Teaching Melody and Melodic Contour

On a recent poll, music teachers were asked what they struggle the most with and melody and melodic contour was the top answer. So, I spent my morning while home sick with Covid, yup, it has finally arrived - gave it my best shot - 3 in fact, but it hit my family this week and you know me, I can't sit still. I have been working on this for a while and this is a Patreon exclusive.  This is a 24-page mini-book available for less than the cost of Starbucks. You also get access to everything already posted there and I continue to add new material weekly. There are monthly mini-workshops and opportunities to work with me 1:1 to delve deeper into organization, lesson planning, behavior management, or anything else you might be interested in. 

So, this mini-book includes lessons, activities, and ideas about teaching Melody and Melodic Contour. There are twelve children's books listed with several lessons from my Playful Possibilities and Painted Music books. Ideas on using manipulatives, songs, games, and instruments and many other things are part of the mini-book.

Check it out today, click here.

Here is a sampling:

Enjoy,

Musical Monster Fun!

 I enjoy the costumes, trick or treating, and the silly, playful fun of Halloween. I have leaned more towards monsters in the past several years as they aren't really Halloween and can be use any time of year. 

On my Patreon site there are SEVERAL posts using children's lit, songs, games, speech pieces, solo singing activities, etc. This is one recent massive post, with 3 embedded videos!  Here is a pic of some of the things from that one post: 

Past Posts:

Monsters Love Underpants

Sing Me a Monster

Hope you enjoy!

New Community to Learn and Grow With!

 I am so excited to announce my new community of music makers and teachers!  

If you have spent any time on the blog you know how important sharing is to me. Sharing my creativity and experience in teaching music using the Orff Approach has been gratifying, exciting, and a tremendous honor.  There are a plethora of posts here, on Facebook, and Instagram, and I present at workshops and conferences in the US and Canada.  I also create lesson activities and exclusive playful and process-based lessons and video chats on my Patreon page for the O For Tuna community. 

We are all looking for ideas to streamline and energize our music classrooms. We are all wanting to be the best we can be for our students- more organized, prepared, excited, and to make lesson planning easier. For about the price of a latte mocha once a month, you will connect with other music teachers who are excited to grow and learn together. We will have Zoom discussions, work on lesson planning, develop children's literature into music activities, attend workshops, and much, much, more.  I hope you will consider joining us! Check it out here!