Aileen's Music Education Blog

This year, I took the position of elementary music co-chair in my district. After our first meeting, I sent out a survey, asking teachers to list their needs for professional development. A vast majority of the teachers—including me–wanted more information about improvisation. Knowing that improvisation is a bit focus in the Orff philosophy, I then approached three Orff specialists in our district and asked them to present a session with improvisational strategies. The session was so helpful, and helped teachers to foster musical creativity with their process. I will list here the process for improvisation I adapted from the session, as well as a composition activity that grew out of the same improvisational activity. Note: A special thanks to Clinton Wright, Tina Wilson, and Jason Bash, for presenting the session, and to Ginger Littleton and Sue Leithold-Bowcock, whose template for composition helped me immensely!

During the session, Clinton, Tina, and Jason presented an improvisational activity for “Apple Tree,” in which students brainstormed adjectives describing apples, then explored and improvised word patterns, then explored melodies with that rhythm on barred instruments, and then students made more conscious choices about what they wanted to play on barred instruments, transferring the exploration to improvisation.

I loved the sequential process laid out in the session, and the choices given to students in creating their own patterns. A few of the Kodaly-trained teachers in the district got hung up on where this activity should fall in the rhythmic or melodic concept timeline, and at first, I struggled with this same question. But then after trying out the activity with my students, I realized that it is very beneficial for students to explore and improvise for the sake of creativity, and not to serve the purpose of preparing or practicing rhythm or melody!

I then took this process and adapted it for use with my fifth graders, who were practicing low la (they are a couple years behind, as I began teaching them last year.) I used the song “Who has seen the wind,” as notated below.

Once the students were comfortable with the song, I went through the process below. This took several lessons, as I typically only planned 5-10 minutes in each lesson, putting one step into each lesson over the course of several weeks.

• Image brainstorming: Students closed their eyes and pictured a windy day. What did they see? Hear? Smell? I wrote this list on the SMART board and saved each class’ list. Note: When Clinton, Tina, and Jason presented, they had students work with small groups and write their own lists. Examples of images they brainstormed included “fall baseball,” “flying leaves,” “breeze,” “howling wind,” etc. They were usually much more creative than I expected!
• Body percussion/ pattern brainstorming: I then wrote 4 of these words/images on the board, in 4 boxes. I chose 4 words with different rhythms, so the pattern would be rhythmically interesting. For example, in the four boxes, I may have had:
  • Jump in leaves             Flying kites                 Fall baseball                Smooth
  • Each box was 2 beats long, so “jump in leaves” was ti-ti ta, and “smooth” was ta rest.
  • Then I had students create their own patterns and put those patterns on their bodies. For example, a student might say “smooth flying kites fall baseball smooth” while tapping his/her head.
  • Each time we tried different body percussion (lap, hands, feet, etc.) while saying a new pattern. I also had students find something in the room to play—but not an instrument. Students were hitting walls, hitting floors, “playing” stands, etc.
  • Then I had students raise their hands and offer one of their patterns. Everyone would try this pattern.
  • Pattern brainstorming / Deciding on class pattern:
    • In the next lesson, I had students do a few body percussion patterns again, and then students offered their individual patterns.
    • I then chose a pattern that I thought would work well as a class pattern and wrote that on the board.
    • All students clapped that pattern, then tried the pattern several times on different parts of their bodies and different parts of the room. Again, I saved this pattern so I could refer to it later.
    • Barred instrument exploration and improvisation
      • In the next lesson, I had students clap the class pattern, then go to barred instruments. The instruments were set up with the bars E, G, A, and B. Students tried playing that rhythm on those bars, in whichever order they wanted. I found it helpful for students to whisper the class pattern as they played.
      • During this process, students are at first exploring. Once they’ve played a few different patterns, I said, “Now think about what you liked about your last pattern, and what you might like to change. Let’s try it again.” At this point, it transformed from exploration to improvisation, because they were making conscious choices about what they were playing.
      • I rotated all students so all had a turn. If we had time, we listened to individual students playing their patterns. We also sang the song, played our improvisations, then sang again (ABA form.)

