Afternoon Ti

 Season Six Episode 117 Making Music with Bill Henry and Bill Fite Bill Henry:  Bill Henry has been teaching elementary music for over a decade and recent Teacher of the Year nominee for Cecil County Public Schools. Bill also provides instruction privately and is the creator of the Online Piano Program for Kids called Rockin' the Keys. Bruce Fite:  Award-winning singer/songwriter, author, and podcaster Bruce Fite lives in Nottingham, PA with his beautiful wife and four children. He has been writing music and performing concerts for kids and families for the last 15 years. Bruce writes and performs three main genres of music: Christian Family, Educational, and Parody. His songs are heard weekly on The Kids Cookie Break on 90.3 FM, Lancaster, PA. One of Bruce’s Toilet Paper Hoarding parodies has almost 100,000 views on Facebook.  Bruce has been teaching elementary general music for over 20 years. He also tunes pianos an

 Season Six Episode 115 No Singing. No Instruments. Then What? What we are able to do with students in our classrooms this fall keeps changing.  I feel like the more I learn, the more questions I have.  And the answer we’re likely to get is ‘I don’t know’ because truly no one knows. A major change this year is that singing and playing instruments in many schools will not be able to be done as usual.  And of course in the music classroom this is a lot of what we do!  But it’s not the only thing we do.  And there is still much that we have available to give our students so that they can have the best music learning experience possible even with the limitations. One of the things I did earlier this summer was make a list of the things I can do in the classroom.  This was extremely helpful.  If you’re feeling overwhelmed with knowing where to begin, this was the task that allowed me to start.  It places the emphasis on the positive and gives you ideas for possibilities.  I talk about th

 Season Six Episode 116 First Day Back Today on Afternoon Ti I am giving you a rundown of how my first day back to school went and a few things you can expect as you return as well as some encouragement for what helped me in my frustrating and overwhelmed moments. Frustrations and overwhelming moments my first day back: I couldn’t figure out my place.  My stuff is one room, but I’m going to be working in another room. I didn’t have my process down like usual and I felt unable to know my next step to prepare Hearing information that contradicted what I had expected or thought I’d understood Figuring out where I belong Encouragement: Being with colleagues Helping each other Getting out of the school for lunch Finding the good Listening to The Lazy Genius Podcast on the way to and from work…love Kendra’s spunk Spending time with my girls at lunch and seeing that they are doing okay Theme for the year:  All in… because as Lori said with us, what else are we going to do?  And we were all

Season 6 Episode 114 Nine Tech Tools I Plan to Use This Year Online.  Hybrid.  In-person.  No matter what your teaching situation technology is bound to be a part of it.  I’ve put together a list of nine tech tools that I’ve either used successfully or am beginning to use that I think might be beneficial for you as well.  All of our situations are different and I hope that at least one tool will spark interest for you. 1 - Screencastify/Screencastomatic : https://www.screencastify.com/ Create videos of your screen or of yourself or both!  All you need is a computer or laptop.  Great way to teach content and to allow students to learn from you. 2 - Pear Deck : https://www.peardeck.com/ Formative assessment Real-time interaction and responses Works alongside Google Slides Customize interactive prompts during presentations Free Version includes: ready-to-teach templates, keeping students in-sync with locks and timers, help with controlling pact of class and project student answers anon

Season Five Episode 113 Re-Entry We are right around the corner of returning back to school for the new year.  And it’s made me think about two things:  how I returned back to my normal life after my summer levels courses and how a space shuttle reenters earth’s atmosphere after being out in space. Comparisons: A) Reentry to normal life after a levels course B) How space shuttles reenter earth’s atmosphere - you’ve left the place you’re comfortable and you experienced online teaching and now you’re returning to the place you’ve always been comfortable, but it’s going to be new and it won’t just go back to how it’s always been. So how can we re-enter the teaching world? 1 - Identify the things that are pulling you down fast   Mindset Frustrations 2 -Identify what is causing friction What is it that’s making it hard for you as you face going back? 3 - Picking the right corridor  Full speed ahead Tentative Unsure where to start 4 - Giving yourself time to acclimate Realizing that we’re