“Olympic Games” Movement, Art, and Composition Activity for Grades 1 and 2

The Introduction I really enjoy this project with my young learners. We start off the year with it. It gets them listening for form, for steady beat, and gets them moving, arranging, and composing! Using the Olympic Fanfare from Share the Music series I will share with you my process that I use to get …

Making a Floor Staff That Doesn’t Get Picked Off!

So, have you ever had a kid pick off your wonderful floor staff after you taped it down to the floor after hours of back-breaking labour? No, okay so maybe not but have you ever worked hard on a floor staff in September and then by October it is half ripped up? The struggle is …

11 Things a New Music Teacher Should Know About Their First Year

Your First Year Teaching So you landed your first gig as a school music teacher. What now? I went from teaching part time at a very small rural school of 53 students to teaching over 400 students in my second. So essentially, I had two first years. In those years, I experienced a range of …

The Word “Talent” and the Fixed Mindset

Talent I have an issue with the word "Talent." This word completely ignores the fact that kids work hard to hone their innate musical abilities—which every kid has. The excuse is always "I have no musical talent" assuming that musical ability is something that cannot be learned. This happens in all fine and performing arts. …

Music, The “Magical Mystery Skill?”: 4 Reasons Elitism Exists in Music Education

Why is it that musical ability is seen by "non-musicians" as an innate, seemingly magical set of skills that either you have or you don’t? "Non-musicians" throughout this article, will refer to people who do not engage in musical activities outside of listening and may have, for a number of reasons, been turned off from …