Candy Making Machine

Using Eric Chappelle's The Add On Machine, and a book about candy as well as some included videos featuring a candy making factory, students create movement to create their own candy making machines. Perfect for any time of year but especially those holidays where candy is featured (Halloween, Christmas, Hanukkah, Easter, etc.) this activity is not specific to holidays or celebrations and is inclusive of everyone. Click here for the slides.

Enjoy! -Aimee

March from the Nutcracker Stretchy Band Activity

 Yes, I love the Nutcracker! There is so much fun to play with that is also a ballet and.. CLASSICAL music that children have most likely heard before! 

Here is a fun stretchy band activity for you and your students to enjoy! 

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Enjoy!

Run Big Old Turkey, RUN!

 This is a fun game I watched during a morning meeting last year when I was visiting a Kindergarten class. I loved it so much I had to create a song for us to sing to go with the game! This would work well with the children's book, Run Turkey Run! This is also a good one for prepping half note (see measure 4 of the song). 

For a copy of the slides, check out my Patreon site! 

Creepy Carrots

I struggle with all the Halloween themed things I used to do and no longer include as I have students who do not celebrate Halloween. I love spooky season and incorporate spiders, monsters, and other "Halloween-adjacent" activities into this time of year but always with a curricular focus. And if I don't have it, I make it. My third graders learn recorder every year and this year's group is just a wee bit behind other years, for whatever reason. Wonderful singers, and wonderful musicians, just not picking up on recorder as quickly as some other groups. So, I needed a quick piece to put together and have always loved the book, Creepy Carrots! Get the full slide set, with the animated book, here (free!). I wrote this yesterday and did the activity with two classes, who walked out the door singing the tune- love when that happens! Easy, accessible, and diversified for students who need to work on EG or BAG passages, or they can play everything, BAGE! 

Enjoy!

So You Think You Want to Be a Clinician/Presenter...

This post came out of a discussion with my dear friend, Roger Sams (co-author of Purposeful Pathways) and several experienced clinicians and presenters. We have noticed several trends with newer music educators who want to be Clinicians and Presenters and want to help others and offer some free and unsolicited advice. 

 "Being an awesome music teacher is the opposite of being a rock star. A rock star wants the focus on them. An exemplary teacher always puts the focus on the learners. If you're still imitating others, taking their catch phrases and using them as your own, using titles or names that are already being used and claiming them as your own, quoting people, but not citing them, etc. you're still in the imitation phase. There's nothing wrong with being in the imitation phase, that's where we all begin, but you're not an expert yet." -Roger Sams 

Intention 

Enter into the era of presenting or being a clinician out of a SERVANT heart - a desire to center the learner, giving back of yourself and sharing the knowledge others have so willingly and often sacrificially given. Choose to lift others up and acknowledge the shoulders upon which you stand. Climbing any ladder while stepping on the hands that helped you is unprofessional, unethical, and will leave you feeling empty and unfulfilled. Check your intentions (and spend some serious reflection time) and ask yourself if you have truly moved beyond imitation into expert mode.  This often takes many years to happen.

Ethics and Morals 

Share what comes directly from your own experiences with teaching in the classroom. Consider that the majority of what you share should be your own material (and not just 60%- about 90%). Acknowledge others (even when it is simply, "inspired by a lesson as learned from ____"), cite sources correctly and in writing, ask permission before sharing something learned from someone else (and if they say no, that means NO), put the permission in writing (not a verbal acknowledgment), center others, and apologize when you make mistakes (and you will; I still do). Don't post other people's lessons on social media without permission or change one small thing and then share as your own. When sharing a song or lesson, make sure what you are sharing doesn't belong to someone else (it isn't always "folk" and/or in public domain). Share the full lesson - not a teaser page that acts as clickbait for teachers to feel pressured to make a purchase or as an advertisement for a TpT purchase. Content over cuteness and sharing over selling. Remember the sharing that happened during Covid lockdown? It is one of the things that makes our community of music teachers so very special and didn't happen in other education disciplines.

Value 

The value in sharing of yourself is that YOU are a unique and experienced music teacher with ideas that will help others be better at their craft and enrich their students musical education. Presenting at a workshop will not make you rich. Most teachers make about $600.00 per workshop. That might sound enticing but here's the breakdown: 

Notes and Slides Presentation: Between 4-10 hours preparing presentation notes, music scores, creating graphics, notes for participants, slides, Keynotes, Powerpoints, etc. 

Travel: Depends on location; just last weekend I spent over 24 hours in cars, ubers, and airports and airplanes traveling to Canada to present. 

Presentation Day: Arrive 45 minutes to 1 hour early to workshop site, 4-hour workshop, cleanup 30 minutes, lunch with the chapter board for 2 hours. This doesn't include the emails, texts, and additional time to work with the Chapters to contract, go over details, instrument needs, etc. 

