Ready, Set, Go!

 Hi everyone! I have been singing a lot of Hamilton lately and the one that seems to be stuck for me (perpetually) is "The World is Upside Down". I FEEL this so strongly right now. 

Can you relate? I also feel like we are playing the strangest game of Hide and Seek - Ready or not, here it comes!  The craziest school year we will probably ever experience. Masked, shielded, and distanced, high-risk teachers like me streaming from my music room into grade level classrooms half the time and the other half standing behind a large Plexiglas barrier with mask, face shield, and air purifiers sucking potential virus droplets from the air. Students in cohorts and assigned seats for contact tracing teams for WHEN, not if, a student or teacher contract Covid. *sigh* *Bigger Sigh* *BIGGEST SIGH EVAH*

On Singing

Let's be careful, folks, how we approach the concept of "singing" with our students. The very first class we will be having a conversation with students about how singing will look and feel differently for now, but this too shall pass. We will be singing in our "Heads, Hearts, Hands, maybe a little Humming, and at HOME!" The worst thing we can do to our students is intertwine the words "singing" and "dangerous" in a sentence- our children and impressionable, and we do NOT want to leave the impression that singing is dangerous. Words have great impact, and we all know it can be long-lasting.

Ok, off my soapbox! :)

We've got this, though!  We CAN get through this but only by leaning on one another for support, encouragement, and a million ideas! Here are a few things to get you started this year:  

1. Non-Verbal Cards for Remote/Digital Learning

Right click on these to save, print, and enjoy!  There are two volume buttons included as some platforms use a mic image like below, and some others use the mic in the 2nd picture. My friend, Michael printed each of these on one color and glued the bottom of each card to a popsicle stick to hold up and show onscreen. Great for letting students know to write a response in the chat, or that you have you "eyes" on them, or for when to mute or unmute. 

3. Greet and PASS

This is a year unlike any other and many of our students are going to want to return from 4-5 months of not being around friends and bear hug everyone in sight.  I am not crazy about the term, "Socially Distanced" but prefer the friendlier "Physically Distanced" way to express keeping ourselves apart from our neighbors and friends. I taught this to all my teachers this week and they have posted the words in their classrooms and are adding it to their morning meetings the first month of school as a fun and playful reminder of how to greet their friends and teachers each day.

Hope you have fun using these! 

Stay safe, stay smiling, and 

STAY MUSICAL!

On With The Show AKA Winter Break is Over Lesson

Hope everyone had a wonderful Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, and a Merry Christmas!  Hard to believe how fast the winter break goes!  I have been out of school for a week already, much of which I was sick, then my daughter got very sick with a stomach something (still not sure what is going on) and we ended up with a very memorable Christmas spending 6 hours in the ER Christmas Eve until 1:30 AM Christmas morning. She was feeling well enough to unwrap her presents yesterday morning but halfway through she was experiencing stomach pain again and was very sick the rest of the day. As I write, she is next to me on the couch with a heating pad around her belly and we are watching Hotel Transylvania.  Such is the way with the holiday season.  It goes far too quickly and then all of a sudden we are on the countdown back to school again. 
Having all this time off, sometimes it is hard to have students jump right back in and be able to follow rules and classroom structure as we all know how quickly they lose their sense of structure being at home for extended times. 
I wanted a new lesson for students to revisit rules, although I did not want to directly revisit the rules,(boring) so this lesson uses proverbs! If you want the pdf, please send a request to musicquilt@Hotmail.com.

 There are two versions - one with a spoken A Section and another with an A Section in C pentatonic with an easy Orff orchestration. As always, accommodate for your students; if they are not ready for a crossover bordun, use a broken bordun, if they are not ready for a broken bordun, add a closed bordun but perhaps make it the same rhythm; use the words, "Here we go again" (ta, ta, titi ta). 
Hope you enjoy!