The improvisation session covered about this much, although I should say that while the process above sticks pretty close to what was laid out in the session, I changed it and adapted it as needed.

I really enjoyed this process, as did my fifth graders, but I really wanted to transfer their improvisations to compositions. I just wasn’t sure how! In March, I went to the OAKE National Conference in Phoenix, and attended Ginger Littleton’s composition session. There, I found a wonderful template that I realized I could use to move this activity into the world of composition. Ginger created the format with the help of Sue Leithold-Bowcock, who I teach with at Colorado State.

Based off this template, I created a worksheet for each individual class, so that each class’ pattern could be listed on the worksheet. I am attaching an example of a student composition. Each worksheet included:

• Rules. For this assignment, the rules were:
• You must use the notes E, G, A, and B.
• You must start on E.
• You must end on E.

• Boxes for stick notation
  • I notated the rhythm of each class’ pattern inside these boxes. Underneath, the students wrote the note names. This was a good process, as it was a great time to review basics such as not listing note letters under rests, and listing two sounds for a ti-ti.
• Blank staff and word pattern
• Here I had a blank staff, as well the class’ word pattern listed underneath the staff. This was the space for students to transfer their stick notation to the staff.

For the composition process, I followed the steps:

• Students went to instruments, played around with their improvisations, decided what they wanted their composition to sound like, and wrote the letters in the stick notation boxes. If you don’t have enough instruments, you could have some students write in the stick notation boxes while other students improvise, and then switch so they can check what they’ve written.
• In the next lesson, we reviewed the names of the notes on the treble clef staff, and then students got their worksheets and wrote the noteheads on the staff, based off of their stick notation composition.
• After this lesson, I took all of the worksheets and checked the following:
  • If they followed the rules—if not, I underlined which rule(s) they weren’t following
  • If the noteheads were written correctly—if not, I starred that measure so students could re-check and re-write their work
  • Then, in the next lesson, I reviewed how to write stems. Then, I handed the sheets back out, and had students work on their composition from whichever point they needed to. This took longer than the above steps—about 20-25 minutes. Some students had to finish writing noteheads, then begin writing stems, some students had to fix their noteheads, and others were ready to move onto stems. Once the students had finished writing, I had them show me their work and I checked it. Then, they went to instruments and tried playing their compositions.
  • After this, I then took a rubric, stapled it to their composition, and graded the papers.
  • After that, I scanned a couple great examples and showed students those compositions on the smart board. We spoke through the note names in rhythm, then sang the note names while I played xylophone, then they sang the compositions on solfa.

This was a great learning experience for me, and for them! Through the composition process, I realized that with some students, I still had more work to do to practice note naming and writing, as well as more work with stems. Through the improvisation process, I realized that I needed to add more opportunities for creativity to my lessons! This was a great jumping off point, and could be adapted for any song and any grade level. Good luck, and have fun!

I’m excited to do my first book review on the blog, for an amazing resource: “Educating Young Singers” by Goetze, Broeker, and Boshkoff, First, though, a bit of background about me, as it relates to this book.

In college, I was an instrumental major–trumpet was my main instrument. I dabbled a bit with piano, but as far as choir went, I only sang for one semester. I enjoyed being in choir, but I was wholly uncomfortable with my voice. I knew it was too breathy and unsupported, but I didn’t really have the tools or knowledge to do much about it.

As I started my Kodaly training, I was mesmerized by the sequence, the process–it all made so much sense! But the singing…again, I was a bit uncomfortable. I had no general music as a child, and when I sang my sister and best friend often told me maybe I should stop! (I think I’m the classic example of a child who just needed more experience…the more I sang, the better I became!) In the Kodaly levels program at Capital, I was put into Musicianship II class as a Level I student. I think I impressed them that I worked ahead in the 333′s and understood how to use a tuning fork–but my singing was not where it should have been. My teachers, bless them, were very understanding and worked with me patiently (a special thank you to Fernando Malvar-Ruiz and the late Eva Vendrei–what amazing educators!) I understood what my singing should sound like….I just couldn’t always get there!

