The Silent Music of Baghdad

I love this book and the beautiful illustrations. I also find this to be a purposeful way for us to make connections with our students about the often confusing messages they receive about race and hate.

Though I have used a minor pentatonic set to create a melody, you could certainly use another pitch set in which to create a melody.  I have also included multiple rhythmic choices for both the words, "Peace" and "Salam".

Room Tour 2019

I love how colorful this all looks and it makes me happy when entering! Perfectly imperfect!
Content over cuteness and a purpose for everything. I love the positive song lyric posters from Tracy King!

Music Education - Blogs and Podcasts

I have one week left, although we only have three days in classrooms (most of that taken up with meetings) and students begin on Thursday, so next week I will be in my classroom, getting everything ready for another exciting year. 

As we set sail on a new school year, many of us are in our first or second week of school and many others are preparing classrooms for students to enter in the next couple of weeks. Still others are on their final countdown of summer with their last few weeks spent swimming and adventuring.
This summer has been very different than my typical summer - school ended and the next day we left for 2 weeks in Maine, home a week, then my daughter and I went to NYC for a week, home a week and a half then I left for Estonia and the International Music Village, which was ESTonishing (Soili Perkio's word), just got home Monday and I will be in school tomorrow to get my room ready!  Not sure I like how little time I have had at home to do my usual re-organizing and relaxing. :)

The best teaching ideas are often borrowed and adapted from others.  I have learned so much from watching, listening, and talking to other teachers.  There are so many excellent podcasts and blogs with ideas, activities, philosophical discussions, and information that is interesting and helpful! Thankfully, some teacher friends have organized and collated these into single sites that help us navigate and find the ones of most use!

Podcasts

Podcasts are usually free digital audio files, typically in a series, which can be downloaded and listened to at any time. They are a great way to engage with other's teaching perspectives, approaches, activities, lessons, and to get inspired.

 Evan Tobias recently published a HUGE list of podcasts both current and archived.  It is well organized and categorized.  He also provides a list of ways to listen to podcasts for newbies.
 

Blogs

1.  MusicEd Blogs is a collaborative site which includes almost 40 music education blogs in one place, organized and categorized.  Check out their facebook site as well, @MusicEd Blogs Community.  

2. There are many other music ed blogs, this is a list of the "Top 100" Music Ed Blogs, along with links.

3. David Row from Make Moments Matter also includes a well organized list of music education blogs here.

I hope you find some of these useful and look forward to sharing more lessons and activities as school gets under way! If you are not already following ofortuna on facebook - make sure to check it out as I post videos and extras there - @o for tuna orff schulwerk music and on instagram -@Aimee_ofortunaorff.

Happy 2019-2020 School Year!