Teacher Tuesday: New Year's Resolutions

Yesterday I shared my 5 tips for creating meaningful goals. Today I'm linking up with Aileen Miracle to share my new year's resolutions for 2015! Click on the picture below to go to the linky party and see everyone else's posts. Personal: Spend at least 2 hours a week with friends As the girls get older and I adjust to my new town, new home, and...

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Mommy Monday: 5 Tips for Setting Meaningful Goals

Well, Christmas is officially past and New Year's is almost here. Did that go by extra-fast for anyone else?!? Goodness gracious. This week is winter break for me so I am trying to get my life in order (emphasis on TRYING) before school starts again. One of the first things I did was sit down and think about how I have been using my time this past...

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Teacher Tuesday: Movement Ideas for Winter

Last week I shared 5 tips for incorporating more movement into elementary general music lessons. Today I am sharing a few of the specific movement activities I have done this winter that have worked really well. Even if you have already finished your Nutcracker and Sleigh Ride lessons for the year, I hope these ideas will spark new ones for you as...

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Mommy Monday: Toddler Craft- suncatcher window ornament

As I was coming up with ideas for the girls' Advent calendar activities, I tried to find some easy and fun crafts that we could do together. One of the ideas I came across that I wanted to try was a suncatcher ornament. I saw pictures of lots of different finished products made different ways but couldn't find a good explanation of how to make them,...

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Teacher Tuesday: 5 ways to add more movement to your classroom

With testing and common core-ing, literacy and math blocks, and everything else that (although valuable) take up so much of our students' time and energy, I'm noticing a lot more pent-up energy. Kids are walking into my classroom more and more often completely exhausted and numb, or quite literally bouncing off the walls. When I walk through the halls...

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Mommy Monday: DIY, cheap wrapping paper

Welcome back to Mommy Monday! I hope you all are managing the chaos and enjoying the holiday season. I wanted to come back to one of the activities I am doing with my girls from their advent calendar, which I shared in this post last week- making (sort of) your own wrapping paper. I was just at the store this past weekend to stock up on some more...

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Teacher Tuesday: on my desk

For today's Teacher Tuesday I'm linking up with Rachel Tanenblatt at Music With Mrs. Tanenblatt to show you what's on my teacher desk right now. What a great idea for a linky party! It's easy to look at people's blog posts and think, "I'm not like that at all- I could never be that organized, or trendy, or _________". But most blog posts are just...

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Mommy Monday: 24 Christmas activities for 2-3 year old's

Last week I showed off my DIY advent calendar, which has a different activity for my not-quite-3-year-old twins and I to do together each day. Today I want to share those activities with you! Many of the crafts are ideas I got from other places- click on the item in the list below the graphic to go to those links and get a full description. Because...

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Teacher Tuesday: removable score notes

Welcome back to Teacher Tuesday! Today I have a quick tip using one of my favorite tools again: washi tape! I have recently started using it to make notes in my original scores for my choir classes. I used to make a photocopy of the original score for every song I did with my choirs so that I could write my own notes about things I want to remember...

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Mommy Monday: muffin tin advent calendar

I'm so excited to share today's Mommy idea with you- an easy DIY advent calendar that is so flexible and cheap! I wish I could take credit for the idea, but I found it on Pinterest. There are lots of people who have done different versions of it but I was first inspired by this picture. The basic idea is to use a mini-muffin tin (which happens to...

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Cyber Monday Sale!

Yippee! It's time for a sale! TeachersPayTeachers is having a site-wide sale on December 1st and 2nd for Cyber Monday, and you can get 28% off every item in my store with the code TPTCYBER. I've got a couple of things I'm super excited about as both a seller and a buyer: 1. My Japanese lesson set bundle Have you seen the new bundle in my...

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Teacher Tuesday: organized concert prep

Well, it's that time of year again. While others are starting to get that warm fuzzy feeling as they anticipate the holiday season, music teachers around the world are hunkering down, trying to visualize 500 children walking on and off the stage in various configurations while holding props and percussion instruments without dropping anything, making...

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Mommy Monday: DIY toddler toys- magnet board

With the holidays fast approaching, stores and websites are filled with the best new toys for kids in every age group. Although there are some pretty nifty ones out there, including a few that are on my list to get my girls this Christmas, often the simple things we make end up being the favorites for our children.  One of those favorites that...

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Teacher Tuesday: small percussion storage

Welcome back to Teacher Tuesday! If you saw my classroom tour from the beginning of the school year, you will remember with great rejoicing my wonderful open shelving in my classroom: While I know most do not have such extensive open shelving in their elementary music classrooms, I want to talk a little bit about some general tips to keep in mind...

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Mommy Monday: budget-friendly temporary gallery wall

Gallery walls are a wonderful way to display a collection of photos. I especially love the ones that show family pictures- I think it is a wonderful way to celebrate family. I think it is especially great for children to see pictures of themselves and their family members prominently displayed. It gives a sense of the centrality of those people to...

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Linkup: Tech Talk Tuesday (DIY Interactive Whiteboard tutorial)

Today I'm linking up with Shelley Tomich at Pitch Hill to share a tech tip with you. I've included the link to the link-up at the bottom of this post, so don't forget to check out all the other fantastic tech tips over there! This tech tip is one that I have shared on this blog before, but is so awesome that is bears repeating: how to make your...

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Teacher Tuesday: recorder karate part 2- belt storage

Welcome back to Teacher Tuesday! Earlier this year I shared my current system for organizing and storing the students' sheet music for the Recorder Karate program. I've included the link to that post at the end of this one so you can read more about it if you're interested. Today's post is about my new recorder belt storage solution! Last year...

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