We visualized the

Janine 30. April 20159. August 2015 Group activity, Inquiry, Performance 2 Comments Read more
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