There is no question that creativity is a vital skill for the 21st century. But at the same time, thanks to the increasing obsession with standardized testing and other high levels of quantifiable achievement, creative subjects like art and music
Thanks for joining me for Engaging Your Students Through Inquiry! You’ve already taken a great step to better teaching and learning in your music classroom. Be sure to subscribe so you you can download your free teacher planning workbook, and
Approaching my 20th year of teaching, I am thinking about how different my practice is now, compared to my first years. There’s so much that methods classes just don’t teach you! Some aspects of teaching can only be learned through
General music teachers are bringing ukuleles into their classrooms now more than ever! And many of you are like me, and never really played the ukulele before bringing it into your classroom. And although I’m not a huge fan of
It’s one of the first things you’ll do with your early childhood music classes. The voice is the instrument we carry with us, and vocal exploration exercises help children physically feel pitch changes. Playing with their voices is an important
The chaos of pandemic-year teaching sure compelled me to streamline my assessments! When working with early childhood classes, a lot of the learning is focused around contrasts in four main concepts: duration (long and short), tempo (fast and slow), dynamics
Welcome! Picture books are a fantastic way to develop creative thinking and musical thinking in the elementary school music classroom. If you are looking for ideas to connect music learning to a picture book, you have come to the right
This is my second book recommendation this month! With no singing allowed under strict covid-19 restrictions, I’ve been diving into more books. Bill Martin, Jr.’s Listen to the Rain provided a great backdrop for my Pre-Kindergarten classes to explore all
I always take time for vocal exploration in my early years classes. It’s so important to get them comfortable with their voices, and work on their flexibility. We focus just on echoes for a while, and then we think about
I’ve always taught “ta” (quarter note) and “ti-ti” (two eighth notes) in Kindergarten, but in the past few years I’ve ended up doing it earlier and earlier, allowing myself to jump to it when the students’ thinking and questioning naturally