Making It Work: Summer Reading 2016

Our classroom is packed up, and the children have all begun their summer adventures. Now I will take a few days to relax before I begin summer teaching, professional development classes, and tackle my planning for next year.  I make a point to read at least three books for professional growth over the summer months in between all of the novels I don’t have time for during the school year. Here is what I plan to read this year:

Orff-Schulwerk: Applications for the Classroom by Brigitte Warner

I have wanted to read this book for several years and this is the summer I will check it off of my to-do list. The book is full of solid information on process and philosophy to deepening my understanding of the Orff approach and fine-tune lesson development.

First We Sing! Kodaly-Inspired Teaching For the Music Classroom by Susan Brumfield.

I like to combine Orff and Kodaly inspired teaching. Last year I was delighted to sit in on two presentations by Susan at my state conference, and I have been using the two collections of songs in the First We Sing series. I am delighted with the high-quality content.  This book is an easy to read overview of Kodaly philosophy with many helpful graphics and sample scope and sequence documents.  The text will help me to use Kodaly-inspired techniques more effectively as I weave them into my Orff-inspired lessons.

Engaging Students: The Next Level of Working on the Work by Phillip C. Schlechty.

My school and district are focusing on Schlechty’s work to increase levels of student engagement across the district. As we began to dig into what an engaging learning environment looks like in professional development sessions I quickly realized that it looks a lot like Orff inspired teaching. This book will help to better understand how the teaching and learning in our classroom already fits into the paradigm outlined in the text so I can explain and justify our choices. I am also hoping to learn about new ideas to make our music experience even more focused on student driven learning and products.

What does your summer professional reading list include?  Please share titles you plan to read or re-read in the comments below. It may be just the inspiration someone else is looking for to make their summer reading list work. Happy summer!