A free resource for Movement & Music Educators
Elemental Soul: An Online Music & Movement Retreat This may be the most significant professional development you do all summer. We are so excited to bring you this online retreat, which is being led by some of our favorite humans. Each of them brings unique perspectives, experiences, and modalities to this project. Together they… Read more »
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 »