October Favorites 2018

Another month has flown by! October is always one of my favorites, and this year was no exception. Here are some of my highlights from the past month as told by my Instagram pictures from October!

1. Creative costumes

I love it when my daughters come up with crazy creative ideas, and I'm so glad one of my girls decided to go as a "princess/ mermaid/ famous singer with a pet koala" for Halloween this year instead of picking a pre-made character. They come up with the wackiest ideas sometimes and it is so much fun to see their imaginations at work!

2. New behavior management tool

I've been meaning to write more about this, because it has proven to be pretty powerful in my classroom. For now this mention will have to suffice- I started keeping a sticky note pad and a pencil in the corner of a table at the back of my classroom for when students need to tell me something but want to do so privately and/or I'm not able to hear them as quickly as they need me to. I have a few older students in particular who I realized were often disrupting class because they were frustrated when I didn't immediately listen to their ideas and questions in class, and a few who often perseverate over a problem from outside music class but are reluctant to talk about it. I spoke privately with those students outside of class and let them know where the sticky notes were and that if they ever needed to tell me something but I wasn't able to hear them right away, that they could write it down and hand me the note. This has been a great way to allow those students to feel heard without taking time away from the lesson for the other students, and has been a great alternative for those shy students that would leave without resolving anything in the past. Simple but very effective!

3. Social justice in the music room

    

   

   

I have to mention this again because it is so important to me: I've been thinking and writing about various issues around the topic of better inclusion for marginalized students in the music room and it has had a profound effect on my practice. If you haven't already, I really hope you'll click on the images above to read the posts I've shared in this blog post series so far, and stay tuned because there's more to come next month!

4. Music education articles

I love sharing helpful music teaching articles I find each month- click on each picture to read the full posts!

I hope you found something inspiring to motivate you as we head into a new month! What have been your October highlights? What are you most looking forward to in the month ahead? If you want to get updates from Organized Chaos sent to your inbox, you can sign up here for the newsletter!