Orff Schulwerk Archives - Make Moments Matter

Teaching students how to take off and put bars on your percussion instruments.

August 23, 2014

Bars On, Bars Off – Learning How to Set the Instruments Correctly

Classroom Ideas

I love using my barred percussion/Orff instruments and I love when students feel proficient playing accompaniments, tapping out melodic patterns, and especially improvising! What I love ALMOST as much is when students feel good about the procedures of how to hold mallets, how to stand at the instruments, how to […]

August 21, 2014

Orff to see the Wizard, Kodaly borrow your ruby slippers?

Classroom Ideas

One of the things that I love about being a music educator is that there are a ton of ways to teach music to children. Some of us dwell on rhythm, drums, percussion instruments, and improvisation. Some people spend the bulk of their time sitting around a guitar or a […]

May 2, 2014

DIY Orff Instrument Stands

Classroom Ideas

Through the blessings of so many people, I have been able to really build up the number of barred percussion “Orff” instruments in my classroom. When I came to this school we had two soprano metallophones and a bass xylophone and now there are nearly 14 instruments of all different […]

Create your own xylophone visual out of foam core and check out this blog post for instructions on how I did it!

January 30, 2014

DIY Xylophone Visual

Classroom Ideas

It all started out with the idea that I wanted a large xylophone visual to show students how to set up their barred percussion instruments for playing and singing in class. I needed a quick and easy way to display what their own instrument should look like – something they […]

A homemade cart for barred percussion instruments.

November 23, 2013

DIY Orff Carts – Get those bass instruments moving!

Classroom Ideas

So, I’ve got three amazing bass barred percussion instruments in my room. Two bass xylophones and a bass metallophone. I love them for the timbre they bring and kids love playing them because they’re “the hugest ones!” All in all, these instruments are fantastic… but they’re not fantastic to move […]