Afternoon Ti

Afternoon Ti Season 8 Episode 154 I’m so happy to be back with you after a month off.  As April was ending I was burning out fast.  There were a lot of things that hit all at once and I knew that in order to finish the school year I needed to step back from all the extras.  Around mid-April I broke my left radius on a hiking trip and was in a cast.  This added a whole new element to teaching on a cart.  My wedding rings were lost on the same trip and never found.  My coworker passed away from brain cancer at the age of 33 towards the end of April and then Julia’s soccer coach passed away in a golf cart accident ten days later.  Walking alongside our youngest daughter as she mourned her amazing coach was hard.  Grief always is.  All of this led up to needing time spent focused on my family, my students, and the bare essentials. This episode is broken down into three topics with three answers for each one:  What I learned on my month ‘of...

 Season 7 Episode 153 Hold that Fermata   I'm taking the month of May off to focus on family, friends, my personal physical health, and ending the year the best I can at school.  Looking forward to sharing more content in June!

Season Seven Episode 152 Curriculum Design with Nyssa Brown Part II Nyssa Brown is an international music education consultant with Music Ed Forward. Nyssa specializes in empowering educators to design curriculum that is inquiry-based, conceptual, and community-specific. She has facilitated student learning for 20+ years, in addition to presenting and consulting with teachers from six continents. Nyssa was one of ten finalists for 2004 Minnesota Teacher of the Year and received a prestigious Milken Educator Award in 2004 from the Milken Family Foundation. Nyssa served as a Grade 3-5 sub-committee member in the development of the National Core Arts Standards. She empowers educators to envision what is possible in music education. FREEBIE!! The Ultimate Curriculum Design Toolkit.  Click here to get your copy! Website:   Music Ed Forward MusicEd Forward Podcast Understanding by Design Model by Jay McTighe and Grant Wiggins

 Season Seven Episode 151 Curriculum Design with Nyssa Brown Part I Nyssa Brown is an international music education consultant with Music Ed Forward. Nyssa specializes in empowering educators to design curriculum that is inquiry-based, conceptual, and community-specific. She has facilitated student learning for 20+ years, in addition to presenting and consulting with teachers from six continents. Nyssa was one of ten finalists for 2004 Minnesota Teacher of the Year and received a prestigious Milken Educator Award in 2004 from the Milken Family Foundation. Nyssa served as a Grade 3-5 sub-committee member in the development of the National Core Arts Standards. She empowers educators to envision what is possible in music education. FREEBIE!! The Ultimate Curriculum Design Toolkit.  Click here to get your copy! Website:   Music Ed Forward MusicEd Forward Podcast Understanding by Design Model by Jay McTighe and Grant Wiggins

 Season Seven Episode 150 Virtual Xylophones with Brent Geyer Vandercook FREE Zoom Music Webinar - Brent is presenting one on Virtual Xylophones using Scratch on Thursday, April 29!  Sign up here ! Brent Geyer has been teaching in the Westfield Public Schools since 2007 as both a general vocal music teacher for grades 1-5 and a strings specialist. During this time he has directed the All City Orchestra and All City Chorus and also directs the high school Men's Chorus. Brent's 5th grade choirs have sung with the NJ Festival Orchestra and were chosen twice to be aired on NJ 101.5 for their Christmas Choir contest, in which they won first place in 2015. Brent holds both a Bachelors in Music Education and Piano Performance from West Chester University, a Masters in Music Education from the University of the Arts, and completed his Orff levels at Villanova. He is also the creator of the virtual xylophones found on the coding site Scratch. On the American Orff Schulwerk Teacher Gr...

 Season Seven Episode 149 Five Priorities for Maintaining Energy and Effective Teaching for the Remainder of the Year This past Saturday I took my daughter to an outdoor party at a park.  It can be an interesting place to be in when you’re the parent of a student at the same school where you teach.  It’s a blessing for sure.  And it comes with it’s challenges too.  You want to be professional, honest but not divulging everything happening at school and oversharing, but also authentically yourself.  Two of the moms were standing around and one of them asked me if I was ready for summer.  I stopped and thought for a moment.  If I say yes, am I too eager to be done with this year?  If I say no, I’m not being completely honest.  How do I phrase it just right so that they know that I love what I do (because I do), but that I’m also tired and worn out and feeling this year’s stuff just like everyone else?  It took a little bit and then...

Season Seven Episode 147 Self-Care with Beth Duhon Part I Resource  for Self-Reflection  Self-care is a buzzword we hear everywhere.  The way we take care of ourselves and others affects our everyday life and I love the ideas that music educator Beth Duhon shares with us today.  There were so many ideas for self-care shared so our talk is broken into two episodes.  Today you’ll hear us touch on the acronym MAP and self-care ideas for professional and personal aspects, the difference between self-care and self-soothing, ideas for meal planning and reminders for giving yourself grace along the way.  About Beth Duhon : Beth Duhon is, to borrow Tracy King’s phrase, the K-5 “ambassador of joy” at Travis Elementary in Rosenberg, TX.  This is her fifth year teaching in Lamar Consolidated ISD.  She has received over $14,000 in classroom grants for a keyboard lab, iPads, and music manipulatives in addition to regularly receiving travel grants for music ...

Season Seven Episode 148 Self-Care with Beth Duhon Part II Resource  for Self-Reflection  Self-care is a buzzword we hear everywhere.  The way we take care of ourselves and others affects our everyday life and I love the ideas that music educator Beth Duhon shares with us today.  There were so many ideas for self-care shared so our talk is broken into two episodes.  In episode 147 we touched on the acronym MAP and self-care ideas for professional and personal aspects, the difference between self-care and self-soothing, ideas for meal planning and reminders for giving yourself grace along the way.  In this episode we are talking about vocal fatigue, how to get movement into your day and why it can make a difference, and comparison - also known as the thief of our joy - and how to stay in our lane. About Beth Duhon : Beth Duhon is, to borrow Tracy King’s phrase, the K-5 “ambassador of joy” at Travis Elementary in Rosenberg, TX.  This is her fifth year...

 Season Seven Episode 146 A Tween's Perspective of Covid:  Julia's Story This episode is a talk between my daughter Julia and I.  We just passed the one year mark of Covid arriving into our everyday lives and I wanted to give each of our girls the opportunity to share about their experiences and memories during this season.  If you want to do something similar with your family, here are the questions and topics we focused on: 1. Our last 'normal' day.  March 11, 2020.  Last day of school.  What do you remember about that day. 2. What was hard about the spring of 2020? 3. What made it better? 4. What do you remember about summer? 5. What has this school year been like? 6.  What do you want to remember about this time?

Season Seven Episode 145 A Teen's Perspective of Covid:  Riley's Story This episode is a talk between my daughter Riley and I.  We just passed the one year mark of Covid arriving into our everyday lives and I wanted to give each of our girls the opportunity to share about their experiences and memories during this season.  If you want to do something similar with your family, here are the questions and topics we focused on: 1. Our last 'normal' day.  March 11, 2020.  Last day of school.  What do you remember about that day. 2. What was hard about the spring of 2020? 3. What made it better? 4. What do you remember about summer? 5. What has this school year been like? 6.  What do you want to remember about this time?