May Favorites 2018

I love taking a little time each month to reflect on some of the highlights from my home and teaching life. Plus I get to share some really awesome articles from other music education blogs and websites, which I always highly recommend taking a few minutes to read! Here are my favorites from the month of May, as told by photos I shared on Instagram...

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The 1 Thing I Would Tell My First Year Teacher Self

If you could go back to your first year of teaching, what would you do differently? To be perfectly honest, I wouldn't change much. I'm not saying I did everything perfectly in my first year of teaching- far from it, believe me!- but I can confidently say I did the best I could expect myself to do as a first-year teacher. I certainly worked really...

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3 Things I Would Tell My Younger Self

How often do you think about what you would do differently if you could go back in time? I have learned not to think that way too often- regret isn't a productive feeling unless it motivates us to change our future behavior- but there are some things that I have learned in recent years that I know would have made life a lot easier and more pleasant...

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Dance Playlist 2018

I love having upbeat, modern songs with positive lyrics (pre-censoring) to use for all kinds of things in my classroom, whether it's dance games, play-along's, or end-of-year slideshows and field day music, and I love having these on repeat at home too! If you haven't seen them yet, you'll definitely want to check out my first 2 playlists here and...

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Easy Asian Recipes for Warm Days

Now that the weather is warming up, I'm excited to pull out some of my favorite warm weather recipes- the ones that require minimal cooking and are cool and refreshing to eat! If you're looking for some new weeknight meals to try this spring and summer, here are a few of my favorites :) 1. Hiyashi Chuka Many of you know I grew up in Japan. This...

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Curriculum Writing: Means vs Ends

One of the most common confusions in general music curriculum writing, I find, is the difference between end goals and means to those goals. Having worked on many curriculum writing teams in my own districts, and guided music teachers and districts creating their own curricula and long-range plans through my Lesson Planning Made Awesome course and...

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5 Tips to Get Kids to Practice

My 6 year old daughter recently started taking violin lessons. As a music teacher myself you'd think it would be simple for me to motivate my own children to practice. It isn't. But now that we've got several months under our belt we've gotten into a good rhythm, and I've been able to see which of the practice strategies I teach my students actually...

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Elementary Choir: to sheet music or not to sheet music (that is the question)

One of the questions I hear time and time again from elementary choir teachers is the question of whether or not to have students use sheet music when they are learning a new song. I'm putting this out there right from the get-go: I don't think there is one right answer to that question. After having taught elementary choir in a few different settings,...

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Making Chores Work: The Realities of Starting Young

I've talked several times before about how I got my daughters started doing chores at a young age. If I'm being honest, I love seeing people's reactions when I tell them my 6-year-old's cook dinner once a week (and have been for years)! I usually get some questions as well, especially from parents of young children who want to know how to get their...

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Bring Spring to the Music Room!

I know I'm a little late to the party, but I just have not been able to get into the spring spirit with all the snow and freezing temperatures we've had this year! Now that the sun is finally out and the flowers are starting to bloom, I'm ready to talk spring. It can be hard to keep students' (and your own!) attention on a lesson when the weather...

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