Time: Between 36 and 42 hours, which doesn't include the full time away from home. That is $14.29/hour. to $16.67/hour.  And then you pay taxes on that. I sacrifice time with my family, my students, and even myself sometimes, but I believe strongly in serving and sharing. It isn't about me - it IS about the learners in the room - be they children or adults. 

Joy 

It is joyful to see the lightbulbs on teachers faces when, in the middle of a workshop, they see an idea forming or have a beautiful and emotional response to something they have just learned to do differently, more purposefully, and more joyfully. THIS is why we present - to share of ourselves fully by serving others. We do it with joy, with love, and with grace, hoping that we can help make a difference in a teachers' life, and ultimately, through them, with their students. 

Please don't be a rock star - be the beautiful, wholesome person you are who teaches and shares from a place of expertise, joy, creativity, and love.

If You Find a Leaf

This is such a beautiful book by Aimee Sicuro! The slides are available (FREE!) here!

Double Double and Mariposa

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This is from my Hands to Hands book available from www.singmsileplay.com

The slide set is available here.

Got It, Yes I Do! Body Percussion and Improvisation Lesson!

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Get the full post with a video detailing the ideas and the presentation/learning slides here or join my Patreon community!

Beginner Mallet Exploration

Using barred instruments involves a little prep for students to feel successful. Here are some strategies for students to have beginning experiences with playing on the barred percussion, AKA Orff Instruments.

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Hot Cross Buns Origin

I love origin stories - where did something start, how did it start, how has it changed over time. Etymology is the study of the origins of words, and in music, this can be the history and development of words related to music. So, where does the classic song, Hot Cross Buns, really come from? Dr. Robin Giebelhausen is an assistant professor of music education at the University of Maryland specializing in general music. Robin recently posted about the origins of Hot Cross Buns. Take a moment to read - SO much cool information!

Go give her a follow on instagram - @robingiebes. And, just in case you are interested, here is a recipe for Hot Cross Buns. Enjoy!

Name Games Repost

Hello everyone! I hope you have all had a great summer! Mine was a mix of yin and yang with an amazing trip to Japan and coming home to learn our sweet dog, Mo (Mozart) had passed away. He was my baby and I loved him so very much. It has been a time of so much sadness while also processing this amazing trip to such an incredible place on the other side of the world. School begins next Thursday and today was our first day back with meetings. I am ggetting ready for the first couple of weeks with lots of name games. Here is a post with a bunch of name games and songs. Enjoy!

Workshop Schedule

I hope to see you sometime this year! If your chapter is looking for a workshop, please email me at musicquilt@hotmail.com. Booking now for 2025-2026!

Centers and Rotations! The What, Why, How, Who, and When!

Get ready!

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Summer Music Workshops!

Hi music teacher friends! Here we go- summer workshop registration starts today! If you are in my Patreon community, these are included! $20 each or both for $35 All materials, presentation slides, video recording, and 1.5 or 3 hours PD certificate included. 

Click HERE to register.

Woodland Freeze Singing Game

One amazing thing that came out of our isolated time during Covid was new connections with music teachers around the world. Heather Nail and I finally got to meet in person last year and we just "clicked". She shared this Woodland Freeze singing game with my Patreon community recently and my students LOVE it! Seriously- they request it over and over again! Check it out here:

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Sailor, Sailor on the Sea

I love this singing game!

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Singing Games - WHY? WHAT? HOW?

 Have you ever wanted to try more singing games but are stuck in the questions that arise about which ones work well and how to manage students in the midst of games?  And why do we even do these?  

Well... here you go!! 

Victoria Boler and I sat down for a lengthy conversation around the what, when, where, why, and how of singing games.  Go have a listen to the podcast or watch the video HERE! 

Need more? 

HERE are all 23 tagged and labeled posts on the blog with singing games - scroll all the way to the bottom and click "Older Posts" when you have finished with each page and it will load all the other posts with "Singing Games". 

I will also be posting more in the next couple weeks on TikTok and Instagram so check those out, too! 

Enjoy,

Five Eggs

Spring is one of my favorite times of year - each morning on my walk I hear birds singing and see rabbits hopping on fresh sprigs of green grass.  And the flowers! Well, if you know me at all, you know how much I love flowers and especially irises.  I have so many flowers planted around my house and particularly love the 20-something varieties of iris I currently have!  

This is a perfect rhyme and fingerplay for spring.  

Fingerplays are so underrated! Teach them to younger students as a fingerplay but bring them back to teach or reinforce rhythmic elements in first grade and as a canon experience for second grade, or add a So Mi or So La Mi melody, eventually adding in an ostinato or two.  Transfer the rhyme and ostinati to non-pitched percussion, add timbre changes for each line and allow the students to decide how to perform it.  For older students, use these as a basis for melodic improvisation or to walk the beat while clapping the rhythm or add a B Section with the names of egg layers - birds, fish, insects, turtles, platypus, echidna, reptiles, and lizards.  Or have small groups of students create a movement story of one type of animal and perform for other groups to guess the animal.  So many possibilities!

For a better image, click here. 

Enjoy!