After a couple years of struggling with this, I knew I had to get help, as my unsupported singing would just rub off on my students. I took voice lessons for a year or two with a professor at Capital. This helped quite a bit (although of course, I’d love to still be taking them! Why is there not more time in the day?)

The reason I tell you this journey is first, because I think it is common among instrumentalists who turn to the Kodaly philosophy. We feel alone and lost in the classes full of vocalists for whom singing is second nature. We want to sing well–for ourselves, and for the sake of our students–but we are burdened by our own weaknesses and self-consciousness about our voices. 

And then, teaching choir…

My third year of teaching, I moved down to Ohio and got a new job. I was told I had thirty minutes each week, during the day, to work with a choir. Most music teachers would be thrilled about this…and I was somewhat excited, but also, scared. Very, very scared. 

I’d only been in choir for one semester. I’d taken one vocal tech class in which I nervously sang “The Water is Wide” for my class…what did I know about choir? Of course, I knew by then that this opportunity for my students was wonderful, that any Kodaly-inspired teacher should want to build a choir, to give students the opportunity to hone their voices and musical skills in such a setting. This is one of the reasons we do what we do, so kids can perform beautiful music in an ensemble.

Still, I was scared, but I dove in. Since then, I’ve had choirs on and off at the elementary level, and I’ve done the best I could do with the knowledge I’ve had. I’ve gone to workshops, I’ve picked out music I knew the kids could be successful singing. I’ve seen kids get very, very excited about being in choir. I’ve heard great comments from parents and administrators. But still…I knew something was lacking.

There is a whole world of choral knowledge out there that vocalists are privy to. How to shape vowels, how to not sing dipthongs, how to end words, how to create a beautiful choral sound. Although I have been to some workshops which touched on these topics, I still felt like an imposter. I knew what a good choir sounded like, but I didn’t understand how to get there. I felt like I needed membership to some secret club where they told you these secrets, or that I was a bit stupid for not knowing them to begin with.

At the OAKE conference in Phoenix, I was talking to some colleagues about this very topic, and one of them suggested “Educating Young Singers.” “This sounds like exactly what you are looking for,” she said. Wow, was she right!

This amazing resource (which can be bought at www.westmusic.com) is geared both for the instrumentalist teaching choir, and to the choral veteran. It begins with basics, like choosing repertoire, creating a vision for your choir, singing multicultural music, learning the score, and developing conducting gestures. It comes with a DVD, showcasing many of the exercises they discuss in the book.

All of the above was really wonderful, useful information. I realized I had been choosing repertoire more on the basis of the ease of harmony, rather than the beauty of the melody, the piano accompaniment, or its pedagogical uses.

But the part of the book which has truly changed my choral teaching was in Unit 2: The Toolbox. Here, the authors–who are all very well known and respected choral directors and Kodaly-inspired teachers–give the reader many, many games, activities, and exercises to assist students in creating the best choral sound possible. Fun, engaging strategies for physical and mental preparation, alignment, breath management, phonation, vowels, range extension, and more are detailed here. 

At last, I thought as I read this, I’ve been granted membership to the secret club!

I immediately began planning much different lesson plans with these strategies. The first lesson plan I wrote, I knew immediately, was the best choral plan I’d ever written. And as I executed the plan with my students, I saw their interest and excitement grow. (I also heard many things that needed to be fixed that I hadn’t heard before!) My lessons since have felt so much more meaningful. My objectives are clear, and instead of “teaching to the concert,” I feel I have many goals that we are slowly but surely marching toward.

