Elementary Music/Music Technology Blog

When we start out teaching fresh from college, we enter the work force feeling very unprepared, or at least I did. Not to say that my undergraduate experience did not assist me, because it did greatly. I feel that with a music education degree, or with any degree, you cannot be fully prepared for what your first, second, third, etc job might bring. Therefore, here is a brief list of some items that have helped me in regards to teaching elementary general music:

1. Workshops:

Sign up and utilize them. Orff (www.aosa.org), Kodaly (www.oake.org), Feierabend (http://www.giamusic.com/bios/feierabend_john.cfm) Dalcroze (http://www.dalcrozeusa.org/), Gordon (http://www.giamusic.com/bios/gordon_edwin.cfm), or whatever you choose or if decide to mix and match them all, these workshops are excellent. The workshops give you several resources that you will use often in your classroom, you will meet many other music educators from novice to veteran, and you learn! If you cannot acquire the funds through your school, then I would highly recommend going to a day workshop of one of these organizations. For example, you can usually attend a Saturday Orff workshop at your local Orff Chapter for around $20.

2. Books/Resources:

There is a constant debate among music educators as to whether you should use a music text such as Silver Burdett or McGraw-Hill or whether you have enough materials with songs, listening excerpts, and instruments that the text is not needed. There are also arguments that the texts are not very authentic and some songs are not culturally appropriate. I have to state that during my first year of teaching I used the texts all of the time because I had no curriculum to work from. However, now I rarely use them. The choice is yours. With that said, I have found that the following magazines have been wonderful resources for the elementary music classroom and can fit nicely into the budget:

• Music K-8 (www.musick8.com) - I use Teresa Jennings music often for concerts in grades K-5. Check out the website because there are many more resources listed there.
• Activate! Music, Movement, and More! (www.lorenz.com) - Wonderful music and movement activities for grades K-6.
• Music Express Magazine (http://www.musicexpressmagazine.com/) - John Jacobson’s amazing elementary music magazine.

3. Music Technology:

I would not be me if I did not blog about how some technology tools that have assisted me greatly over the years in an elementary music classroom.

• iPod (http://www.apple.com/itunes/) - I used to have 50+ CDs cluttering the area around my CD player. My students used to comment about it! Now, I have iTunes on my computer, which I import my CDs to. I then create folders like “Kindergarten music” “1st grade music” etc., and click and drag my music into each folder. I then drag the folder to my iPod and now I no longer have to switch CDs during the 5 minutes (more like 2-3 minutes) I have between classes.
• Recording device for iPod - There are three different types of recorder for the iPod. When you attach the recording device to the iPod, you have just turned your iPod into a portable assessment device. This has been a wonderful tool for me in my classroom. To see the three devices please visit my website so that you can read about them.
• Software and websites: This is another blog in itself. I will just put some out there that have assisted me: Finalenotepad (freeware) (http://www.finalemusic.com/notepad/) for composition with students in grades 2-5, Music Ace Maestro (www.harmonicvision.com) for reinforcing musical concepts in grades K-5, Sibelius’s Groovy Series (www.sibelius.com) for musical composition in grades K-5, Morton Subotnick’s software (www.creatingmusic.com) for listening and creating music in grades PreK-5, Apple’s GarageBand (www.apple.com/ilife) for creating music in grades 3-5, and many others. In addition, there are several music websites set up for students like San Francisco Symphony (www.sfskids.org), NY Philharmonic (http://www.nyphilkids.org), Carnegie Hall (www.carnegiehall.org), and many more.

What are some resources that you cannot live without in your elementary music classroom? Or, what resources have assisted you greatly in your teaching?