High Quality, Creative, Time-Saving Ideas
I love letting my students use jingle bells during the month of December. Since we only use them one time during the year, the kids get really excited when I bring the jingle bells out. These festive songs are also great for the younger kiddos to perform at winter programs. Let’s dive in to my…
This fun Winter Alphabet program includes various Winter Celebrations such as Christmas, Kwanzaa and Hanukkah and has the ability to include all ages and all campus performance groups.
I want to help my student’s cultivate a sense of gratitude, and research shows the positive effects of doing so. “I am Thankful” is a simple song I created to help student’s learn the concept of gratitude through music. It’s a great song for a quick circle time at the beginning/end of class, OR you expand it to make a full lesson with the activities in my Teachers Pay Teachers Store. Let’s dive in.
Music is great for language development, bonding and creating new neural pathways for babies. So, being a music teacher, I got super excited to research some fun, developmentally appropriate, interactive songs & rhymes to teach to my baby. And now that I’ve compiled my favorites, of course I had to share with all of you!! This will be a first in a series of blog posts about songs to sing with your baby and/or toddler.
I’m going to share with you a couple of Motown songs I taught my students for the Black History Month program last year. They are great for in-person or online, because you can have the students lip-sync the songs! Let’s dive in.
There are a lot of Nutcracker-themed resources out there that you can pay for, but some of my favorite activities are free on Youtube. So here are my top 5 favorite videos that I love using in my music classroom.
In the past years I’ve struggled with teaching songs about Thanksgiving in music class because of the history associated with it. I want to teach kids the true facts about Thanksgiving but the facts are grim. So, my solution has been to put the focus on learning about Native Americans and the general idea of gratitude.
Even though it seems daunting, in most school districts you can make distance learning as simple or as complicated as you want. And as always, my choice is to keep things simple yet effective. So I wanted to share with you what I’m doing to keep distance learning simple for teaching elementary music.
Hey friends! Since Martin Luther King Jr. Day is coming up, teachers in our district get a 3 day weekend! I am SO looking forward to this! I don’t know about you, but January feels long…..like, REALLY long. It’s been rainy for the past few weeks in Dallas, so I’m hoping there will be some…
In my first year of teaching, I was asked to prepare a Christmas Program for my Pre-K & Kinder students. I knew it would be challenging but also super fun! It turns out it was a little more challenging than it was fun. This was mainly because I chose songs that were too wordy or…
One of my favorite things to do in the music classroom is read books to my students! I especially love it when the book has musical aspects to it so it can be easily incorporated into my music curriculum. A book that I look forward to reading every Fall is “The Little Old Lady Who…
This “Pumpkin, Pumpkin” music lesson incorporates songs, xylophones, circle games and more. It’s a perfect music lesson for the Fall.
“Kye Kye Kule” is the perfect song for teaching rhythm, movement, instrument etiquette, and singing technique to elementary students. So let’s dive in!!!
One of my back-to-school lessons for Pre-K, Kinder and 1st graders is a circle game+name game that corresponds with “Pete the Cat-I Love My White Shoes.”
Recently I have been on a journey. What would it look like for every aspect of my life to be “Minimalist,” including my teaching career? Maybe you’ve heard about minimalism and are still not exactly sure what it means or how you could actually translate it into your music classroom. Well, to gauge whether or…
I don’t know about you, but my elementary students are ALL ABOUT the song “Old Town Road” right now. At first I wasn’t a fan, but I have to admit it has grown on me. There are only 4 more work days until summer, so I needed a lesson that would keep my students engaged…
Beginner Guitar and Beginner Bucket Drumming lesson for music teachers.
Black History Month+Ukuleles? I’ve got you covered with these 4 ukulele chord sheets! Every year our school has a different theme for our Black History Month program. Last year ours was Motown themed which had such a plethora of great tunes to choose from, and is perfect for teaching students about the Civil Rights Movement….
Last week I was teaching my 3rd grade students how to sing in rounds. One moment they were singing like beautiful angels, and then the next moment I hear a student shout to another student-”stop looking at me!”, and then another, “You looked at me first!”, and then another, “SHUT UP, GUYS!!” All of a…
Ah, yes- 1 week left until Winter Break. It is the best of times……it is the worst of times. You know what I mean!! Thankfully, I’ve got my Winter Program out of the way and I can fully dedicate my classes to teaching “The Nutcracker”. There are many resources out there for “The Nutcracker”, but…
I love Christmas. The decorations, hot chocolate, carols, cheesy hallmark movies, and cozying up on the couch by the fire. I even love helping my students prepare for their Winter Program. This year, I wanted my ukulele club to perform a few Christmas carols. But after some searching, it was hard to find songs to…
1.Use the “sticker method”. I buy these tiny neon stickers from Walmart or Amazon, and color code each chord. Often, I will create corresponding chord charts with songs we are working on. 2. Partner Up. You don’t need a full class set of ukuleles. The student’s fingers start to hurt and by partnering up it…
I’m not gonna lie. Sometimes as a music teacher, the holiday seasons from October-December start blending together. Even though I love Fall with the air getting cooler, the pumpkin patches, and festivals left and right, often I’m not the most “seasonal” person during the Fall months. I don’t always put out pumpkins and halloween decorations,…
It’s October! That means Pumpkin Patches, fair days, crisp air, halloween, and I don’t know about you, but for me it also means ALLERGIES. I was out sick the other day and needed a simple sub plan. When I first started teaching, I would print off hundreds of worksheets for my sub and leave behind…
Hello everyone!!! I’m currently teaching Kindergartners and 1st graders about quarter notes and eighth notes. Fortunately, they seemed super excited to clap and shout “TA, TA, TI-TI, TA!!!!”. It has never been a problem for my students to learn rhythms by rote. But in the past couple of years, I’ve been trying to put an…
Solfege is not every music teacher’s FAVORITE subject to teach. But in Texas, it’s part of the standards that are required to teach our students. Solfege is also great because it is breaks through to multiple learning styles, including visual, kinesthetic, and auditory. It helps students learn to hear pitch more accurately and is helpful…
SEL is a hot acronym in my district right now. If you haven’t heard of it yet, it stands for Social Emotional Learning. What is SEL? Social and emotional learning (SEL) is a process that allows students to learn and apply knowledge, skills, and attitudes that are needed to manage emotions, set and achieve positive…
So today was the first day of school for students and teachers in my district. In the elementary world this means plentiful amounts of Pre-k and Kinder tears, calming down nervous parents, scheduling confusions, teachers running on adrenaline and coffee, shy students (lasts for only 1 day), and mind-numbing fatigue. Even with all of this…
Hello everyone! So summer has officially ended and we are back in the swing of things! I always love the excitement of a new school year, but am definitely in denial that it’s happening. One thing that always helps me ease back into the year is decorating my classroom. I think it’s kind of like…
Hello friends! As a part of my “Back-to-School” series, this next post will be about FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL lesson ideas for 3rd-5th grade. I remember my first year of teaching, I was so nervous about what I would do with my students once they walked into the classroom! So I am going to go…