I have not delved into all aspects of the book (the last part of the book delves into long-range planning and presenting the songs), but only because there is so much good information here–it will take me a while to fully read and utilize everything in it!

This book, I believe, is the answer to the disconnect and frustration I have felt with teaching choir since the beginning of my career. For that, I am very grateful. I encourage you–especially if you are teaching a choir of young voices–to purchase it. It has changed my teaching, and my students’ experience, for the better.

For the last four weeks, I have had a student teacher in my classroom. She is the third student teacher I’ve had, and the experience always reminds me of those little things that have just become second nature to me after years of teaching. My current student teacher isn’t new to music education–her mom is also a elementary music teacher–but some of these discoveries have still been surprising, as they were for me in my student teaching! Some thoughts and observations about elementary general music:

• Break it down: Kids in elementary school need things broken down, and broken down again, and yes, again! They are capable of more than some give them credit for, but the material still needs to be broken down into small steps–built from the ground up. 
• If you hesitate, they will talk: Even if you pause for five seconds to figure out what is next in the lesson, they will take the opportunity to talk! It’s not that they are misbehaving, it’s just human nature. Have you ever been to a staff meeting where there is a momentary pause? Adults will talk just as much (and sometimes, even more!)
• Periods of relaxation after concentration are very important!: If the students are asked to concentrate for a few minutes in a very focused setting, they need a break! (Don’t we all?) Give them a break by singing and playing a game. They need that breather!
• Rehearse your lesson: I just told my student teacher today that I have at times rehearsed my lesson–after school, sitting in front of the computer, in the car. Maybe the person in the car next to mine thought I was crazy, but I knew that lesson inside and out by the time I taught it–what I was going to say, how I would transition, how many times the students would play the game. Rehearsing allows us to think through every aspect of the lesson.
• Pacing is key: If you don’t stick to your lesson, your pacing will fall behind and you won’t get through everything. And if you talk too much….your pacing will fall behind and you won’t get through everything! Talk little, sing lots, and keep the lesson moving! The students will be more engaged and will be far less disruptive.
• Planning takes time: Those of us who have taught for even a year know how laughable it is when someone says, “Oh, so you’re a teacher. Must be nice to only teach until 4 every day AND get the summers off!” Planning lessons (and the million other things we have to do each day) takes much longer than 8-4 every day. It takes late nights, weekends, and summer days. It takes dedication and time. Especially those first couple years, when writing a lesson takes at least an hour (and you have ten to write in a week!)
• Teaching is like acting: Sometimes, we are having a horrible day, and we just want to sit in front of the T.V., crack open a gallon of Ben and Jerry’s, and cry. But when you’re teaching, you just can’t. You have to smile and put on that happy face and act like you want to be there. Sometimes, you actually act yourself into reality, and you decide you really do want to be there! (And other times, well, you just act, and hope the kids don’t notice your forced smile!)
• Kids are funny: My student teacher has a “Funny moment of the week” in her journal entries. A few funnies: When she observed a friend of mine teaching music, she watched several kids pick their noses…and yes, eat what they found (Ewww!). A first grader just told us the other day, “I know where babies come from….your B-U-T-T!” (Uh…quick change of topic was in order there!) This year, I was showing my 2nd graders the “What a Wonderful World” book and explained that the song was sung by Louis Armstrong. “He’s the guy who walked on the moon!” a student yelled. “No…” I said, “That’s Neil Armstrong.” The excited reply: “Is that his brother?!?!” One of my faves from years ago…when a fifth grader asked me if I was pregnant, I told her, “No, I’m not pregnant– I’m not married.” Her response: “That’s not the way it’s done in my family!” Ah, out of the mouths of babes!
• Teaching is WORK, but when it becomes second nature, it feels more like fun!: As stated above, teaching is really time-consuming, and it can be hard. But when my kids are singing beautifully, and smiling, and laughing, I think, “Really? I get PAID for this?” 

