Top Ten Posts: 2021

What a journey this year has been, and definitely not what I expected the year to look like! It has once again been a year of learning together and building the plane as we fly with continuously changing platforms and protocols, trying to meet our students' emotional and learning needs while managing our own well-being, adapting to new technology,...

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December Break Recovery Strategies

I think the pandemic has put a whole new spin on December break for teachers. For me December break has always been a time for reflection, rest, and rejuvenation, but dealing with the level of emotional, mental, and physical stress put on us by the pandemic, and the latest threats to school safety on top of it all, has forced me to adjust my priorities...

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Planner Flip-Through: December 2021

I absolutely love putting together weekly and monthly planner pages, decorating them and adding in all the information I need to keep myself organized. It truly does help keep me sane! Here is a quick look through all of the monthly and weekly calendars I've made so far this school year.If you are are a planner decorator you know the feeling of going...

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Plan With Me: December 2021

One of my favorite weekend pastimes is setting up my planner for the upcoming week. Decorating the pages helps me take the time to process all the different responsibilities and appointments I'm juggling, plus it's just fun for me to do a little crafting! Here's a peek at what I do each week- come plan with me!This is not a scripted, pre-planned video...

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Planning for Long-Term Elementary Music Subs

Writing plans for a substitute is hard enough to begin with, but when you know you're going to be out for multiple weeks or even months it can be completely overwhelming to think about plans! In some cases teachers do not have to leave plans when they're out long-term, but many teachers are expected to leave something, and others do just to make it...

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My New Favorite Sub Plan Format

Planning lessons for a non-musical substitute has got to be one of the hardest parts of being a music teacher. No matter how hard I try to make the plans simple but engaging, they never seem to work out well! I'm not saying I've found a magic formula that suddenly makes it a breeze to be out, but this new format has definitely been a huge improvement.The...

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One Jeans Day Won't Cut It (and what school leaders can do instead)

It has been said many times by this point but I'm adding my voice to the chorus: random, superficial rewards from administrators that are supposed to make teachers feel better just don't cut it when the stress and the pressure are this high. Teachers don't want a pat on the back when they're drowning. Here are a few things I see many school leaders...

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Be the Encourager

It's tough out there. Pandemic protocols, lack of respect from society, systemic inequities, trying to meet the increasing needs of students with decreasing budgets, and a growing teacher shortage make an already mentally, emotionally, and physically taxing profession even more stressful. I know so many are just plain burned out, and many are contemplating...

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Performance Possibilities in an Ongoing Pandemic

We're definitely not where we were a year ago with the pandemic, but we also aren't back to where we were two years ago either! What protocols you follow and what mitigation strategies you need to consider for in person musical performances will obviously vary a lot depending on your local situation, and conditions could certainly change between now...

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Favorite Halloween Week Lessons

It's the week of Halloween and you know what that means.... kids are HYPED beforehand, and exhausted after. It's also the time of year when music teachers, at least in the U.S., seem to want to go all-in with the holiday-themed lessons. I do not do directly Halloween-themed lessons, but I do try to plan for the general high energy and distraction....

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Tideo: socially distant movement lesson

I, along with many other music teachers I'm sure, use the song "Tideo" as a way to introduce barred sixteenth notes. For the last few years I've done a folk dance with the song to get students experiencing the rhythm, but with covid protocols still in place I needed a movement activity that students can do independently. Here's what we did!I actually...

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Ambos a Dos: Puerto Rican game song

It may be the very end of Hispanic Heritage Month but I just recently came across this song and it's a great lesson to use any time of year! The Puerto Rican game reminds me a lot of some games I grew up playing in Japan, and it was a great song to use with my Kindergartners because it reinforced some concepts they were working on and it is easy to...

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Socially Distanced Elementary Choir

After 18 months of no in-person chorus, this school year I have my choirs back! And while that's super exciting, it also presents many challenges- in my district, we are currently required to maintain 6 feet distance between singers with masks on. I had so many concerns about how this would work going into it, but now that we are a few weeks into the...

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Our "New Normal" in Elementary General Music Class

After over 18 months of teaching through a pandemic, I think I expected this school year to be "back to normal". Many aspects of my music teaching look more like pre-pandemic teaching than they did 6 months ago, for sure, but they are definitely not fully back to the way things used to be! I can't list them all in a single post but here are some things...

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General Music Skill Index

As general music teachers, not only are we helping students understand fundamental musical concepts, like rhythm, pitch, and expression, but we're also developing their musical skills, whether on instruments, singing, or composing (and more). Figuring out the best way to teach all those skills in an effective and sequential way from year to year, decide...

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What the First Day of Kindergarten Music Is REALLY Like

Sure, we can talk about our best-laid plans, our procedures, and our welcome songs, but we all know reality is never quite what we hope it will be on the first day of Kindergarten. There's just no predicting what may happen! Even for me, having taught Kindergarten music every year since I started teaching in 2006, I always walk away from the first...

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Top 5 Strategies to Support Individual Students

In my last post I shared my top 5 strategies for fostering positive classroom climate- in other words, how to deal with classes as a whole. In today's post I want to talk about my top 5 strategies for dealing with each student individually, and doing everything I can to allow each student to thrive in my classroom. That's no small task when we're talking...

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