About
Aileen Miracle
Popular
Etiquetas
- Apps
- Assessment
- Band
- Bulletin boards
- Children's literature
- Choir
- Classroom decor
- Classroom management
- Composition
- Critical thinking
- DIY
- Educational initiatives
- End of year
- Favorite pins
- Folk dancing
- Freebies
- Group work
- Halloween
- Holidays
- Inspirational
- Instruments
- Instruments of the orchestra
- Interactive notebooks
- Kindergarten
- Kodaly
- Learning centers
- Lesson ideas
- Listening lessons
- Manipulatives
- melodic work
- Movement
- Multicultural music
- My room
- Note reading
- Orff
- Organization
- Parenting
- Planning
- Popular posts
- Programs
- Recorder
- Resolutions
- Rhythmic work
- Schedule
- SLO
- Social media
- Songs
- Start of Year
- Student choice
- Sub Plans
- Technology
- Ukulele
- Upper elementary
- Vocal exploration
December 21, 2015
In a music room far, far away...
Bulletin boards · Listening lessons · 4 comments
With all of the excitement lately, I've been seeing lots of great activities for music lessons related to the one of the best movie series of ALL TIME, so I thought I'd put together a list of freebies, products, and activities that could work to get the kids excited AND teach them musical concepts! #1: "Imperial March" listening lesson I put together this free listening lesson to help students practice tim-ka, or dotted eighth/sixteenth. I used it with my 5th graders last year and they LOVED listening to the piece, and it was a great connection from what they learned in music …
December 19, 2015
Apps for Gradekeeping
Assessment · Technology · 2 comments
Over the years I've tried out several different grade-keeping apps. Below I'm describing my favorites; most of the apps can be used even if you only have one iPad in your classroom! Numbers When I first bought an iPad mini, this is the app I used for grade keeping. It is like the Apple equivalent of Excel, so you can build your grade book like a spreadsheet. Here is a screenshot sample: In the screenshot (which is on my Mac, but the iPad app is very similar), the default is set at 4, but each cell has a dropdown menu so you can select whatever you need as you grade. It took a little bit …
December 10, 2015
Five Favorite Pins of December
Favorite pins · Holidays · Lesson ideas · Listening lessons · 2 comments
Hi everyone! Since it's December, here is my five favorite pins linky party! Here are my five favorite pins this month: #1: Stretchy Band activities I just bought a stretchy band from Bear Paw Creek, and am SO excited to use it, so was thrilled to find this pin with some great activities! So far, I've only used it to help students remain in a circle for a circle dance (which did totally help!) so I'm looking forward to using the band in other ways. #2: Christmas version of "Bow Wow Wow" Such a cute way to weave Christmas music into your lessons, using "Bow Wow Wow" …
December 02, 2015
Tips for directing a sing-along
Holidays · Programs · 5 comments
The singalong is an event I first became familiar with my first year in my district. It's an opportunity for the entire student body, parents, family members, and teachers to all get together and sing. We do this in the thirty minutes before the holiday parties, the last day before break, and I have to say, I have really grown to love it! It's so wonderful to get such a big community of people together to sing songs...such a great way to get into the holiday spirit! So what is a singalong? It is an event to which students, parents, family members, and staff are invited. Everyone sits l…
November 27, 2015
Indexing folk songs with Evernote
Technology · No comments
I just recently discovered how Evernote can be used as a really powerful tool to index, categorize, and improve productivity, so today I’m blogging about how to use Evernote as a way to categorize and index folk songs! If you’re looking for more information about creating a song index in Excel, here is a video I recorded this summer: Evernote is a free app which you can install on your PC or Mac, as well as your smart phone. The great thing about having it on more than one device is that the app will sync between devices. You’ll also want to install the Evernote webclipper for whichever browser…
November 19, 2015
Adapting to a new schedule
Schedule · 3 comments
A year and a half ago, my music schedule drastically changed, from music twice a week for 35 minutes to music once every 5 days for 50 minutes (on an ABCDE rotation)...with some slight variations, which I'll talk about in a minute. Needless to say, I was a bit tentative and scared. I was disappointed I'd be seeing the kids less. Almost my entire career, I have taught music to each grade level twice a week for 30-35 minutes (with the exception of Kindergarten, which was once a week for 35 minutes.) Now I had to see pretty much everyone ONCE a week? How could I get through all of my conc…
November 14, 2015
Five favorite pins of November
Composition · Favorite pins · Listening lessons · No comments
Hi everyone! Since it's 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. Also check the end of the blog post for a fun Pinterest contest! #1: Dalcroze Eurhythmics Exercises I just created a new Dalcroze-inspired board , and was excited to pin this to the board! These exercises could easily be used in the general music classroom as way for students to internalize beat, improve inner hearing, and more! #2: Composing with stickers I just pinned this to my new board, Composing in the Music Room . What a fun way to have…
November 10, 2015
Thanksgiving in the Music Room
Holidays · Songs · 5 comments
Since Thanksgiving is just a couple weeks away, today I'm going to blog about my favorite Thanksgiving activities for the music room. Thanksgiving this year happens to fall on my birthday, so I'm feeling especially festive. :) Here goes! Turkey rhythms I wrote this blog post about using foam turkey feathers and paper plates to build rhythm turkeys. Here is a picture of my students working on it. It was a fun group activity and a great way to practice ta and ti-ti! You could use it with any rhythmic concept. Grateful I found this book on Pinterest last year, and finally got around to orderi…
November 07, 2015
What I've learned about interactive notebooks
Interactive notebooks · Lesson ideas · 6 comments
This year, I embarked on the journey of trying out interactive notebooks with my students. (You can read about why I started the notebooks in this blog post .) So far, I've been able to try them out with my third graders, and because this is so different from anything else I've done with my students, I thought I'd share my initial thoughts. Here is what I've learned so far about interactive notebooks: 1. Be prepared. Before your students can walk into your room and begin their interactive notebooks, you'll need to prepare your room. I had thought about how to store my noteboo…