Any other observations to add? I’d love to hear them (or just hear your funny moment of the week!)

This year, as I evaluated the learning environment I had created for my students, I realized that as interactive and full of learning my class was, it was not very student-centered. Many of my activities were set up with me as the teacher in front of the class, and my students giving the answers, which I deemed as right or wrong. Not to say that there was no creative input from my students, but I had to be honest with myself–my classroom was just not very centered around my students.

At that time of the year, I was also looking for ways to really delve into “ta” and “ti-ti” with my first graders. Most of my lessons involve a rhythmic and melodic concept, as well as musical skills, but I was interested in writing a lesson that was very rhythmically focused, so my students would be sure to be ready for their summative asssessment, in which they had to encode “ta” and “ti-ti” patterns on dry erase boards.

Then I had an epiphany which could help with both of these issues: I could do learning centers with my students. I had tried them my first year of teaching, and had liked them, but then I started my Kodaly training, and felt that Kodaly-inspired teaching did not lend itself to learning centers. Now, as a veteran teacher, I can see that if we put aside the notion that lessons always have to have five to six songs with seamless transitions, that (gasp!) we sometimes deviate from this tried-and-true formula, that learning centers actually foster wonderful learning in the Kodaly-inspired classroom.

The idea of learning centers is that every child is involved in learning the same concept, but at different stations, with each station approaching that concept in a different way. With my first graders, I split them up into four groups, and had each working on “ta” and “ti-ti” in a different way.

• Group #1 worked at the SMART board. They threw a soft ball at the SMART board, and when they hit one of the circles, a rhythmic pattern popped up, which they had to read.
• Group #2 chose a non-pitched percussion instrument from my box of instruments, and as a group, played the patterns showcased on rhythmic flashcards.
• Group #3 worked on a worksheet with different pictures. Students had to figure out whether each picture had one or two sounds, and write whether it was a “ta” or “ti-ti.” For example, “baseball” would be a “ta” and “bat” would be a “ti-ti.”
• Group #4 worked with colored circles. Some were colored red, some purple, some blue, etc. Students created their own pattern using these circles. Then, they clapped and said the colors, and then figured out what their pattern was with “ta’s” and “ti-ti’s.”

After five minutes at each center, students rotated to the next center, until they were able to do all the centers. It was wonderful to see how independent the students were with each task, and it was great to sit back and watch learning unfold without my help!

I have since tried learning centers with other rhythmic concepts, with recorders, and with note letter names, and will soon do them for melodic concepts. Ideas for learning centers are only limited by your imagination! Just choose four ways in which you think students could independently work on a task.

I’ve also found another plus to learning centers–the chance for assessment and intervention. With my fourth graders, I’ve been able to listen to them individually play recorder for their “recorder karate” belts, all while other students are engaged in other activities! This has been a wonderful opportunity to really hear how well students are producing sound, how well they remember their fingerings, etc. I’ve also been able to work one-on-one with struggling students, because again, all the other students are happily engaged in other activities.

As I’ve done these learning centers, I’ve come to the realization that students really need to be very familiar with the concept to be successful at independent work. You might only do learning centers 4 or 5 times in a school year, after the students are ready for the challenge.

Does it get noisy? Yes! But is wonderful learning taking place? Most definitely!

My favorite moment happened when my fourth graders were working on recorder stations. One of the groups was teaching themselves a song on the board that used high D. One boy turned to another boy and said, “Remember? For high D you don’t use your thumb.” They were teaching each other….and I could sit back and enjoy it!

