Five Favorite Pins of December

Five Favorite Pins of December

This December has been pretty busy, between preparation for the school-wide singalong (which is tomorrow), my choir concert (which was last week), and Christmas shopping (which is constant!) Still, I wanted to take some time for my five favorite pins of December!Those of you who are teacher bloggers, feel free to link up! Directions are listed at the bottom of this post. Here are my five favorite...

Turkey Rhythms

Turkey Rhythms

A few weeks ago, I found a pin on Pinterest that I thought was really cute for classroom teachers:I wondered if there was a way I could adapt this idea to rhythm. I was excited when I found foam turkeys on Oriental Trading. When they came in the mail, each set looked like this:They actually came with one more smaller paper plate, but I discovered that overlapping and then gluing paper plates together...

Five Favorite Pins of November

Five Favorite Pins of November

I've been so busy lately participating in the linky parties of other teachers that I forgot about my own! Here goes my monthly linky party, this time for my five favorite pins of November.If you are a teacher blogger and would like to participate, see the link-up directions at the bottom of this post.#1: Before John was a Jazz GiantI love children's literature, and I love jazz, so I was super excited...

Autumn Manipulatives

Autumn Manipulatives

Today, I'm excited to be joining Lindsay Jervis' linky party, to blog about autumn manipulatives for rhythm writing!I just love the dollar shelves at Target, not just for fun goodies for my daughters, but for teaching! Recently, I found bags of pumpkins, gourds, acorns, and leaves and decided I had to use them in my classroom!I bought seven bags and stored them in fun buckets I also found at Target,...

New Ideas

New Ideas

Once again, I'm excited to join the Blog Hoppin' Linky Party, this time to blog about new ideas!Often, when I get new ideas, it's from collaborating and sharing with other teachers. I have a few friends in my district who I absolutely love bouncing ideas off of. Whether we are chatting about something we tried in our classrooms, or something we are thinking about trying, we can share ideas without...

Centers for rhythmic practice

Centers for rhythmic practice

This week, I started learning centers with my fourth graders to practice syncopa (or eighth/ quarter/ eighth combination.) It's been a lot of fun for the kids (and I was able to individually assess every student!) so today, I'm sharing the four centers:#1: Rhythm CarouselThis is a wonderful activity I learned from my friend Sue Leithold-Bowcock. I recently blogged about her sessions at the MKMEA conference;...

Three Apps for the Music Classroom

Three Apps for the Music Classroom

The past two days I have been home with my sick 14-month-old Macy (poor thing has had a fever...she's starting to finally feel better, thank goodness!) I've poked around a bit in the app store and online and have found a few new apps I thought I'd share.#1: FeedlyThis app is actually not music-specific, but could be used to stream all of your music blog reading. I found out about this app when I was...

Three vocal exploration ideas

Three vocal exploration ideas

Looking for ways to improve your students' pitch-matching? Vocal exploration is such a great way for students to get into their head voices...and it's so much fun! Here are three quick ways to get students exploring their voices, especially around Halloween!#1: "Ghosts in the House" by Kazuno KoharaThis is a really fun book, especially around Halloween! For vocal exploration, you could have students...

Five Favorite Pins of October

Five Favorite Pins of October

We are well into autumn (and still, the weather is amazing!) Since it is October, it is time for my October Linky Party!If you are a music education blogger, see the directions at the end of this blog for how to link up. Here are my five latest favorite pins!#1: Generate your own newspaper articleThis is a VERY neat tool! Click on the picture below to see the original source of the pin.The idea is...