Winter can be a crazy time in the elementary music room. These elementary music Winter games will help get you to the finish line.

Enjoy today's 15-Minute Music Lesson for Wintertime and study "Winter" by Vivaldi along with "Let it Go" from Frozen. Link to free printable, etc.

An update to everything happening in the world of Musicplay, MusicplayOnline, and Themes & Variations directly from Denise Gagne!

High Shoals Elementary School Music Blog, Oconee County GA, Orff Music Instruction

Kids love music! Teaching kids about the world through music is a great way for them to access the world.

Need a way to spruce up your students' compositions? Try this free form winter themed music staff paper and see their creativity shine! This pack has SIX different themes, enough to last through even the longest winter season. Click on the preview button to see each design! Please rate and review! All items are 50% off for the first 24 hours. ♩♩♩♩♩♩♩♩♩♩♩♩♩♩♩♩♩♩♩♩♩♩♩♩♩♩♩♩♩♩♩♩♩♩♩♩♩♩♩♩♩♩♩♩♩♩ Customer Tips: How to get TPT credit to use on future purchases: • Please go to your My Purchases page (you may need to login). Beside each purchase you'll see a Provide Feedback button. Simply click it and you will be taken to a page where you can give a quick rating and leave a short comment for the product. Each time you give feedback, TPT gives you feedback credits that you use to lower the cost of your future purchases. I value your feedback greatly as it helps me determine which products are most valuable for your classroom so I can create more for you. Be the first to know about my new discounts, freebies and product launches: • Look for the green star next to my store logo and click it to become a follower. Voila! You will now receive email updates about this store. ♩♩♩♩♩♩♩♩♩♩♩♩♩♩♩♩♩♩♩♩♩♩♩♩♩♩♩♩♩♩♩♩♩♩♩♩♩♩♩♩♩♩♩♩♩♩

New Year. Every 365, sometimes 366, it rolls around like a mirrored ball on speed and suddenly, whamo, it's here! Resolutions: Mine are short and simple: Personal: I began a Whole 30 Jan. 1 (very stict whole, clean eating plan) and am so very thankful for the Facebook group of First Timers who have been so helpful with recipes, support, and encouragement! I am trying to lose the 20 pounds that crept back on while I was in the middle of moving, Thanksgiving, and Christmas! Yikes!!! Need to stick to Paleo- it has worked for me but the minute I go off I gain!! I have also gone back to working out 4-5 days per week. Amazing how much better I feel when I do. Professional: This has been an awesome school year!! The last two school years were not so hot as I had 4 surgeries during those two and was out a total of almost 6 months of school!!! So glad to be healthy again. Edit, edit, edit! I am in the midst of a book and my publisher and I will begin edits soon- I've already started editing and I am so excited about the book.. and leery of all the work during editing! The book has clapping songs and games from around the world! It's been so fun chatting with people in Johannesburg, South Africa, Indonesia, Scotland, and all around the globe. So thankful for email; this project would have taken years otherwise. Now to the goody, well, I hope it's a goody: Happy 2015!

Think about the title of this blog post for a second. My elementary music classroom RUNS ITSELF! Yes, you are reading that right! Because I only spend about 10-15 minutes of each class teaching whole group, I accomplish SO much more during the day! While my students are independently working, I focus on things that I normally wouldn’t be able to do during my instructional time. If you’re thinking…What in the world?! Check out my last blog post explaining how I use Student Directed Learning to structure my lessons! Let’s say your 4th graders are working on recorder. At the beginning of class, you go over a four measure piece of music that you want them to be able to play independently by the end of next week’s class. Now that you have reviewed the basics of the song, give them some independent (or small group if you choose) time to practice…about 20-30 minutes. Here are some quick things you can accomplish while they work! Individual Assessment The most obvious thing that you’ll be doing is moving around the room helping individual students with issues. While you’re doing this, you can get some great assessment time in! As you listen […]