I just got back the OAKE conference in Phoenix. It was a wonderful conference, with lots of great, thought-provoking sessions. Some highlights:

• Crystal Schlieker presented a session about creativity. She had some really useful ideas, such as having students create a dance to rhythmic form, rearranging a reading exercise such as a 333 to create a new form, and students creating movement for specific solfa. Other suggestions: including one element of student choice in each lesson, and giving students a choice of the next song in the lesson, then planning for either choice.
• Tanya LeJeune presented a session about SMART board activities. Lots of wonderful ideas, and ways of using the SMART board. To download a few of these files, and see videos of her students in action, visit http://kodalyaspiringmusicclassroom.weebly.com/.
• Nyssa Brown presented a session about divergent thinking. Nyssa is amazing at getting attendees to think “out-of-the-box” about their own teaching and learning experiences. Like Crystal, Nyssa discussed offering students choices, and encouraged attendees to offer questions with more than one answer, to honor the student as a creative individual. Some specific ideas include using name games like “A my name is Alice” for students to share their individuality, doing arranging projects in which students rearrange a known song, and posting sentence starters such as “I notice..,” “I observed…,” “Why do you think…,” etc. to create a more collaborative environment. 
• Susan Brumfield did a demo with some of her choir students. She took some great octavos (some of which she wrote/ arranged), and took the attendees step-by-step through the process of teaching an octavo. I’m excited to use some of the octavos with my choir next year…and now I have a specific plan on how to use them! Some of the octavos I’m really looking forward to using include: “Songs of a Summer Afternoon” arranged by Emily Crocker (including “Here comes a bluebird,” “Bow Wow Wow,” “I’ve been to Haarlem,” and “Sailing on the ocean”), “Sail Away” arranged by Susan Brumfield, and “Seagull, Seagull,” also arranged by Susan Brumfield.
• Andrew Ellingsen presented “Sequencing Folk Dances in the Music Classroom.” The session was packed full of people, and we did many folk dances (although I had to sit some out…being pregnant makes folk dancing a bit hard!) Not only did he present some really fun, wonderful folk dances, but he presented them in a sequential way, starting with a simple circle dance all the way to a Sicilian circle dance. The session will make me think about how all the singing games I do could relate to folk dancing, and possibly present them in a different order…and it motivated me to put some new songs and dances into my curriculum!
• Ginger Littleton presented a session about composition. She showed some simple activities to practice composition with younger students, and then progressed to some upper elementary ideas. I especially liked her template for composition, in which students write their composition in stick notation, and then transfer the composition to the staff. She had a section on top called “rules,” in which the teacher could post rules such as “The composition starts on C and ends on C,” or “All eighth notes should be the same note.” It was a very streamlined way to approach composition, and I’m excited to try it out!
• Sarah Bartolome presented a session about multicultural music. She was obviously very well-educated on the subject, and had some great resources. She encouraged attendees to delve more into a culture through discussion and listening lessons, instead of just doing a song from a different culture and moving on. Many of her lessons and resources are posted at www.folkways.si.edu.

I’ve already typed up a list of ideas I’d like to implement right away with each grade level, ideas I’d like to implement by the end of the year, and then ideas I’d like to implement next year. I’m also excited to share these ideas with my student teacher. The conference was a perfect example of how rejuvenating professional development can be! 

Those of you who have a SMART board know how great the SMART Exchange website is. The site is exchange.smarttech.com, and has a plethora of free SMART board files, including music files. I’ve been using files from this site for a year and a half, and finally decided to post some of my own!

I modeled the files off of the “Which Melody Do You Hear?” activities found on the Interactive Now SMART Board CD’s, which can be found on the West Music website. These files are excellent–they ask students to visually and aurally identify different staff patterns–but they only include sol-mi and sol-mi-la patterns. I loved the idea, but wanted to use them with more difficult melodic concepts, so I decided to create my own.

The files, which practice “do,” “re,” and “low la,” can be found here:

http://exchange.smarttech.com/search.html?q=kodaly&subject=Music&grade=All+grades&region=en_US

Or you can go to the website, and search for “Kodaly” under the subject “Music.” I hope you enjoy! And if you have your own files, please consider submitting them! 

