3-5 Primary School |

Note-Cards: A Musical Matching Game

Have your cake and eat it too, with this fun and educational card game. Players will be exposed to & learn about various notes, rest, clefs, and other musical symbols. Based on the classic line of Crazy 8’s (UNO) card games, this version has slightly altered (yet intuitive) rules that reflect the nature of the…

Puerto Rico: Rhythm & Culture

Puerto Rico has been coming up in the news a lot lately. A US Territory, that has been absolutely devastated by Hurricane Maria, but there is more to the country than what we hear in the news. My school has a large Puerto Rican population and so I wanted to share and celebrate their rich and diverse…

Google Doodle: Oskar Fischinger

Happy 117th birthday to the visionary artist Oskar Fischinger. Oskar was a German-American abstract animator, filmmaker, and painter, notable for creating abstract musical animation many decades before the appearance of computer graphics and music videos. In this amazing interactive doodle it lets you not only create music but also art in real-time. It’s…

Musician Reports: An Interdisciplinary Hands-on Research Project

A fantastic month long project that combines local musicians and gen-ed social studies standards in a fun and innovative way. Working with classroom teachers, together we were able to reinforce the material learned in their classes while making it relevant by tying in popular musicians the students loved. Through a detailed step by step process we researched, created,…

MCA Creation Lab: A FREE Field Trip!

The Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) in Chicago offers up to 5 free field trips per school per year. I took my middle school music class to one of their creation labs, where students worked directly with one of the museum’s resident artists to hone their creative skills. Here’s my thoughts on the trip and how…

5 Ways to get your Students up & Dancing!

Movement in the classroom is almost universally praised these days. It appeals to a wide variety of learning styles, helps kids stay motivated and engaged, and helps them focus on and retain information. The Atlantic even called movement “essential” for young learners. So how soon can you start incorporating it into your classroom? Here are 5 tips to get…

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

March 17th is St. Patrick’s Day and if you’re not from Chicago it’s a big deal here! For starters we didn’t have school that day, and also the city dyes the Chicago River green! In grades K – 4th we spent the last 2 weeks focusing on not just fun Irish songs and dances, but…

Empathy through Music: Listening Activity

Here are 10 short musical clips. Listen to think and think about what the composer might have been feeling when they wrote it. Can you empathize with their emotions by listening to their music?

Tall Tales & Rails: John Henry – a Musical History Unit

John Henry is an American Folk Legend and is the perfect entry point into topics like “Tall Tales” and “the American Railroad.” Students will love learning about these topics through musical & rhythm activities, engaging videos, and easy to use printables. So all aboard for the this amazing American tall tale!

The Best of 2016: A Musical Year in Review

As 2016 draws to a close and we start anew with 2017, let’s take a look back at some of the most popular songs of the year. If Justin Timberlake’s smash hit, “Can’t Stop the Feeling” dominated the sales, iHeart Memphis’ “Lean & Dab” dominated my school.