Week 6: Non-verbal Students Communicate Through Music

This is a really inspiring article and video on non-verbal students communicating through music. It was really inspiring.

Check it out here.

Week 6: Self Assessment

Wow, I can't believe it's already week six! I just read this post on self assessment. Unfortunately, it doesn't contain any assessment tools, but it makes a good case for having students assess themselves, and was interesting to read.

Check it out here.

Week 5: Ideas For Teaching Rhythm

This blog post has some neat ideas for teaching and reinforcing rhythmic reading, including having the students read rhythms off of popsicle sticks. The post also has ideas about playing rhythms on recorders and reading them off of a Smartboard.

Click here to read the post.

Week 5: NAfME Supports Proposed Legislation for Early Childhood Learning

I just read this article about the Strong Start for America's Children Act, which would increase the number of children, especially children in poverty, that attend preschool. This act lists the arts as an essential domain of school readiness, and is supported my NAfME.

Read more about it here.

Week 4: The Benefits of Learning an Instrument

This article in The Guardian tells about some of the benefits of learning an instrument. It explains that children who study instruments have faster brain responses as adults, and are better listeners. You can never have enough advocacy!

Check it out here.

Week 4: Carnival of the Animals

This blog has a bunch of great lesson ideas for Carnival of the Animals. Some of them are really creative! It also has YouTube audio links at the bottom in case you don't have a CD or MP3 of the piece.

Check it out here.

Week 3: A Bicycle Built for Two

Here is my version of A Bicycle Built for Two in Noteflight:



I think Noteflight is a fantastic site, and I'm really happy that I'm aware of it. While I'm not quite as fast on Noteflight as I am on notation software that I'm more familiar with, I think that once I memorize all the keyboard shortcuts I'll be much faster. I really like that I can use this site on my work computer, my home computer, and any other computer I have access to. I'm not allowed to install software my work computer, so I was only able to use MuseScore on my home computer. Not only is this site available on any computer, but it saves in the cloud so that I am able to access my music anywhere. If I taught older students, I would definitely use this site to teach composition, and have them use it to collaborate on and share their work.

Week 3: The Strong Case For Music Education

Yet another article making the case for music education. I'll never get tired of these. Of particular relevance to my teaching situation is the claim that music an help close the achievement between rich and poor students. You can never have enough advocacy.

Click here to read the article.

Week 3: MKMEA Conference Ideas

This post shares a bunch of ideas from the Midwest Kodaly Music Educators of America (MKMEA) conference in Chicago. I think it's so cool that because of technology, I'm able to get ideas from a conference that I did not attend, halfway across the country.

Check it out.