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Aileen Miracle

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January 26, 2015

Parent communication for the music room

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As music educators, we often teach hundreds of students, so parent communication can be time-consuming. I've listed some ideas which should save you time while giving parents a peek inside your room. Communicating about your program: Several years ago, I was hired as the music teacher of a brand new building (which is my current building.) I wanted a way to communicate to all these new parents and families who I was, as well as give them an overview of the music program at my school. I wrote this blog post all about that brochure--which I handed out at open house. It includes a link to a f…

January 18, 2015

Worksheets in the music room

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When I first began teaching, I used worksheets quite often to assess student understanding. As I've gotten older and more experienced, I have realized that there are so many other ways to assess! However, there are times when I believe worksheets are really the best way to assess. In this post, I'll write about all the ways I love to use worksheets in the music room. To trace Sometimes, after teaching a melodic or rhythmic concept, we want to jump right away to dictation. But students are not always ready for that step...they first need the chance to simply copy a rhythm or note onto th…

January 10, 2015

Tips for Teaching Kindergarten Music

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Ah, Kindergarten music class...it is at times so joyful and fun and at other times a bit daunting. I remember Kindergarteners being my favorite grade level while student teaching, and then I had my first year of teaching. I saw one class twice...in the same day...for forty minutes. I'm not kidding. Pair that with not having the best classroom discipline at that point and having a behaviorally challenging class, and it was an adventure! Things have gotten MUCH smoother since then, so I thought I'd share my tips for Kindergarten music lessons. Think about attention span I was once told in…

January 06, 2015

Five Strategies to Incorporate Music Listening Lessons

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In today's music classroom, we are expected to do so much: have students match pitch, teach students rhythmic and melodic concepts, encourage artistry and expression, teach students how to read music on the treble clef staff, explain how to identify instrument families, show them how to play instruments, and among many, many more skills, expose students to great music and teach them about great composers. This is not an easy task. In this blog post, I'm detailing five strategies for incorporating listening lessons into your music class. Keep in mind that while some of these ideas are fo…

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