I am so excited to be the host of the Music Education Blog Carnival this month! For those who may not know, the Music Education Blog Carnival is a monthly post hosted by different music education bloggers. Each blogger selects a few music posts that were recently written and why they selected it. I loved reaching all of the blog posts by so many talented musicians and educators. Here are some of my favorites from October! Enjoy!
I love this blog post by Jennifer Foxx at Music Educator Resources. Her post, The Power of Praise in Student Practice, is such a wonderful reminder of the awesome responsibility we hold as educators. A kind word of praise reaps rewards 10-fold over a discouraging word. Whether we’re working on-on-one in a private studio or with a classroom of 30 students, all children want to be praised and validated!
Literature in music education holds a special place in my heart. I loved reading Tracy King‘s Books You Need in Your Music Classroom: Upper Elementary List, especially because of the connection for older students.
Daria Marmaluk-Haijoannou‘s post, Sing a Song About Different Families hits close to home for me. As a single mother of an adopted child, I get lots of questions about from my students. Are you married? Why aren’t you married? Why does your son look different than you? As I went through the adoption process with my own child, I became more sensitive to all the different and beautiful families within my own school. Daria provides a beautifully simple way of validating how families can look different through story and song.
I’m going to make a confession – I love data. I’m a bit of a nerd that way, but here’s the truth: When I assess and objectively look at what my children know (and don’t know), my teaching is impacted. Data informs my instruction and guides my decisions about lesson planning. Aileen Miracle provides easy, step-by-step instructions on how to implement assessments and track data in her post, Data Tracking in the Music Classroom.
I love, love, love using technology in my classroom. Know what I don’t love? Ads popping up while I am using technology like YouTube! Jane Lee provides simple directions to make those ads disappear from your screen in her post, Block Ads in Your Classroom.
Anne Mileski’s post, Tips for the Traveling Music Teacher, also hits home for me. Confession time: I’ve been teaching for 21 years and I have traveled between buildings for 17 of those years. There are some positive aspects about being an itinerant teacher, but there are also some challenges. Anne provides some fabulous tips for all music traveling music teachers!
And lastly, as the holidays approach, and our patience wanes, I offer my own post: Classroom Management Tips for the Music Room (that work!). Simple, easy things you can do to engage your students and get them back on track on tough days!
Thanks so much for joining me this month on the Music Education Blog Carnival! Want to find out more about the blog carnival? Or how you can host one? You can find out more on Mrs. Tanenblatt’s blog!
Great post, Jennifer! Thanks for including my post. The other posts look great too! 🙂
This was such a fun article to read, Jennifer! Thanks for sharing!