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I have been using this wonderful book by Karma Wilson with my kindergarten and first grade students for almost a decade now and it is still one of my favorites! This is a great lesson for introducing and exploring the concepts of timbre / tone color, sound sources, instruments (and their names), sound effects, and communicating meaning and emotion through music / sound. *this post contains affiliate links* First of all, the book itself is wonderful. If you aren't familiar with it, please go check it out. Karma Wilson and Jane Chapman have also done several other books featuring the Bear as the main character (like "Bear Stays Up" and "Bear Feels Sick", plus many more), so I've had homeroom teachers use some of the other books for read-aloud's in their class after the students did the lesson with me. You can get the book on Amazon here: The story includes many different interesting sounds that are easy for younger students to identify, so this is a great way to introduce students to the idea of sound effects or soundscapes. In my lesson, I start off by reading the book and ask students to find the one sound that is repeated over and over. Usually they know what it is before I even read it (it's in the title and all!), and they say the repeated line, "but the bear snores on" with me throughout the story. Once we've read the story, I ask the students to remember other sounds they heard in the story. Then we go through each page of the book and identify all the sounds we can find. I put a sticky note next to each one they choose. Since I am usually doing this with multiple classes in a grade level at the same time, I use different colored sticky notes for each class. When I'm having them identify the sounds, I don't show them the page so they aren't swayed by the other class' opinions. It's always interesting to see what the students pick- some pick more abstract items like the sun peeking up, while others stick strictly to sounds that are identified in words in the story. Before the next class period, I write down the names of students on each sticky note (I usually just do a simple rotation through all of the names by seating chart). The whole class does the sound of the bear snoring together (which helps keep students engaged in between turns). In the second lesson, I have each student choose how they will make each of their sounds. If I know they have a good understanding of timbre and sound sources, I tell them they have to use one of each different sound source category (instruments, voice, body percussion, found sound/object). I make a small note to myself of what they choose on the same sticky notes (like "clap", "pencil on floor", or "guiro"). The next class period we make a video recording of our story. I read the story out loud and the students add their sound effects when I get to each of their parts. Bonus concept: when they do the snoring sound together, I have them keep snoring while my hand is open, then I do the circular conducting motion and close my hand to have them stop. The students love putting their story together, and I have consistently gotten positive and enthusiastic feedback from parents, homeroom teachers, and librarians too! Have you ever used this book in your music classroom? I would love to hear your ideas in the comments.

Here's another bundle of lessons I've been working on: Mi So La Lesson Bundle. This set is designed for my 1st graders, although I use some of the lessons with 2nd grade as well. Each "lesson" is centered around one song, so, depending on how long your classes are, they most likely aren't complete "lessons" - just what i refer to as the "meat". In a complete lesson, I usually have a warm-up activity, some review activity/song for fun/song that we'll use later to extract learning material from, movement/game activity, wrap-up activity, etc. I love writing my own little songs, especially if I need one specific to a season. This year, I wrote "Winter's Here" and a little partner song to go with it: When the chilly wind slows, And the storm moves past, I'll catch little snowflakes; Winter's here at last! I love partner songs. In choir, I use them all the time to develop their confidence as we learn two part music. This is my second year at this particular school, and, after working a partner song with the choir, I thought - "I really need to start them on this younger." My 2nd graders eagerly eat up songs with multiple parts, especially when I am performing one part while they try another. What winter partner songs do you use?

This is a beloved folk song I learned long ago at a workshop and have loved ever since. The original folk song's words are, "I dont care if the rain comes down, I'm gonna dance all day". Needing a song for our holiday concert with a winter theme, I played around with this one and my students helped develop an easy orchestration and form we have loved using. Sing the song as written, each time students sing the word, "dance" they strike a dance pose. Clap "hey, hey" and patsch "carry me away". For alternating sections, students came up with the idea of continuing the orchestration and humming the tune while doing dance moves. Here's how it worked out: A: Song with orchestration B: Hum melody, orchestration continues; perform Macarena movements (this works out perfectly with the song and the dance can be performed twice). A: Song with orchestration C: Hum melody, orchestration continues; perform the Floss (YUP.. what they voted for!). A: Song with orchestration D: Hum melody, orchestration continues; freestyle- students perform movement of their choosing. A: Song with orchestration, end with "I'm gonna dance all day" 3 times followed by a final glockenspiel, "plink". This was SO fun and really had my students moving and grooving. Good for any winter fun! Hope you enjoy this one now or later!

