Make Room for Music:
Photo Contest Winners

Thank you to everyone who submitted an entry in our recent Make Room For Music photo contest. We loved seeing all of the innovative and creative ways you have organized and decorated your classrooms for your students. We also loved hearing why you love teaching with Orff!

With so many amazing entries, choosing a winner proved quite difficult for our panel. Ultimately there was a tie for the classroom winner in addition to a cart winner. Congratulations to Alden Bean of Randolph Elementary School in Virginia, Clarissa Ward of Fountain Green Elementary School in Maryland, and Cynthia Kreyling of Samuel Brown Elementary School in Massachusetts! Each of you will recieve a Studio 49 soprano glockenspiel for your classroom. We trust it will bring many years of happy music making for your students.

Alden Bean, Randolph Elementary School, Virginia

Teaching with Orff is pure magic because it empowers the children to make their own musical decisions. Using Orff, I become a facilitator who can stand back and watch the creativity unfold. Orff-inspired teaching allows me to meet my students where they are in a way that is uniquely engaging, childlike and playful. Orff has a way of cultivating a spark in every child, in whatever way speaks to that child!
-Alden Bean

Clarissa Ward, Fountain Green Elementary, Maryland

The Orff process allows for natural differentiation and engagement through all senses of the learning body (except taste!).  It is an adventure the students get to have that is unique from classroom to classroom because every group of students is different.  This makes the music truly theirs and of their spirit!  Never is it a dull moment for the student or the teacher – no matter how many times you teach the lesson.  Viva Orff!
– Clarissa Ward

Cynthia Kreyling, Samuel Brown Elementary, Massachusetts

Since I love the ocean (and staying on vacation!), I have created a Beach Jitney motif, as demonstrated in the bicycle horn and bell, the sea shell wind chime, and the fringe and bamboo shades! Students are intrigued with every sound and sight on the cart. I ring the bell to signal quiet and blow the horn after a successful music class, which has students in raptures!
The cart has helped us kick off the year singing and dancing sea chanteys, along with starting an Orff adventure using the sound words in the book “Burt Dow: Deep-Water Man.”
To the cart I’ve also added a storage pouch for materials and hidden instruments behind the bamboo shades to add an element of surprise.
– Cynthia Kreyling 

We look forward to sharing many more of your entries on our Facebook page in the coming months. Your amazing ideas may be just the inspiration another music educator needs to “Make It Work.”