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The Easy Guide to Getting Started With Ukuleles

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

Janine 12. March 202214. 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

Recorders—at school or at home

Despite many jokes about children playing the recorder, music teachers know that the recorder is an accessible first step towards playing other instruments. It can be difficult for a small child to play a melodic instrument. String instruments require left

Janine 25. January 20213. February 2021 Assessment, Uncategorized 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

Up Close and Personal with the Instruments

I stumbled across this and just had to share. The Netherlands Philarmonic played Peter and the Wolf with GoPro cameras on several of the instruments, and put together this fantastic video! The camera on the trombone was my favorite. This

Janine 30. April 201622. April 2016 Uncategorized 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

Time to Invest in Post-Its

After a number of years in PYP, most teachers lose track of how many Post-Its they have used: in workshops, in meetings, and hopefully also in class. I used to roll my eyes when those little yellow packs would come

Janine 10. January 201626. July 2020 Inquiry No Comments Read more

Inquiry: Musical Cycles

Following a previous post, someone asked about our inquiry into cycles. The main inquiry point is that the layering and varying of simple musical patterns can create a complex sound, and that this cycling technique is used in several musical

Janine 15. May 20155. July 2015 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

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
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