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Questions You Might Ask
Recently, I've seen many comments from music teachers whose administrators are asking them to incorporate other subjects into music lessons. I love arts integration! Today, I am sharing a lesson idea that can incorporate music, art, social studies, and reading.
Have you already discovered the book The Noisy Paintbox by Barb Rosenstock? What potential for a marvelous cross-curricular lesson! Wassily Kandinsky was an important 20th century artist and is known as one of the first to create abstract art. He was a Russian artist who experienced sounds as colors and colors as sounds. How interesting!
Music teachers, especially at the elementary level, have so many students. So Many Names! Learning all those names (and their correct pronunciations) is an important step towards showing respect, building trust, and creating a positive classroom community. But, there is still the huge challenge of actually learning those names.
My experience has been in an elementary school with 500-750 students. The population in my school was very transient, so our numbers varied a lot over the years. The biggest in/out changes came at the end of each quarter. I remember coming back to school one January to find that we had 50 new students and we had lost quite a few as well. Learning names wasn't just something I had to do in August. It was year-round.
We all want our music classrooms to feel warm and inviting. How many of us have taken hours setting up and decorating the music classroom in preparation for that first week of school? My hand is raised!
The first tasks of the class period are often called "Bell Ringers," "Do it Now" tasks, or "Board Work," and serve the purpose of setting the tone for the rest of the class period. When we come in this classroom, we work! Most bell ringers should take about 5 minutes at the beginning of class. While this type of opening task has been common in general classrooms for many years, I have found it useful to use an opening task in my music classrooms.