So in the last few months, I have heard a lot about interactive notebooks in the grade-level classroom. Out of curiosity, I clicked on a few listings on Teachers Pay Teachers to check them out. I found math and language arts notebooks, and thought, "Eh, I don't think this could be adapted for the music classroom." Let's face it, we get so little time with them as it is, how would we have time for notebooks too? Then a few weeks ago, I found this blog post on the TpT site, through the newsletter, and again read it out of curiosity. There were some interesting points about how using notebooks helps deepen understanding and makes the learning individual to each student, so I again pondered what that might look like in the music classroom. With as much active music making I want for my students, I can see it being hard to work in notebooks--especially with the cutting and pasting involved--but I reasoned that if the notebooks weren't used every time that they could ......

So in the last few months, I have heard a lot about interactive notebooks in the grade-level classroom. Out of curiosity, I clicked on a few listings on Teachers Pay Teachers to check them out. I found math and language arts notebooks, and thought, "Eh, I don't think this could be adapted for the music classroom." Let's face it, we get so little time with them as it is, how would we have time for notebooks too? Then a few weeks ago, I found this blog post on the TpT site, through the newsletter, and again read it out of curiosity. There were some interesting points about how using notebooks helps deepen understanding and makes the learning individual to each student, so I again pondered what that might look like in the music classroom. With as much active music making I want for my students, I can see it being hard to work in notebooks--especially with the cutting and pasting involved--but I reasoned that if the notebooks weren't used every time that they could ......

This past summer, I was fortunate enough to take a class through my district about making thinking visible. We use the word "think" a lot, but it wasn't until this class that I really thought about what thinking means! While I'm not an expert in the area of making thinking visible, I'm going to write about a discussion I had with my first and second graders that I found very insightful. When I took this course, I read the book "Making Thinking Visible." The book can be viewed on Amazon by clicking on the picture below. It is a wonderful read! While I read many of the routines and strategies in the book, I was both excited by the possibilities and worried about how I would find the time to have meaningful discussions. So many music teachers try to fill the time we have with our students with engaging activities, with singing, playing, dancing, etc., and we STILL don't feel like we have time for everything we need to teach! How would I have these conve......

This past summer, I was fortunate enough to take a class through my district about making thinking visible. We use the word "think" a lot, but it wasn't until this class that I really thought about what thinking means! While I'm not an expert in the area of making thinking visible, I'm going to write about a discussion I had with my first and second graders that I found very insightful. When I took this course, I read the book "Making Thinking Visible." The book can be viewed on Amazon by clicking on the picture below. It is a wonderful read! While I read many of the routines and strategies in the book, I was both excited by the possibilities and worried about how I would find the time to have meaningful discussions. So many music teachers try to fill the time we have with our students with engaging activities, with singing, playing, dancing, etc., and we STILL don't feel like we have time for everything we need to teach! How would I have these conve......

One of the wonderful things about blogging is meeting other educators from around the country (and sometimes, around the world!) It's great to be able to read other people's perspectives and to connect with other music teachers. David from Kansas is one of those teachers; he has a great blog at makemomentsmatter.weebly.com . He was actually inspired by an article I pinned on Pinterest about things you should say to students , and started a linky party called the "Listen to Myself Challenge." David encouraged other music bloggers to blog about what we hear ourselves saying, what words/phrases we want to add to our teaching vocabulary, or what we've learned about what  we're saying. I love this idea, and will write about four things I'd like to ask students and one thing I will listen for. Here goes! #1: "What did you do this weekend?" At my current school, I teach about 500 students. With this many students, it can be a challenge to get to know t......

As we approach the end of the school year, I often look at my grade-level indicators at what I wasn't able to cover, or what I wish I had delved into more. It would be wonderful to say we could get to everything, but with music only twice a week for thirty-five minutes, that can be quite the difficult task! One of the benefits about being a music teacher is that unlike classroom teachers, if we need to slow our pace down when we realize that students need more practice, we can without having to worry about how it might impact standardized tests. If we don't get to every single concept we had planned to, then we know where we left off and can teach them that concept the next year. (Unless, of course, you are a traveling music teacher and only have one grade level at a building!) So this year, I looked at my fifth grade state of Ohio music indicators, and realized I hadn't really touched upon the indicator, "Develop and apply criteria for critiquing more complex performa......

As we approach the end of the school year, I often look at my grade-level indicators at what I wasn't able to cover, or what I wish I had delved into more. It would be wonderful to say we could get to everything, but with music only twice a week for thirty-five minutes, that can be quite the difficult task! One of the benefits about being a music teacher is that unlike classroom teachers, if we need to slow our pace down when we realize that students need more practice, we can without having to worry about how it might impact standardized tests. If we don't get to every single concept we had planned to, then we know where we left off and can teach them that concept the next year. (Unless, of course, you are a traveling music teacher and only have one grade level at a building!) So this year, I looked at my fifth grade state of Ohio music indicators, and realized I hadn't really touched upon the indicator, "Develop and apply criteria for critiquing more complex performa......