Buzz, Ollie, Luke, and Lori

I see my students once a week for 50 minutes. Yes, even kindergarten! There have been some recent conversations on a Facebook Music Teacher board concerning lesson planning when you have kindergarteners for an extended time. This post will share a few of my tips when lesson planning for kindergarten.

I usually try to plan 3 different activities for my kindergarten classes in order to keep their 

The Remarkable Farkle McBride

I teach this book every year to my second graders, but I have also used it as an emergency lesson for a substitute teacher for any grade level. If you are not familiar with the book, you can browse a few of the pages on Amazon.

My musical goal for this book is to introduce or review the instrument families. This book is very well written. The words naturally fall into a rhythmic beat with a

Tour My Classroom

Tomorrow is the first day of school. The kids are coming! I took pictures of my classroom before it gets disturbed by the chaos of the school year.

This is the view standing in the doorway. The students always enter and sit around the edge of the carpets in a circle.







You can see most of my instrumentarium stays set up at all times and is readily available. The glockenspiels are kept on

Once Upon a Musical Pair

As we are approaching the end of the summer, I thought some of you may be examining your wishlists and ordering new materials for your classroom. I thought I would share some recommendations.

I absolutely love these 2 books:





"Once Upon a Folk Tale" and "Once Upon a Mountain Tale" by Linda Rockwell High and Carol Kindt. 

They are each $14.50 at westmusic.com. They are each $15.95 at

Great Writers (Series I)

Great Russian Writers

Fyodor Dostoevsky

1. The Brothers Karamazov (mirror)
2. Crime and Punishment (mirror)
3. The Idiot (mirror)
4. Notes from the Underground (pdf) (e-book) (Palm) (mirror pdf)
5. The Little Orphan
6. Poor Folk
7. The Crocodile
8. The Double
9. The Gambler
10. A Gentle Spirit
11. The Grand Inquisitor
12. The Possessed
13. The Dream Of a Ridiculous Man
14. The Insulted and Injured

Leo Tolstoy

1. War and Peace (mirror1)
2. Anna Karenina
3. The Kreutzer Sonata and Other Stories
4. Twenty-Three Tales (mirror)
5. Exiled to Siberia
6. Reminiscences of Tolstoy
7. Forged Coupon And Other Stories
8. Childhood
9. Boyhood
10. Family Happiness
11. The Cossacks
12. The Death of Ivan Ilych
13. The Kreutzer Sonata
14. The Devil
15. Master and Man
16. Father Sergius
17. The Forged Coupon
18. Hadji Murad
19. Ivan the Fool (mirror: LIT)
20. What I Believe
21. The Kingdom of God is Within You

Ivan Turgenev

1. A House of Gentlefolk
2. Fathers and Children
3. The Jew And Other Stories
4. On the Eve
5. Visions--A Phantasy
6. The Living Mummy
7. Desperate

Anton Chekhov

1. "Sleepy-Eye"
2. The Party
3. Mire
4. The Black Monk
5. The Grasshopper
6. My life, and other stories
7. Plays
8. The party, and other stories
9. The darling, and other stories
10. A bear
11. The lady with the dog, and other stories
12. The bishop, and other stories
13. Two plays by Tchekhof : the Seagull, the Cherry orchard