Afternoon Ti

Season Two Episode 63 Designing Your Conference Experience I just arrived home on Sunday morning from the AOSA National Conference.  This is the annual Orff conference that is held in a different location in the United States each November.  This year it was in Salt Lake City, Utah. I’ve never been to Utah before and loved being able to go somewhere new.  It was gorgeous! In episode 62 I shared ideas for what to pack?  Essentials to bring to conferences. In this episode I’m going to focus on how to choose sessions within the conference as well as how to find time to experience life outside the convention center and take in some of the sights. Let’s face it - there are so many choices in terms of great sessions to attend during conferences.  It can be difficult to figure out which sessions to go to because they all sound amazing. Here are a few ideas for how to choose which sessions to attend: CHOOSING SESSIONS 1- research the presenter if you’re not familiar w

Season Two Episode 62 What Should I Pack?  Essentials to Bring to Conferences I just arrived home yesterday afternoon from the AOSA National Conference.  This is the annual Orff Approach conference that is held in a different location in the United States each November.  I spent time at the Salt Lake City Convention Center the past three days singing, dancing, playing, creating, and taking in the teaching of some of the best educators (my opinion) in the nation.  Each session had at least one take-away, if not more, for ideas that I could use in my classroom with students. If you just returned from the conference, I’d love to hear what you learned, loved, and how you made the most of your time in Utah.  Share on Instagram and tag me @highafternooti - I’d love to hear from you! Since it’s all fresh in my mind, I thought I’d share several ideas about attending conferences, but as I started getting ideas together I realized that the topic of packing alone would take up quite

Season Two Episode 61 Sunday Sip: Thanksgiving Priorities Hello friends and welcome to Sunday Sip on Afternoon Ti.  Each Sunday for the remainder of the year I plan to share a single idea, thought, or meaningful take-away in hopes that you’ll be encouraged and inspired as you prepare to enter the next new week of teaching.  We’ve made it to Thanksgiving break!  Have you considered how you’re going to spend the next week?  I’d encourage you to write down or put together a few ideas of things that you want to make a priority this week. They can be as simple or detailed as you like.  Choose a few priorities and then plan time for them to happen.   My four priorities for my Thanksgiving break are: Take a nap a few days this week - I value my naps and I function well during the week because I take one every weekend.  Yes, every weekend. I push myself hard all week long and on the weekends my body still wakes me up early because it’s used to it, but taking a nap is someth

Season Two Episode 60 Teaching with Laryngitis This last week I taught with little to no voice for several days.  By Thursday I had literally no voice at all and Friday was only somewhat better.  Today as I’m recording this, is the first day I feel like I can talk. Laryngitis isn’t something I’ve gotten for a long time, but once it hit I knew I didn’t want to stay home and with the start of all new classes for the trimester I wanted to be sure that students were learning and that I was there. Here are a few ideas that I used to help me make it through each class while still continuing to teach lessons: 1 - Teach in silence Literally waving and demonstrating everything You can do more than you think without your voice!   Don’t push your voice as it can make things worse. Plan to do things that don’t involve your voice. 2 - Teach movement pieces Teaching body percussion can be simple: do one step at a time Many folk dances, especially large circle

Season Two Episode 59 Sunday Sip: Three Words Hello friends and welcome to Sunday Sip on Afternoon Ti.  Each Sunday for the remainder of the year I plan to share a single idea, thought, or meaningful take-away in hopes that you’ll be encouraged and inspired as you prepare to enter the next new week of teaching.  I recently read the book ‘ The Originals : How Non-conformists move the World’ by Adam Grant .  Highly recommend this book if you haven’t read it yet. I love how Adam weaves stories into lessons and insights into human behavior and ideas.  It’s creative and a fast-paced read. The last chapter of the book is called “Rocking the Boat and Keeping it Steady: Managing anxiety, apathy, ambivalence, and anger.”   The section of this chapter that has stuck with me over the past few weeks after reading it was a story about a college professor who asked students to give a persuasive speech.  Before they gave the speech they were asked to speak one of these phrases out lou

Season Two Episode 58 Ten Singing Canons Canons are some of my favorite pieces to sing with students.  I love the way the harmonies come together. I love how simplistic the pieces can be and how beautiful they become when multiple parts enter.  I’m going to share ten canons that I love. Links to my Master Copies or the Waldorf School Song website for each song will be included in the show notes and in the blog here! Canon One: 1m 15s:  Autumn Canon Canon Two: 2m 25s: COFFEE Canon Three: 3m 20s: Doop Doop Doobe Dee-day Canon Four: 4m 31s: Earth Dance Canon Five: 5m 34s: Fegy Canon Canon Six: 7m 25s:  Let Us Sing Together Canon Seven: 8m 24s: Morning Has Come Canon Eight: 9m 42s: One More Day Canon Nine: 10m 27s: Scotland’s Burning Canon Ten: 11m 28s: When Winter is Passing

Season Two Episode 57 Consider Yourself Hugged Hello friends and welcome to Sunday Sip on Afternoon Ti.  Each Sunday for the remainder of the year I plan to share a single idea, thought, or meaningful take-away in hopes that you’ll be encouraged and inspired as you prepare to enter the next new week of teaching.  Consider this episode a virtual hug from me to you.  We’ve made it through a few months of school already and you might be feeling like you need a hug.  Someone to tell you that it’s going to be okay. That what you’re giving day in and day out matters.  That you matter. One of my all-time favorite administrators that I ever worked under was Linda Humphrey.  She was warm, compassionate, and a wonderful leader. I began working with her after a really hard year of teaching and transition. She brought joy back to teaching for me.  And she always ended her emails with CYH - consider yourself hugged. I knew she meant it too. She was a hugger. She hugged students as

Season Two Episode 56 Merging Kodály and Orff Approaches Each musical approach contains main tenets and ideas about music education and what is best for our students.  Every person behind the approach had the goal of making music accessible, understandable, functional, and life-giving for the students being taught.  The more you learn about musical approaches, the more you find that similarities are greater than the differences. I completed my Orff training in the summer of 2015 and my Kodaly training this past summer in 2019.  I’ve dabbled in some Dalcroze and general music ideas as well, but feel most confident in talking about Orff and Kodaly because I’ve spent hours immersed in learning and experiencing these approaches.  As my Kodaly training ended this summer, I began to look at my lesson plans, sequence, class structure, and overall idea of what a musical experience for students should look like as they go through their time in my classroom.   I feel like there