Developing Rap Skills in Elementary Music

Over the last several years I've been working with local hip-hop artists and hip-hop educators to learn how to appropriately and effectively incorporate hip-hop into my music lessons. While I still have a lot to learn and I am by no means an expert on the topic, I have found some excellent resources by people who are. Today I'm sharing my favorite...

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Music In Our Schools Month® 2022: "Sound of My Heart" Song Bracket

This year the theme for Music In Our Schools Month® (MIOSM®) is the same as last year: "Music: The Sound of My Heart". I have been doing a "musical March madness"-style song bracket, where students listen to different songs each day and vote on their favorites, for several years now, and last year's bracket focused on songs from various...

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Valentine's Elementary Music Lessons

I'm not big on themes for my elementary music lessons because I'm so focused on concepts and skill development when I'm writing my plans, but every now and then I have enough of my wits about me to tie in something seasonal to whatever concepts we're working on. Over the years I've found a few lessons that tie into Valentine's Day for early childhood...

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Pandemic Recorder Teaching

Recorder is one of my favorite things to teach (yep, you heard me) but the last few years we haven't been able to play recorder in person because of the pandemic. This year I am teaching recorder again in person for the first time in 2 years, but I've had to make some adjustments to make sure I am putting as many mitigation strategies in place as I...

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