☰

Test 4 Mrs. Miracle's Music Room

December 15, 2014

Five tips for Christmas time in the music room

4 comments

Ah, Christmas time in the music room....kids are CRAZY with excitement and have a hard time focusing and sitting still. I have a hard time focusing too, so I can understand! Over the years, though, I have noticed a few things that have worked well for getting students in grades K-5 still engaged in music lessons. Here are my five tips... #1: Sing holiday music! One of the best things about December, in my opinion, is holiday music. I love singing Christmas songs--and so do the kids--and have also found a few Hanukkah songs I absolutely adore. For several years now, I have directed a holiday sin…

Read more »
December 04, 2014

10 Tips for iPad group work

5 comments

This year, I was so fortunate to receive a grant from my district for the purchase of eight iPad minis along with the apps GarageBand and MadPad HD. As you can imagine, I was beside myself in excitement!!! Eight iPads, only for my classroom!??! I have been using only one iPad for the last two years, so having eight iPads was thrilling to ponder! It has been a fun and exciting journey so far...with some small bumps along the way. I thought I'd share my tips and strategies to help you in case you are also lucky enough to have more than one iPad in your classroom, but not lucky enough to have …

Read more »
November 24, 2014

Five Favorite Pins of November

No comments

Hi everyone! It's almost the end of November, so here is my five favorite pins linky party! Here is my list for this month; just click each picture to view that pin. #1: Plastic plates as dry erase boards If you want to do work (like rhythmic dictation) but can't afford dry erase boards, this would be a great alternative! #2: Dynamics behavior chart What a great way to teach dynamics AND monitor behavior! #3: Fancy words bulletin board This bulletin board was created by a classroom teacher, but I think it could totally work in a music classroom, using words such as "ostinato" and &…

Read more »
October 27, 2014

Songs and Activities for Halloween Week

No comments

Since it's the week of Halloween, I thought I'd blog about activities and songs I'm doing this week! I'll be honest, I haven't always done many holiday activities in my music classroom. Halloween is one of my favorite holidays, and I love dark, spooky music. However, in the past, I've had some classes on one lesson while other classes were four lessons behind because of my schedule (with some classes coming Monday and Friday and some classes coming Tuesday and Thursday, it's easy to not be on the same lesson!) Now with my new block schedule (which I will blog about …

Read more »
October 25, 2014

On the day you were born: Performance ideas

10 comments

This week was pretty busy and stressful, as my fifth graders performed their program, "On the day you were born" on Thursday. I have to say, though, that this was one of my favorite performances of my career. Part of it is that I've had these students since first grade. Part of it is that I just loved the material I chose for the program (and so did the kids, which doesn't happen all the time with fifth grade!) So I thought I'd share which songs and dances I did with the program, and other performance details, in case you would like to perform it as well. I should start b…

Read more »
October 18, 2014

Interactive Notebooks in the Music Room

13 comments

So in the last few months, I have heard a lot about interactive notebooks in the grade-level classroom. Out of curiosity, I clicked on a few listings on Teachers Pay Teachers to check them out. I found math and language arts notebooks, and thought, "Eh, I don't think this could be adapted for the music classroom." Let's face it, we get so little time with them as it is, how would we have time for notebooks too? Then a few weeks ago, I found this blog post on the TpT site, through the newsletter, and again read it out of curiosity. There were some interesting points about how …

Read more »
October 14, 2014

Five Favorite Pins of October

1 comment

Hi everyone! It's been quite a while since I did a "five favorite pins" post, so here goes! Here is my list for this month; just click each picture to view that pin. #1: Free Ipad Apps for Classroom Management This blog post has several different iPads apps that are not only great for classroom management, but are FREE! #2: 21 Books about Farm Animals I love using children's books about animals for vocal exploration, so I'm excited to check these books out! #3: Make-believe in the music room Lori from Sweet Sounds offers lots of great strategies to make Kindergarten music lesso…

Read more »
October 02, 2014

Variety in assessment

1 comment

My district has been focusing on formative assessment strategies for years, and for that,  I am very grateful. We as teachers have been provided with tons of professional development about the topic of assessment, with strategies to gauge understanding and adapt instruction. One "a-ha" moment I had on my own, though, without reading an article or hearing anything about it at a meeting, is the idea of variety. While I had heard about providing various formative and summative assessments to students, my "a-ha" moment was about the purpose of variety. The purpose for variety be…

Read more »
Page 1 of 1712345...17»Last

Copyright © 2017 | Designed By Anke Templates