Snowflake Half Note Lesson

This one is so much fun!

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A post shared by Aimee Pfitzner 🎶 (@aimee_ofortunaorff)

Spring is Here

 I love spring!  All the flowers, the new leaves budding, and green; so much green!!! 

I have been playing with some older lessons I created years ago and have had so much fun using Spring is Here by Will Hillenbrand with my students. This is a Bear and Mole story and is so cute - kids love the ending! 

It is a nice introduction into half note, too!  Check out the lesson below. Click on this link which will take you to the full Google slide complete with a 6-minute video lesson that will talk you through how to teach the lesson as well as give you the 2-beat building bricks.  Like everything else you see and want more lessons like this?  Come and join our Patreon community for exclusive content, monthly mini workshops and mentorship opportunities. All for about the cost of a cup of coffee per month! 

Enjoy!

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!

Bucket Drum Piece to Mozart's Turkish March - REMIX!

Over the past several weeks on my fb page -@o for tuna orff, I have been posting several live videos of the teaching process I have been using for a bucket drum piece to a piece of music my daughter found on youtube. She often listens to music while drawing (her favorite thing to do and she is an amazing young artist).  It is a remix of Mozart's Turkish March and is SO awesome!  I knew I needed to create a bucket drum piece for my top grade to perform at our Winter Concert and maybe a few other performances as well. Click here to see the final video performance on the o for tuna fb page.
Here is the score:

The pdf of the learning slides can be found here: Bucket Drum Mozart Turkish March Remix
They look like this:

The music can be found here:

Enjoy!

Cupcakes!

We've all had cravings. A few months ago on my birthday, I really wanted strawberry cake.  I was going to make one for myself that afternoon- same as my mom used to make me when I was a kid. My daughter and I have made it several times over the years - amazingly moist, with strawberries between two layers of Betty Crocker strawberry cake mix (yes, I cheat and use a mix, don't judge), and cooked "White Mountain" frosting that is heavenly!  So, when my husband took us out to breakfast, we went to a place we knew had  a similar strawberry cake, with buttercream frosting - so yummy!  We sat down, placed our order and I excitedly asked for the strawberry cake only to be told they were out.  SO disappointed!  We ate our eggs and bacon (not at ALL what I wanted) and then my husband drove to the next town to the sister restaurant of the first (local chain).  He got the cake, off we went to run errands and grocery shop.  While at the grocery store I went to the baking aisle to get my box of cake mix and lo and behold, NO STRAWBERRY CAKE!  I felt like the fates were conspiring against my wish for strawberry cake!  Two more grocery stores later and we finally found my cake mix.  Went home, baked, and it was perfect.  Went through one failed batch of frosting -it is picky, but worth it, then frosted the cake.  My daughter put the sliced strawberries on the top and it was beautiful. Into the fridge it went - and when it was time for presents and singing, out came the cake - with the strawberries sliding down the cake leaving slug.  It was hysterical!  Tasted great, though, and we laughed and laughed!

All that to say today's blog post is inspired!  Did you know cupcakes were first mentioned in an American cookbook in 1796?  They were originally cakes baked in small cups! 

Shown is a sample of the lesson- email me at musicquilt@hotmail.com for the full pdf.