Posts by
LeslieAnne Bird
Making It Work: Ideas for Quiet Music Lessons During Testing Season In most public schools around the nation testing season is upon us. In my district we begin this week. For many music educators that means quiet music lessons. Finding ideas that are quiet, engaging and meaningful as well as meets the needs of students…
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Making It Work: Creating Performance Ready Products Based on Children’s Literature One of my favorite parts of Orff workshops and trainings is when clinicians share ways to use children’s literature in a lesson or as the basis for a performance. When I began attending workshops and conference sessions I was amazed at the creative, innovative…
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December is a crazy time for music educators. There is a lot on our plates. We are still teaching all of our regular classes as well as preparing for a concert (or five), with all of the details and logistics that go along with that. Many of us have gigs outside of school at church…
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Many music educators face the conundrum of how to make programs and concerts work for the children, families, school culture and capacity constraints of school performance spaces.
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Structuring Creative Movement in Orff Inspired Lessons When I took level one I joyously folk danced through the movement segments and really understood that I could use folk dance with my students and how it would fit into the types of lessons I was designing. Then we began the creative movement portion. I loved the…
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Making It Work: Getting Started With Long Range Planning When I began my teaching career I was working in a large county school district, on a cart, in three schools with almost no resources before the dawn of the Internet. I would hear about teachers who were “long range planning” and was completely mystified as…
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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…
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Lesson Ideas to Survive (and Thrive!) Until Summer I have been watching Facebook posts and it seems that some fortunate souls are already on summer break. If you are one of them – lucky you! Some of us have a few weeks left, and others have a bit longer until we can put our feet…
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In her latest installment of Making It Work, LeslieAnne Bird explores strategies to support music educators in finding the funding for new Orff instruments. When I began teaching using the Orff Approach I had not one barred instrument in my classroom. While it is possible to teach Orff without barred instruments, I wanted my students to…
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I am the type of teacher who uses recorders with my students throughout the year. Sometimes we use the recorders every lesson for several classes in a row; sometimes we don’t. Because I use my recorders in this way, asking the children to take them home and bring them back each class does not work…
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