Field trips can be stressful. You have to coordinate budgets, calendars, and all the people so that the day goes well. As the lead adult in the room you also have to select and coordinate all the other adults helping you chaperone your groups. You know you need to give your chaperons certain things so that the day runs smooth and you want prepared chaperones that your students enjoy, so what do you do?
I have three weeks until I go back to school for inservice and four weeks until I see students again (yikes!). So I’m starting to think about my own classroom setup and what I need to put up on the walls. If you are a new teacher and don’t know what you need then I recommend that you keep reading to gather some ideas.Â
Whether you are looking for your first job or a new job a great resume and cover letter is a must! Your resume is either your very first, or one of your first impressions with your new school, so it has to be good in order to get that interview to make a better impression. That means you need all the correct information in the correct order and formatted in a visually pleasing manner. I’ve gone through the wringer writing my own resume and now I have friends who come to me to help them write resumes because they know mine is really good. I’m going to share all the advice that I have to offer in this post and hopefully your resume will look amazing after reading this blog post.
There are so may ways that Canva can be used by music teachers, or teachers in general. These are just a few of my favorite ways to use Canva in my job and I'm sure that you or I will find even more ways too!
"The Boy, The Mole, The Fox, and the Horse" was recently gifted to me by the mother of a close friend. She is the type of woman who radiates warmth and positivity and who makes you feel like you are being wrapped up in a soft, fuzzy blanket the entire time you are in her presence. She wrote a darling note in this book and I'll be honest, I almost cried when I read it. I held back the tears welling in my eyes because I was at said close friend's house kicking off the summer and I didn't want to be emotional.Â
If you're like me and teach all the things then you definitely have a lot of "inventory" in your classroom. It's taken me well into my third year to figure out how to organize all of my stuff so that I have a more functional classroom, so today I am sharing how I organize all the things so that you hopefully don't take as long as I did to get organized.
So you have a set of rhythm flashcards. When you teach students how to read rhythms you might start with the flashcards and chanting so that students only have to focus on one thing at a time. You only use your flashcards for group sightreading. The students are getting tired of flashcards, you’re getting tired of flashcards. What do you do?Â
If you’re reading this then I bet that you’ve heard of long term planning and want to know more. That was me a few months ago and I came to the conclusion that no matter what I needed a long term plan for each of my classes for the next school year. I teach middle school band, choir, and music history at my school. I knew my first year of teaching performing ensembles at this school that my students would have a very minimal, if any knowledge of music.
Getting your first teaching job is so exciting! If you’re anything like me you had 1,001 thoughts running in your head about all the things you needed and you didn’t know where to start. Pause, take a breath and breathe deeply. If you’ve finished a degree program then there really isn’t a whole lot that… Continue reading What I Wish I Had as a First Year Teacher
I’m officially on summer break and I’ll be honest, I am relieved. As a music teacher, I have concerts to plan and parents to contact about ensembles and all the other end of the year craziness that is part of teaching to begin with. I am also a crazy person and like to have big… Continue reading Summer Break Plans for Teachers
That time of year is finally here! Yes, it’s summer! Well, it is for me anyway. If it isn’t summer when you’re reading this then I hope it becomes summer break very soon for you. Summer break can be a magical time. Teachers can finally take some much needed down time to relax and unwind… Continue reading Summer Self Care for Teachers
Every year it almost feels like a rat race to get a new wave of students interested in joining band, choir, or orchestra. It feels like all the stress is on impressing the young elementary students on your recruitment concert tour. Or maybe you’re a high school director and you’re stressed about making the pep music and the concert band music sound good to get those middle schoolers to become freshmen in your program.Â
'Tis the season! Between spring concerts, adjudicated performances, graduation concerts and everything else, you may have forgotten about recruitment. Or maybe you haven't forgotten about recruitment, but this is one of your first recruitment events that you've put on and you're stressed out. I've got you! This is only my 2nd rodeo, but I learned a lot from my first.
A write the room activity is, at its simplest, where you place a bunch of flashcards, task cards, or something else all around your classroom. Students will take their recording sheet and a clipboard all around the classroom and record their answers for each question. This is supposed to be an easy way for you to asses things like vocabulary or basic reading skills.Â
Teaching our beginners new notes is so important, but also so challenging. If they're brand new then they might still be learning to read a fingering chart and maybe they're still learning which colored in circles mean which finger get pressed down. It's hard. So keep reading and I'm going to tell you my no frills tips for making sure students know their notes and fingerings.
There's so much that you need to know as a beginning ensemble director and if you're a brand new teacher it can also seem very overwhelming. I'm going to give you three tips that I wish I had learned faster as a new teacher and that have honestly helped me stay sane. These three tips… Continue reading Advice for Beginning Ensemble Directors
There’s a whole lot of stuff that goes into being a band director. And the problem with having a whole lot of stuff is knowing what to do with it! My old classroom didn’t have any built-in storage and was quite literally a big box with four crooked walls, so I had to get very creative when it came to storage.
Student recognition is quite literally what it sounds like. It’s praising a student for doing the right thing and making an effort to go above and beyond. I’m not saying to praise students for doing exactly what is expected of them, because I disagree with that too, but I am saying to look for students going the extra mile and make sure that they know you see them and value that.Â
Displaced Pedagogy 