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Organization

Home Organization
Get a few quick and easy tips to keep your bulletin board borders organized!
December 6, 2014

Bulletin Board Borders – ORGANIZED!!

I was working on a bulletin board recently and was frustrated with how all my bulletin board borders and extras were stored.  I was looking for one more piece of the colorful star borders but I just couldn’t find it.  It looked like the borders had exploded.  Those little colorful […]
This blog post gives you ideas and suggestions to make an instrument petting zoo work for your open house or parent teacher conference.
October 23, 2014

Instrument Petting Zoo!  Parent Teacher Conference Day Win!

Parent teacher conference days are always a struggle for me.  I have 500 students and theoretically I could have 500 kiddos and their parents running into my room to ask about grades and standards and concerts.  But that has never really happened.  I’m usually lucky if 10 of those 500 […]
Here are some tips and tricks to help students remember their right from their left.
October 13, 2014

Right and Left – Helping Kids Remember

Every chance that I can, I use little phrases or hand signals to save time.  I try and do everything I can do to streamline my instruction so that I don’t have to reexplain or go back and reteach. I only get 25 minutes twice a week with my kids […]
Ideas to make your music room comfy, cozy, and a great place to learn!
September 6, 2014

A Little Ambiance – Music Room Elements

In the last couple of weeks I’ve seen lots of posts on Facebook groups about room setup with some pretty amazing pictures of people’s elementary music rooms.   I love looking through those pictures because it’s such a fantastic and simple way to see into someone’s teaching space.  It helps […]
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

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 […]
I want to talk to you about one of the things that’s been in my head this summer as I plan for the new year: assessment.
June 6, 2014

Perfect Poolside Planning – Thinking About Next Year

No teacher every shuts off their “teacher” brain.  Not really.  We’re always thinking about what could change or what great things we want to improve on.  In the summer I like to think ahead to the new school year and also reflect back on the previous year.  What did I […]
Orff instrument stands
May 2, 2014

DIY Orff Instrument Stands

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 […]
April 11, 2014

Substitute Teacher Report

Creating plans for a substitute teacher is hard!  Whenever I have to take a day off from school I feel like I make plans on plans on plans.  Do you ever feel like you spend a whole day just planning for the substitute and then get a post-it note the […]
April 1, 2014

Recorder Tricks and Tidbits #1

So, my first year teaching I hated teaching recorder.  It was so much work and so much logistical planning and so much stress.  It took some time, research, and planning to make it fun.  Now I really like playing and teaching recorder.  Here are some little tips I’ve picked up […]
Five awesome things I found on Pinterest this month!
March 23, 2014

Five Favorite Pins of March – 2014

I will admit, I spend a lot of time on Pinterest browsing ideas, getting inspiration, and seeing how other teachers decorate and plan for teaching.  Pinterest can be a really great tool to help you plan for your own classroom and inspire you to try new things.  Why not share […]
February 8, 2014

The Recorder Briefcase!

At my school students buy their own recorders and are encouraged to take them home to practice and play.  That means that after music they have to take their recorders back to their classroom and put them in their backpacks to take them home.  The question arose:  How can we […]
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

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 […]
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