Skip to main content

S8: E164 Back to School Organization: Music Edition

Afternoon Ti Podcast

Season Eight

Episode 164

Back to School Organization: Music Edition



Free Afternoon Ti Scope and Sequence Guide!!

Our final summer health series episode is here!  At this point some of you may already be back at school and some of you have a few more weeks of summer remaining.  No matter where you find yourself, this episode is a great pivot point for you for entering back into a teacher mindset.  And hopefully a positive and hopeful one.  In thinking about returning back to the classroom, here are five things that you can use as a starting place to start off the year:


  1. Knowing what you can and can’t do this year (Singing?  Masks?  Social distancing?) If you have your schedule for the year, think about how you’d like to structure planning time, seating chart arrangements (do students need to be 3-6 ft apart, can you sing, will they be masked… etc…)


  2. Scope and Sequence

Where are your students at?  You may need to adjust where you start and that’s okay.

Monthly charts are great for this.  Mapping out the concepts you want students to learn based on month.  Think about rhythmic and melodic content.  Then fill in specific material that you’ll use to teach the concepts. Click here for your free Afternoon Ti Scope and Sequence Guide.


  1. Materials for the first class or even first week

  1. Pre-assessment for each grade level (could be an echo song to identify pitch matching, rhythm activity to assess coordination of speaking and performing rhythms, google form of musical terms and symbols to demonstrate recognition, sight-reading activity, game)

  2. Expectations and procedures - this will be based on what you can do in the classroom (social distancing, masks, etc)

  3. Choose a place to begin.  Something that you can start with and then modify from there.  Select material from last year that is familiar to students.  Gauge what they remember.  

  4. Put together some kind of structure for your lessons.  An opening song or a closing activity.  A flow for what will be done over a class period.  I always find it takes me a bit to figure out how each class moves through material and how much material to plan.


  1. Musical Preparations for your materials being presented (manipulatives, Powerpoints, vocal pieces,…) Do you need to create manipulatives?  Powerpoints?  Google Slides?  Examine octavos?

Decide what manipulatives you want to buy and get them - if you don’t love them, don’t buy them (if you aren’t certain, err to the side of caution and don’t get them)  example//Pop-it fidget toys - knew these would work fantastically with my fifth graders for assessment of note values, creating ostinato patterns, and hands-on tools that are easy to clean and pass out/take in.  Keep in mind the organization piece of a place where these items will live and function.


  1. Assess your anxieties, your hopes, and your reality

Nerves return… what are you nervous or anxious about?

Hope returns… what are you hopeful about?  What are you excited to try?

Reality returns… what is possible?  What can you handle?  How do you want to set the tone in your classroom? You do not need to be an overachiever in making everything unbelievably amazing.  Be realistic.  Do what you can with what you have.  Let your good be enough.


Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

S4: E107 Active Listening Through Storytelling and Classical Music with Robert Franz

Season Four Episode 107 Active Listening with Robert Franz Robert Franz Website Stella's Magical Musical Balloon Ride Ted Talk: Active Listening and Our Perception of Time Robert Franz Bio: Acclaimed conductor, Robert Franz, recognized as "an outstanding musician with profound intelligence," has held to three principles throughout his career: a commitment to the highest artistic standards, to creating alliances and building bridges in each community he serves, and a dedication to being a strong force in music education.  As Music Director of the Windsor Symphony Orchestra and Fairbanks Summer Arts Festival Orchestra, Associate Conductor of the Houston Symphony, and newly appointed Artistic Advisor of the Boise Baroque Orchestra, he has achieved success through his focus on each of these principles. His appeal as a first-rate conductor and enthusiastic award-winning educator is acclaimed by critics, composers, and audiences of all ages.  Composer Bright S
Post a Comment
Read more

Recorder: What to do with Hot Cross Buns

Hot Cross Buns... it might be the bane of your existence, a song to start with students with B-A-G on the recorders that really doesn't affect you one way or the other, or a great song to use that is simplistic and gets the job done.  No matter what your feeling on it, it's likely that you've used it because it is effective at teaching simple rhythms, B-A-G and giving students a great starting place when learning recorder.  Personally, I find it useful but I'm honestly tired of it.  I decided to do something new with it this summer and wanted to change it so that it was more musical.  For many days of my summer break I spent time in the morning playing the recorder.  I wrote down melodies I had improvised and liked, played with modes and scales, added unpitched percussion parts/piano/guitar chords and enjoyed seeing what could be done.  Not all of the pieces were very good but it was a great creative way to figure out some solutions for recorder pitch sets, rhythms an
Post a Comment
Read more

S6: E127 Mini Soundtrap Project

 Season 6 Episode 127 Mini Soundtrap Project In the last few episodes I’ve shared some Soundtrap lesson ideas that I created and used with students.  Podcasts, Fictional Character Themes, Found Sounds, and Poem with Loops.  Check out the resources provided for each of these lessons in the show notes or on the blog. Today’s episode is about a simple Soundtrap project that could be done as a collaboration by several students or by an individual in whatever time frame you provide.  The benefit of this lesson is that it’s incredibly flexible.  It could be done in as little as 20 minutes or as much as 45 minutes or more.  The idea is to allow students to create a piece containing a specific amount of loops that includes an introduction and ending.  Like I said super simple.  This might be a great way to introduce students to loops and even form structure depending on how you set up your rubric.   This was a lesson I used while I was out this past week and needed something that a substitu
2 comments
Read more