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Test 4 Mrs. Miracle's Music Room

March 19, 2016

Music of Japan Mini-Unit

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Today, I'm blogging about a mini-unit I recently did with my 4th graders. I have a unique situation this year, in that I see all of the 4th graders once every five days for 50 minutes, but my colleague--who is also Kodaly-trained--also sees them once every five days for 50 minutes. We decided this year that the first marking period, she would teach them the "typical" Kodaly-inspired lessons, and I would teach extension lessons. Then at the start of the next marking period, we would switch, so that I'm teaching the typical lessons. This marking period, I've been doing the…

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March 08, 2016

St. Patrick's Day in the Music Room

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Since St. Patrick's Day is around the corner, today I'm blogging about some fun activities you can do in your classroom this time of year, to celebrate the holiday as well as Irish culture! Irish folk songs This time of a year is a great time to sing Irish folk songs with your students! Here are some great sites for finding Irish folk songs: American Folk Song Collection at Holy Names : (to find Irish and/or Irish-American music, go to "origin") Beth's Music Notes MamaLisa Irish dances One of my favorite folk dances is "Brian Boru," an Irish dance in  " Teaching Mov…

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February 28, 2016

Five Favorite Pins of February

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Hope you have had a wonderful February! Since it is February, I am posting my five favorite pins of this month. Here are my five favorite pins this month! You can click on each picture to be taken to the original pin. #1: Bucket Drumming 101 This helpful blog post has some great suggestions for starting bucket drumming! I'm about to do a bit of it with my 4th graders, so I appreciated reading this! #2: Orff Orffestrations This pin leads to 15 FREE Orff arrangements! Woo hoo! I'd love to try "Tideo" soon; the arrangement looks accessible and fun! #3: Tips and Tricks from Level II I …

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February 20, 2016

When to lesson plan

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My first few years of teaching, I sat down for hours at a time, on Saturday or Sunday, and planned all my lessons for the next week…by hand. Now, having kids at home, I really prefer for my weekends to be family time, and make sure to have time during the school day or right after the school day, before I go home, to write lessons (and I do them all by computer!) I realize that some music teachers have little to no planning during the day (as I’ve been there) so today, I’m writing a blog post with different options for when to lesson plan. During the weekend Like I wrote above, you could simply …

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February 16, 2016

Fourth Grade Performance {Olivia's Birds}

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This past week, my fourth graders performed a program based on the book, "Olivia's Birds" by Olivia Bouler.  The book is a really inspiring true story about an 11-year-old named Olivia who helped Audubon by donating her art to people who contributed to the Gulf Clean-Up Campaign. All of the art and text throughout the book is created by Olivia! Today, I'm blogging with a summary of songs and dances I used for the program, as well as scenery ideas and an idea for donating to Audubon! I did this program with fourth grade, but it could easily be adapted for third or fifth. Here ar…

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February 04, 2016

6 strategies for remembering 600+ names

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Recently, I wrote a blog post with 10 things they don't tell you about teaching elementary music , and realized I should have added one more thing to the list: that you'll have to remember hundreds of names. Certainly, no one told me that I'd have to remember so many names! One of the great things about being a music teacher is teaching so many students...but that means there are a lot of names to memorize! I often have a hard time remembering a person's name after meeting them at a party, but yet, I CAN remember 650 or so student names. So how do I do it? Here's my list of…

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