The Power of Tonic

I'm just sharing an amazing video that I pinned months ago. During lesson planning with my student teacher, this video came to my mind. I found it on my Pinterest board and watched it again. Take a look at the video below:




It still blows my mind. I can't wait to incorporate these activities with my younger classes, perhaps in the first or last 5 minutes of the class. Many of you know I am

Leap Back Home to Me

I love using children's literature in the classroom. Last spring, when browsing the book fair, this book immediately caught my attention. The title, "Leap Back Home to Me," made me think of how we call the pitch "do" home base. A few weeks ago, this book was used in a second grade lesson to introduce melodic improvisation, phrasing, and ending a phrase on "do."



Even though I had been

Flipchart Download: Welcome Back Class

For several years, I have used this unit with my 4th and 5th graders to review the musical elements, notation, and get them ready for the school year. I have recently uploaded the flipchart to Promethean Planet, but you could totally teach this lesson even if you did not have an interactive white board. (I taught this unit for a couple years before we ever had this technology!) A few of the

Interactive Music Flipcharts

In May, I blogged about Technology In the Music Classroom. I talked about many wonderful tools we acquired during a construction renovation, including the interactive white boards. We have Promethean ActivBoards which run on ActivInspire Software. In this post, I will share some flipcharts that I have submitted to Promethean Planet and are available for free download. There are brief