Elementary Music Activities for Various Teaching Scenarios Amy M. Burns NJMEA Early Childhood Chair aburns@fhcds.org
It has been a whirlwind for education over the past seven months. We all have experienced teaching scenarios from distance learning with no technology, distance learning with devices, a hybrid model of in-person and online learning, and learning in school with various restrictions. Below are some activities that I have performed in various elementary teaching scenarios that I hope will help you with your current teaching situation.
In-Person on a Cart Many elementary music educators returned to teaching on a cart. Some had already been doing this and others had to leave their music rooms behind due to the school’s new teaching restrictions. Here are some activities and sites that can be helpful. - Virtual Instruments: If your students have 1:1 devices they can open a virtual instrument on their devices and perform music. Whether or not you can use acoustic instruments, virtual instruments are usually free and can be utilized intuitively. Some examples are GarageBand (https://apps.apple.com/us/app/garageband/ id408709785) and Tim Purdum’s Xylophone Orff app for iOS devices (https://apps.apple.com/us/app/xylophone-orff/id1092959126), or searching through the
TEMPO
coded instruments found at scratch.mit.edu on a device that can open a browser such as Chrome Web Browser (or a device like a Chromebook). Scratch has an amazing coded Orff instrument that can be shown in diatonic or pentatonic scales created by Mr. Geyer, as well as drums, and recorders. *Tip: When you are using a virtual instrument website, make sure that it is not based in Flash, as that will be discontinued at the end of 2020. - Rhythm Play-Along Videos: If you can project onto a screen, then utilizing rhythm play-along videos can allow you to teach the rhythm patterns found in
the videos, and then have the students perform them using instrument kits or body percussion. A playlist of rhythm play-along videos can be found on my YouTube channel (Amy Burns - https://www.youtube.com/ playlist?list=PLO2UG241-fB63suVbxj2Bx02LIvomKE1o). *Tip: If your school does not allow YouTube to be shown, try sites like viewpure.com, safeyoutube.net, safeshare.tv, or others to clean up the videos from any advertisements or comments.
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