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Janine's Music Room

Janine's Music Room

Thoughts from a PYP music teacher

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PreK

Easy assessment of music concepts—even for a sub!

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

Janine 30. July 202114. July 2022 Uncategorized No Comments Read more

“High” doesn’t mean loud: Clearing up the confusion

Pitch and rhythm are a great pair in early childhood music. Students often use the words “high” and “low” to talk about “loud” and “quiet”, which we want to sort out as early as possible. Teaching in an international school,

Janine 5. June 202124. September 2023 Assessment 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

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

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

Developing New Units (PreK)

Once in a while I try to clean up my computer—call it “spring cleaning,” I guess—and this time around I’ve stumbled upon loads of interesting things that I’d mostly forgotten about. As I clean up, I’ll be rolling out the

Janine 18. March 20155. August 2015 Unit No Comments Read more

Do the Locomotion

I went through a big overhaul of my curriculum recently, digging deep into cooperative groups, more creative composition, and authentically student-led inquiry. I was well into it, however, when I stopped to reflect and realized that movement—which had once been

Janine 8. December 201422. March 2018 Group activity, Whole class activity No Comments Read more

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