Last Winter I organized a Make It / Take It for the Kodaly Music Educators of Kansas. I thought I would share with you what we did...

Composition is one of those areas that actually lends itself to distance learning in many ways. Students can explore individually and take as much time as they want to work on their compositions, they can express themselves more freely if they're hesitant to share with classmates, and if they have technology access, they have so many more tools at their fingertips than they would have in most general music classrooms. Whether you're sending home packets, putting lessons online, or teaching live virtual classes, here are some of my favorite lesson ideas for teaching music composition. 1. Online Teaching With online teaching there are so many options for composition! If you're able, I recommend creating a video demonstrating how to use whatever online tool you're asking students to use by showing your screen (with something like zoom or screencastify). Give students a clear but simple direction for their composition and set them loose! My top recommendation by far is chrome music lab song maker. It is so easy to use even for the youngest students, the notes are color-coded to match boomwhacker colors, and students can save and send their compositions to their teacher very easily! There are a million ways to use this tool for assignments, but my favorite use is to give students a specific set of solfege notes to use to create a melody (which varies depending on the grade). I show them which colors they can and cannot use in their melody and then send them on their way. It's the perfect way to experiment with composing using the specific solfege notes that they've been working on this year! My other favorite online composition tool is mario paint music composer. I love that it has lots of different timbres to choose from represented by different icons, and it has you put the notes on the actual staff (including treble and bass clef)! This one is perfect for upper elementary and middle school to practice using specific letter names in both clefs, compose in specific time signatures (there are several choices in the program), or write music for a video game (more on that below). It's also easy to save songs with this program, and there are several choices including saving to a url or as a file download. One of my favorite units for upper elementary / middle school is actually perfect for distance learning: music of the movies! Students can watch YouTube videos to learn about movie music composers, explore how music affects a film, and learn about Foley artists (who create live sound effects), then they can choose music to go with a specific scene of a silent film, or create music to go with the scene themselves (using one of the online tools above) and practice adding their own sound effects using objects around their house. I have all the materials and plans for this unit here. Another of my favorites from brick and mortar teaching that translates well to distance learning: video game music composition. Students create the concept for a video game and then add music to go with each scene. In the lessons I do (resources linked above) I also have them explore video game composing and learn about some famous composers for video games. It's a great way to get students thinking about communicating a clear image through their music, and it definitely sparks their imaginations. 2. Packets / No Tech If you're sending home packets or hard copy assignments that don't require any technology, composition is still a great way to go. Send home one or two very simple composition worksheets (you can see some examples of what I use here) that include clear directions and a rhythm/ pitch bank so they can practice notating independently. You can also encourage creativity with a choice board like this one (feel free to copy the image below for your own use!): 3. Virtual Teaching If you're teaching live classes virtually, you can of course use any of the ideas above by explaining and showing the assignment and then sending them off on their own to work on their compositions, but there are other fun things you can do as well, like having share sessions where students share the compositions they've created before your class session, or improv sessions where students take turns improvising. It's impossible to perform things simultaneously but taking turns will work even over video calls! I hope this gives you some ideas to use, regardless of your situation, to get students composing. If you've come up with more great composition lesson ideas for distance learning, please share them in the comments below. Don't forget, I'm compiling all of my posts for school closures into one page for easy access- head to that page for more ideas:

