Distance Music Lesson Ideas: Found Sound

If you haven't done a found sound lesson in this distance learning scenario, are you even a real music teacher?!? Just kidding, but seriously, found sound is a natural topic that's perfect to do at home. No need to save your own recycling for months, collect donations, or ask students to bring things in. And no matter what their home situation may...

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Surviving Quarantine with Kids

To be perfectly honest, last week was pretty rough for us. I think my 8 year old daughters and I all just hit a certain breaking point and there were lots of tears, tantrums, and arguments. No matter how hard we try as parents, there's no getting around how tough this situation is for everyone. Today I want to share some ideas I'm trying to make staying...

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Distance Music Lesson Ideas: Dance

One of the first messages I got from a student when we first started distance learning was a 4th grader telling me about how her whole family was dancing around the house singing along with the songs I had put together for her assignment. That image has been seared in my mind ever since. What's better for all of us right now than dancing? Today I want...

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Quarantine Cooking: Tips for Managing Meals

One of the biggest challenges with this whole stay at home situation is all the cooking! And as we try to avoid going out in public where we can, planning ahead to avoid frequent grocery store trips has become a necessity. This is also the perfect time to get the whole family more involved in the kitchen since everyone is at home! Here are my tips...

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Dance Playlist 2020

I love finding upbeat, school-appropriate, modern songs to use in my music classes for dance parties, slideshows, field day, and general merriment, and this year this feels especially important to share. I've been creating playlists on YouTube to share with my students during this time of distance learning to encourage them to dance and sing along...

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Equity in Distance Music Education: Relationships

We're now a few weeks into this whole distance learning situation, with plenty more to come. While there are a million things we have to figure out as we restructure our entire profession, no question is more important right now than how we continue our equity work and re-imagine what social justice looks like in this new school environment. I certainly...

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Distance Music Lesson Ideas: Note Names

As we all fumble our way through this distance learning thing, I'm trying to keep my focus on lesson ideas that are fun, first and foremost, but I'm also thinking about the types of lessons that are best suited for our current learning environment. So rather than taking my normal lesson ideas and thinking about ways to translate them to distance learning,...

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Suddenly Homeschool: parenting through online learning

I've officially completed my first full week of distance schooling as a parent and teacher simultaneously, and it definitely wasn't easy. I'm juggling zoom meetings, google classroom notifications, emails, phone calls, and text messages from work while trouble shooting tech problems, assisting with time management, and interacting with my daughters...

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