A free resource for Movement & Music Educators
7 Self Care Tips for Quarantined Music Teachers When news of our schools closing to prohibit the spread of COVID-19 came through, we only had 90 minutes to say goodbye to our students. The quarantine was very abrupt and left us feeling unmoored. We were meant to be heading into a week of leading music… Read more »
Ang Sinina Ko’ng Bag’o (My New Dress) Ang Sinina Ko’ng Bag’o (My New Dress) is a Cebuano rhyme in the Visayan language that my mother grew up hearing during her childhood in Cebu, Philippines. Speaking Visayan Visayan is one of many languages/dialects spoken in the Philippines. Generally speaking, Filipino languages use the same phonetic… Read more »
Dinosaur Stomp Intended Grade Level(s): 4-5 grade levels with paired readers* from 2-3 grade levels Materials: Saturday Night at The Dinosaur Stomp by Carol Diggory Shields; ISBN: 978-0-7636-3887-0 Choose rhyme stanzas from the book suitable for paired reading*. You can choose longer or shorter stanzas depending on grade level. Create sentence strips with the selected rhyme stanzas so pairs,… Read more »
Drip, Drop, Pitter, Patter, and Explore! Spring is in the air, or so we hope! The weather is often a topic of conversation, and the sounds of spring offer a wonderful opportunity to sing, say, dance and play in the music classroom. Music educators usually agree that some important goals for the youngest learners through… Read more »
Be Our Guest! Exploring Vaughan Williams through Kitchen Utensils A food-themed exploration of Vaughan Williams’ “March Past of the Kitchen Utensils” through movement and play! YOU’RE INVITED! As educators who use movement to initiate music learning, we often explore a variety of themes to make connections with our students and to make these experiences lively… Read more »
A Tale of Two Villages Materials: Tale of Two Villages, Music for Creative Dance: Contrast and Continuum, Volume 1, Eric Chapelle Objectives: Locomotor vs. Non-Locomotor Movement Expression of Beat Binary Form (AB) Improvisation Process: Students scatter in space, encourage various ways of moving a singular body part; move arm only, or leg, or head, etc., teacher plays drum… Read more »
Engaging Children with Literature The Deep Blue Sea by Audrey Wood ISBN-10: 0439753821 Grade Level: 1st [Adaptable to Kindergarten] Objectives: Sing Sol-Mi-La patterns from icons. Perform beat accompaniment (chord bordun) for a pentatonic song using appropriate mallet technique. Use instruments to represent characters or special words in a story. Dramatize a story with movement; use creative… Read more »
Structuring Creative Movement in Orff Inspired Lessons When I took level one I joyously folk danced through the movement segments and really understood that I could use folk dance with my students and how it would fit into the types of lessons I was designing. Then we began the creative movement portion. I loved the… Read more »
Playing With Improvisation 2, 4, 6, 8 – Recorder Version B Section 2, 4, 6, 8 – RECORDER Teaching Process: Sing song and ask students to label form. (abca) Sing the first 4-beat motive, the a motive. Students echo the a motive. Students sing the a motives and you sing the b & c motives…. Read more »
Good, Better, Best A Rhythm and Movement Lesson for Grades 4-6 Download a printable version of Michael Chandler’s lesson here. Objectives: Working with beat and divided beat through movement, body percussion, and instruments. Choreographing simple movement to elemental forms. Rhythmic and melodic improvisation and composition with elemental forms. Arranging and orchestrating a performance piece. Materials: Unpitched… Read more »