I’m excited to announce that my book, “From Song to Stage,” is ready to purchase! The book outlines three musicals based off of folk songs and dances, and includes specific directions, music, sample programs, curriculum notes, and more. The musicals include:

“Where the Wild Things Are” (grades 2-3)

“Old MacDonald Had a Farm” (grades K-1)

“Australia ABC’s” (grades 3-4)

I’ve included these programs that I created, but also included information about how to create your own programs. The book costs $20, and can be purchased at Lulu at this address:

http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/from-song-to-stage/18902751?productTrackingContext=search_results/search_shelf/center/1

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Happy reading, and thanks for your support!

If you’ve been following this blog, you know how much I love my SMART board…in fact, I can’t imagine having to teach without it! In today’s world, when music educators hear the word “technology,” they often think of the SMART board, but as wonderful as the SMART board is, there are in fact many other wonderful ways we can connect to technology in our classrooms. The following is a list of websites I have found immensely useful.

Facebook:

This popular site seems like it is strictly for socializing with friends, but I was recently invited to a group called “Kodály Educators” on Facebook. They regularly have discussions about music education. When members have a question about teaching, they ask other members, who give very helpful advice. Other music education groups I belong to include “American Orff-Schulwerk Association” and “Organization of American Kodály Educators.” If you don’t see a group that fits your needs, why not create one?

Pinterest:

This has been a very exciting find for me! At www.pinterest.com, members can create their own boards where they “pin” things they like. Many members use it as a way to show their tastes in home décor and clothing, but I’ve found many really wonderful ideas about music education! If you are not a member, send me an email over Facebook or Yahoo, and I can invite you. You can also apply to be a member, but Pinterest may take a few days to respond.

Dropbox:

If you often have to send an email from your home address to your school address with the week’s lesson plans, you should try out dropbox (www.dropbox.com). This application allows you to save files to your dropbox, and the dropbox can be opened up on any computer to which you’ve downloaded the program. No more searching for your flash drive, or sending yourself emails!

Music Education Blogs:

Other great blogs I have found include:

Liza Meyers’ Music Blog: Meyersmusicactivities.blogspot.com

Thom Borden’s Music Blog: thomborden.blogspot.com

In My Music Class: Musicelementary.blogspot.com

Kodály and Orff Music Teacher’s Blog: herdingcatsgeorge.blogspot.com

Folk Song Sites:

These are wonderful websites for searching for and learning new folk songs:

American Folk Song Collection at Holy Names: kodaly.hnu.edu

Andrew’s Master Copies, compiled by my good friend Andrew Ellingsen: http://web.mac.com/eric_andrew/Master_Copies/Welcome.html

Enjoy browsing these great sites! And comment on this post if you know of any others!

I was surprised to learn recently that the Ohio Department of Education had put out a rough draft of new music standards for K-12. I wasn’t aware that a committee had even been working on revising these! My district uses the state standards as our curriculum, so I immediately checked them out. They can be found at:

http://www.ode.state.oh.us/GD/Templates/Pages/ODE/ODEDetail.aspx?page=3&TopicRelationID=1700&ContentID=98202&Content=115464

At first, it seemed overwhelming to try to figure out what had changed and what hadn’t. To help, I created a table for each grade level listing what was the same, what was similar, what was added, and what was taken out. I thought I’d share these for any music teachers in the state of Ohio, so you can quickly see what the tentative changes are. I am attaching these by grade level.

After you check these out, please go to http://survey.education.ohio.gov/se.ashx?s=60DA72702B993CC1 to submit your input, so that your voice is heard!

Kindergarten Standards Comparison

First Grade Standards

Second Grade Standards

Third Grade Standards

Fourth Grade Standards

Fifth Grade Standards

Attached are lesson plan templates for grades K-5. On these templates I include all of the Ohio state standards, and then check off the indicators I have covered in each lesson.

Kindergarten lesson plan

1st grade lesson plan

2nd grade lesson plan

3rd grade lesson plan

4th grade lesson plan

5th grade lesson plan