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Janine's Music Room

Thoughts from a PYP music teacher

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exploring sounds

Using picture books to develop musical thinking

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

Janine 12. July 202114. July 2022 Uncategorized No Comments Read more

Soundscapes with Listen to the Rain

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

Janine 28. March 202111. July 2021 Uncategorized No Comments Read more

Vocal Exploration Through the Town

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

Janine 13. March 202111. July 2021 Uncategorized No 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

Setting up a Sound Exploration Station

Every music teacher knows how much students just want to experiment (make lots of noise) when they come into a room full of instruments. As people, this probably drives us crazy, but as teachers, we should rejoice in the enthusiasm

Janine 1. November 20166. April 2018 Inquiry 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

The Listening Walk, Part II: Making Sounds into Music

Following our inquiry into environmental sounds (inspired by Paul Showers’ The Listening Walk), we explored how that might translate into music. Sitting together as a class, a few students shared some of the sounds they had drawn/written in their journals,

Janine 24. April 201521. July 2015 Group activity, Inquiry 4 Comments Read more

The Listening Walk, Part I: Exploring Sounds Around Us

My Kindergarten classes have been exploring sounds, and an unexpected discussion led us in an interesting direction: How do the sounds in our environment inspire us as musicians? Cue The Listening Walk by Paul Showers, illustrated by the fantastic Aliki.

Janine 16. April 201526. July 2020 Inquiry No Comments Read more

The First Day of School, continued

Once the kids have moved around and talked a bit, they can get settled in pretty quickly. So next I like to make an old-fashioned circle on the carpet and do some large group bonding—again, with the idea of getting

Janine 20. September 201423. March 2018 Whole class activity Read more

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