Here in NC we RARELY get snow.. it's been 2 years since we have had a snow day.. well, woohoo.. got one today! Perfect timing as I've just come back to school from a medical leave (surgery 8 weeks ago.. final exclamation point on this past year of 4 surgeries and intense medical issues and emergencies! Yeehaw!). I've taught 2 whole days.. whew.. and now a snow day, then tomorrow (if we have a full day of school, which is in question because the high today is a whopping 28 degrees, we have an exploratory day and we have students going to a museum and visitors coming to do rotations in the afternoon, so no regular classes then, and back to a regular schedule Friday, Monday, and Tuesday, then a half day Wed. with Chinese New Year assembly that I run Wednesday AM so no regular music then either.. a fun 2 weeks being back at school! It's been so great to see the kids but my energy and my physical strength is not quite up to the task of my normal, so I have set up some rotations with the kinders. and first graders and the 2nd through 4th graders will be getting ready for Music Olympics in early February! Please email me at [email protected] if you'd rather have this in powerpoint. I've given credit where I've found games/ideas from other sites.. if you see something you've developed or know an original source I didn't credit, PLEASE let me know. Thanks for stopping by!

Music is a powerful stimulus that almost all autistic children positively respond to. Most demonstrate better music skills than cognitive skills. Here are 10 ways music helps autistic children.

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I'm so excited: CMEA (Colorado Music Educators Association)'s conference is this week. I haven't been since I was pregnant with my daughter AND I'm presenting two sessions this year (nervous and excited about that.) But, also, I'm really excited because Mary Alice Amidon it will be presenting this year too! I LOVE the resources that the Amidon's have produced. They are high quality and a must for every music teacher's library: This year they came out with a new resource and one of Mary Amidon's sessions will be on this book: There are a lot of high quality songs for your little ones in this book, including this gem: My kinders sang this song this week, it's totally cute! For the first half (Once there was a snowman, snowman, snowman. Once there was a snowman, tall, tall, tall.) they start in a curled up position on the floor and SLOWLY rise so they are standing tall at the end of that phrase. Then for the second half of the song they SLOWLY descend, back into the curled up position. In the book, they state that you can have your students make up new versions: ie. "once there was a snow fort," "once there was a snow girl," etc. I will be using this song in my Manipulative Mania session on Friday, sponsored by ROCKE (The Regional Organization of Colorado Kodály Educators). Here's a little preview at what we'll be doing with it AND will be available for purchase at ROCKE's Make-n-Take session on Saturday. (There will be a couple other ideas presented on how to use the snowmen die cuts, as well). With snowmen die-cuts, I made beat charts for my kinders. Essentially, with a beat chart, they keep a steady beat while tracking the beat. This reinforces the literacy fluency skills that they are working on in their classrooms (your kinder teachers will love that!) and is a pre-music reading activity. Here's the beat chart (notice I gave the snowman on the left a black hat. This helps these little ones know where to start. .. some of them still struggle with right and left. .. ): And here are some of my kinders singing the song while tracking the beat (I made enough for all of them to have a chart to use. You can also do this with half a classroom set and them sharing with a partner): See that little kinder in the white shirt in the picture below? That's my all time favorite kindergartner (I can say that, I'm his mom!!!): If you're going to CMEA, I'm presenting two sessions: one on Thursday, January 24 at 10:20 called "Upping the Ante" and the "Manipulative Mania" session on Friday, January 25 at 1:50. Don't forget to attend Tanya LeJeune's sessions: Thursday, January 24, SMART board assessments at 3:00 Friday, January 25, Electronic Engagement at 8:00 with a repeat session at 11:30 The ROCKE Make-n-Take is on Saturday, January 26 from 10:30-12:30

