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Announcing a New Partnership with Sound Thinking Interactive!

Wow, am I excited to share my news with you! We at Beth’s Notes have become partners with Sound Thinking Interactive, a sequential, research-based curriculum which gives you the tools you need to teach fun, engaging lessons. Are you a ...

Copyright Laws: How Much Do You Know?

In honor of today’s ruling (September 22, 2015) by a federal judge, who lifted the copyright from “Happy Birthday to You” (read about it here), let’s talk copyright laws (U.S. only)! Not fun, I know, but if you read all ...

Instruments in Class: Tips & Tricks

“Me, me, me! It’s MY turn!” Have you heard that a million times? Instruments are so fun to play! Here are some tips and tricks I’ve used when using instruments in the classroom. Before they play I mention the rules OVER and ...

Classroom Instruments

Babies / Toddlers I did not add recommended quantities, since it depends on how many students you have… one or two of each of the instruments, enough so each child gets something. My faves: Early Childhood Children ages 2 to ...

Quality Singing

Articles Why We Sing Singing and the Standards Quotes to Inspire Music Making Now let’s talk about the quality of singing we should be fostering. In short, we must be teaching students to sing in their head voices. If you are unsure of the difference ...

Singing and the Standards

Are you convinced singing is super important? Beneficial? Crucial? If not, read yesterday’s post. Now, how do you convince others (administrators, parents, students, etc) of the importance of singing? We do not need to conform to the pencil/paper culture of other ...

Why We Sing

Sing! Sing! Sing! It is so important to our health, our self-esteem, our sense of community, etc. We need to be reminded and need to remind others. Our voices are instruments we carry around with us at all times. We ...

Liebster Award

Thank you to a few lovely music teachers, for nominating me for the Liebster Award! – Emily has a great blog (Emily’s Kodaly Music) with Kodaly resources for the elementary classroom. Her post on what to teach when you lose ...

Hands-On Music!

Lesson-Writing ideas It’s always a good reminder to include more music-making activities than music-explaining lecturing in our classrooms. More: Singing Moving Playing instruments Improvising Composing Make a goal for yourself to include 3 of the above activities in each lesson. Less: ...

State Songs Review

Wow, what a crazy excursion: researching the state songs around the US! Here are some things I learned – and some of my faves. Interesting Facts: Some state songs grew up organically by the state choosing what was already popular ...
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