Rejecting Common Narratives This last minute music teacher gift guide may be different than what you're thinking. Since transitioning to working at F-flat Books on a more full-time basis, I've been planning out our blog content months in advance. This week, I scheduled a post about our top [...]
Change and Growth I'm back. It has been a while. Last year, I switched schools after teaching at Westwood Primary for ten years. Change is necessary for growth, but it was not an easy year. Less time was available for blogging and sharing, but I am hopeful to [...]
I spent the first four years of my teaching career with zero instruments for my high school general music class. We had nothing, and I was told there was no budget for my class. I tried to make the best of it by gathering all of the "leftovers" [...]
If you’ve read this blog before, you know that I’m a fan of Nate Holder’s work. In 2020, I reviewed his book, Why is my piano Black and White? Since the release of that work, he has written many other books and has even adapted Where are all [...]
No doubts about it -- fall is my favorite season to be an early childhood music teacher and music therapist. I love the themes: bats, monsters, spiders, leaves, pumpkins, apples, candy... the possibilities are endless! To celebrate the release of my Halloween children’s book, The Shy Little Monster, [...]
Re-Igniting the Spark Take a moment to think back to your undergraduate college experience. (Perhaps that was only a few months ago, or perhaps you have to reach back a bit more to access this season.) Either way, I would venture to assume that for many of us, [...]
A Music Teacher’s Guide to Soundtrap Like all good broke college students, I have a very old laptop - almost 7 years old in fact. It’s very possible that my MacBook Pro has been running on the same software update for as long as I’ve been able [...]
I have roughly 200 playlists in my Apple Music library. Not the algorithmic ones that our benevolent tech overlords provide for us - my very own creations. 200 of them. Perhaps that’s more than any sane human should have. Most of them are for me. Some are [...]
The Gut Level Teacher Reflection At the end of the 2021 year, a social worker in my district passed along this article about the Gut Level Teacher Reflection. Reflection has always been a part of my life journey. It helps me pause and process my actions and [...]
Today’s Topic: Culturally responsive teaching with exit tickets (fostering joy) Today’s Tip: Utilize daily exit tickets for qualitative data that informs your practice. Exit tickets work! Since the pandemic started, I have been using exit tickets to gauge student engagement and understanding. It started as a [...]