This carol has always fascinated me. As a student performer, I've sung and played it. As a student teacher, I taught it to a high-school choir. As an elementary teacher, I've used it within the Orff ensemble. Kids love it too. The ostinato is easily distinguishable, although some can't exactly pinpoint where they've heard it. Previously, I used this carol in the 5th grade Winter Program. I had a class of above-level 5th graders who really enjoyed learning to play it on our Orff instruments. Well, this year I made the mistake of diddling out the melody on the glockenspiel a class of my 5th graders were coming down the hallway to my room. They were instantly asking about it and complementing my playing (bahhaha - we need more listening examples, clearly). I told them that if they'd like to meet me after PE during their recess time, I would be happy to let them try it then. Well, the interest was overwhelming (recess this time of year is a cold affair - I know I'd rather hang out in the music room) so now I have to weave it into next week's lessons. Therefore, I'll begin with a bit of history about the carol. The 5th graders were using my Spooky Music Unit this year, so they're pretty savvy with musical terms, learning about the composer, and appreciating the history of a piece. Here's the slide I'll use: We'll also listen to these two performances on Youtube. The first is from the lovely boys' choir, Liberia. I love the style of the video. And the second is a video most of the kids have already seen. My mom always played Mannheim Steamroller around the house during the holidays. This particular video has a Christmas-light adorned house and the lights are choreographed to the music. After viewing and comparing the videos, we'll use this PowerPoint: Carol of the Bells. I have enough instruments that the students can work in pairs and trios. However, only my glockenspiels are chromatic, and include the necessary G#. Using each slide, we'll read the music, sing the music, "air mallet" the music, using correct hands, and then play. I like to keep the tempo using claves so the students don't rush. Yes, the runs are ridiculously hard, but not impossible. This is more of a "just for fun" lesson. If you're looking for a more realistic version with complete instrumentation, I'd suggest this version, created by Laurie Zentz. It is fantastic!

Background: Chinese New Year is also known as Asian New Year, Lunar New Year, and the Asian Spring Festival. January 28, 2017 begins the year of the Rooster in the Lunar Calendar. Families celebrate by hanging special banners, eating special foods, lighting firecrackers, and giving money away in special red envelopes. Aimee's most recent O

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I am originally from Maine, an original "Mainah". As much as I love my home state, and miss many parts of it, I am much happier weather wise here in North Carolina, especially now.. they were just hit with a massive storm and my parents have 2.5 FEET of snow in their yard and are set for more snow this weekend. My kiddos here at school are wanting just a few inches of the white stuff, and I would love to go out and play in the yard with my daughter and enjoy some snowy moments! Not to mention having a Snow Day. Here is a song for younger grades, Snowflakes Falling Down. We used it as a B section to the Snowflakes song from Gameplan, Grade K. After playing a few times, we let our mallets "dance" (alternate hands quickly) to play high sounds after "dancing high" and low sounds after "dancing low". Great fun.. Add some finger cymbals, whirling tubes (wind sounds) and chimes and you'll have a blustery blizzard of musical fun. Oh, and white feathers.. got to have them to blow around, too.. Cheers!!

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Happy Thanksgiving week everyone! I know a lot of you are still in school so here's a fun song to use with your 1st graders . .. . and 2nd graders! I found it in Holidays and Special Days by Grace Nash and Janice Rapley during my college practicum classes and have used it every year. The kids eat it up! Here's the song: Now, this is NOT a folk song. But over the years I've accidentally changed the melody. Here's the way I sing it with my kiddos (and we sing it with swung eighth notes): I use this to aurally identify/reinforce quarter rests with my 1st graders. Other than that, we use it for expression and FUN. Here's the game: Formation: circle, with one student (the "farmer") on the outside of the circle and 2-3 turkeys in the middle. Action: as the song is sung, the farmer walks around the outside of the circle while the turkeys trot around the middle of the circle. At the end of the song the farmer chases the turkeys. Depending on where your students are in your movement sequence, you can have the students in the circle walk the beat while the song is sung with their arms acting as a fence. At the end, the students can choose to make their joined arms gates or leave their section of the fence closed. You can also add instruments. In Holidays and Special Days there are more elaborate Orff parts. I simplified it so my 1st and 2nd graders can play is successfully and independently. Here are a couple of my 1st graders playing it this year. It's a lot of fun and it's great to get some of those pre-holiday wiggles out: Liza Meyer's wrote a post that included this song a couple years ago. She notates it as la,-do at the beginning but my source uses so-mi. You can read her post by clicking here. This post also has a fun Thanksgiving song to the tune of Zum Gali Gali- it's a must do! Your older kiddos with LOVE it! Have a GREAT week everyone!

