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Aileen Miracle
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Archive
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2012
(10)
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December
(10)
- Holiday Favorites
- When oh when is the holiday coming?
- Agenda for music lessons
- The musical alphabet and treble clef
- Ghost Melodies
- Guest Blog: How to write a song for a group
- Exploration, to Improvisation, to Composition
- A Beginner's Guide To Elementary General Music
- Learning Centers in the Kodaly-inspired Classroom
- Improvisation Ideas for the Music Classroom
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December
(10)
December 18, 2012
Holiday Favorites
Children's literature · Holidays · 2 comments
This week, my students and I are in “singalong” mode, as we get ready for the holiday singalong on Friday afternoon (see this blog post with more information about putting together a singalong.) I thought I’d share some of my favorite activities and books for my winter holiday lessons. · “Feliz Navidad” book by Jose Feliciano and David Diaz: This is a beautiful picture book narrating the song “Feliz Navidad.” It appears to be out of print, but it can still be bought cheaply on Amazon and www.alibris.com (my favorite out-of-print children’s book website!) I I found it years ago at a book fair,…
December 06, 2012
When oh when is the holiday coming?
Holidays · Songs · 4 comments
There are many teachers out there who absolutely love to integrate the seasons and holidays into their lesson plans. I must confess, I’m not exactly one of them. While I love the change of the seasons, and I love the holidays, I don’t usually do that many songs and activities that are dependent upon the time of the year. Part of this has to do with curriculum—depending on whether I had the students the year before (since I teach with another music teacher), I may be teaching ta and ti-ti to my first graders in December one year, and in another year it might be November or January. I don’t wan…
December 06, 2012
Agenda for music lessons
Organization · 1 comment
Throughout my career, I've been on the board of several different music education organizations. Each board meeting is a great chance to see old friends, and help guide the future of the organization. At each board meeting, we receive an agenda of the items we will be discussing. During the meeting, I find myself looking occasionally at the agenda—seeing where we’ve been and what we still have left to discuss. Having this list calms me a bit; like many people, I enjoy knowing the direction of the meeting. I bring this up as a comparison to the students in our classrooms. For years, I have …
December 06, 2012
The musical alphabet and treble clef
Note reading · 1 comment
Recently I had a colleague ask me how I practiced the musical alphabet and the treble clef with my students. I typed up some activities for her and thought I'd go ahead and post it to my blog. First, here are some activities for helping students to get more comfortable with the musical alphabet (a special thank you to Joan Litman for many of these ideas!) Up and down the alphabet: Have the notes of the musical alphabet written on the board vertically. Start with A, end with G, and then write A again. The teacher points to the letters going up and down and the students say those letters (i.e…
December 06, 2012
Ghost Melodies
Composition · Kodaly · Vocal exploration · No comments
I'm always looking for ways to include vocal exploration in my lessons--especially with my younger students. Vocal exploration is a great way to help students find their head voices. One of my favorite vocal exploration activities is ghost melodies. For this, you can draw a ghost on the board, and then draw the sound the ghost makes, by drawing a small hill and a big hill, loops, or whatever you'd like. Then you have the students explore their voices by going from low to high for each hill, getting higher as the hills get higher. (If this is confusing, see the pictures below...hopeful…
December 06, 2012
Guest Blog: How to write a song for a group
1 comment
Today I welcome Julia Amisano, Founder of Grace Music Studio NY ( www.gracemusicstudiony.com ), as our guest blogger. Thank you Julia for your insight into writing songs! About Grace Music Studio NY: Grace Music Studio NY is a place where people come to take Brooklyn voice lessons, Brooklyn piano lessons and Brooklyn acting lessons, but also they come to be inspired. Every year, Brooklyn voice lesson and piano lesson students perform in February and June. It's inspiring when a person gets up and performs a piece they could not sing or play before. It's even more inspiring when they wrote …
December 06, 2012
Exploration, to Improvisation, to Composition
Composition · Orff · No comments
This year, I took the position of elementary music co-chair in my district. After our first meeting, I sent out a survey, asking teachers to list their needs for professional development. A vast majority of the teachers—including me--wanted more information about improvisation. Knowing that improvisation is a bit focus in the Orff philosophy, I then approached three Orff specialists in our district and asked them to present a session with improvisational strategies. The session was so helpful, and helped teachers to foster musical creativity with their process. I will list here the process fo…
December 06, 2012
A Beginner's Guide To Elementary General Music
4 comments
For the last four weeks, I have had a student teacher in my classroom. She is the third student teacher I've had, and the experience always reminds me of those little things that have just become second nature to me after years of teaching. My current student teacher isn't new to music education--her mom is also a elementary music teacher--but some of these discoveries have still been surprising, as they were for me in my student teaching! Some thoughts and observations about elementary general music: Break it down: Kids in elementary school need things broken down, and broken down aga…
December 06, 2012
Learning Centers in the Kodaly-inspired Classroom
Learning centers · 2 comments
This year, as I evaluated the learning environment I had created for my students, I realized that as interactive and full of learning my class was, it was not very student-centered. Many of my activities were set up with me as the teacher in front of the class, and my students giving the answers, which I deemed as right or wrong. Not to say that there was no creative input from my students, but I had to be honest with myself--my classroom was just not very centered around my students. At that time of the year, I was also looking for ways to really delve into "ta" and "ti-ti"…
December 06, 2012
Improvisation Ideas for the Music Classroom
Instruments · Lesson ideas · Orff · 3 comments
As a musician in jazz band all throughout high school and jazz band, I struggled with improvisation. As a teacher, I always jump at the chance to hone improvisational skills with my students. When I received a Martha Holden Jennings grant in 2004, entitled "Musical Creativity, Improvisation, and Composition," I searched for literature and methods to achieve improvement in those areas. I've found that working on improvisation is actually quite accessible and non-threatening, by providing students with the right tools, where no "wrong answer" exists. The following list c…