The Yellow Brick Road Blog is a website dedicated to providing music teachers with fun education resources for serious music literacy.

I am linking up today with Elizabeth from Organized Chaos. We're hoping... and wishing... and dreaming of snow here in North Carolina! I am from the snowy state of Maine and living here in NC for the past 18 years I can honestly say I don't miss Maine in the winter. But, ah, the summer!!! LOVE it and miss my ocean terribly! Good thing I get to visit there almost every summer! Here is a snowflake song for younger students. I actually planned it to use with kindergarten and re-wrote it today to use with my kindies. We use the song with snowflakes (white feathers) and ice skates (paper plates.. yup- they work GREAT).! Process: Teach song, half the class at the glockenspiels with F's and B's (franks and beans or burgers and fries or buffalo's and flamingo's, however you say these bars) removed, practice singing and playing in the appropriate places. Other half of class performs the skating on paper plates while singing, each holds a white feather and when the song is over students blow feathers into the air while glocks improvise (as quietly as a snowflake!) as long as the "snowflake" (feather) is in the air. Once the "snowflake" is on the ground they stop improvising. I award "snowflake kisses" (extra feathers) to each student who stops as soon as the feather touches the ground. That way they get more than one feather to blow into the air when it is their turn. It's so funny to see them try to stop at the exact moment of "touchdown"! Switch jobs and perform again! Enjoy!

I love building lessons around children's literature and finding ways that I can incorporate folk songs with them. Some of the books I choose are based on a song, such as "She'll Be Comin' Round the Mountain" that I sing to the students, and others are not based on a song, but I find ways to add instruments or incorporate a folk song on some of the page turns. It can be a great way to introduce a song because they get a lot of listening repetitions of the song and by the end of the story book, you can often invite them to join in and sing on the page turns. Here is a great one for January when all we really want to do is hibernate until summer. "Bear Snores On" - This book is fun on its own with a cute story and illustrations, but as always, music makes everything better! Here are two different songs I like to use with this book depending on the grade level/concept we are working on. I simply sing the song on the page turns or every few page turns if I am running short on time. Grizzly Bear is perfect for if you are preparing or practicing Loud/Soft in kindergarten: Later in the lesson or on another day you could expand upon this song with rhythm visuals at the board. This slide comes from my "Grizzly Bear" song file. Find it here. "Frosty Weather" - You could use this song when preparing re or even practicing ta and tit. Visuals for "Frosty Weather" can be found here. I use the book to introduce the song. They get a lot of hearing of it that way. Before the book is over, I am inviting the students to sing with me on the page turns. Immediately after the book, we will play the singing game.Students join right in singing because they are already very familiar with the song. Before you rush to Amazon, Ebay or West Music to purchase this book, you might see if your school library already owns it or if any of the primary teachers have it in their classroom library. They are often happy to let you borrow it for a short time if they are not using it that week, and they get really excited to find out that you are incorporating books into your lessons! What is your favorite children's book to use in the music room in January? Let me know if the comments below!

It seems that I have gone Boomwhackers crazy! And it also seems as if I'm arranging all my classroom tunes for instruments! I figured, why order music for the Boomwhackers when I can write it exactly the way I want it. So here's what I came up with... an arrangement of Jingle Bells! I included page two if anyone is interested in using this. (By the way, I have 5 more tunes to write out just like this.) And let me just say, this was all created using Powerpoint! Who knew!? I drew the rests with the pencil tool and grouped the circle and line shapes for the notes. The best part is when I'm ready to use this, I just start the slideshow and project it onto my board (until my smart board comes, that is). Boomwhackers have me so excited for 3rd grade!!!! Update: Here is my newest arrangement of Jolly Old St. Nick