Music and Books Equal Endless Possibilities!!!

My Students

Walk into my classroom and you will see students dancing, using puppets to explore musical concepts, listening to music, reading books, playing instruments, as well as, using manipulatives. My students love using all the materials listed above to create performances to show their classmates, teachers, and parents.

I teach music to students in K-5 twice a week for 30 minutes.

I see 320 students twice a week for music & they expect hands-on, interactive lessons each time they walk through my door. I try to make every moment musical for all of my students. With this being said, it requires a lot of resources to make that happen. Teaching 6 grade levels means that I have a variety of student personalities and learning styles. Most musical elements and concepts are very abstract and require hands-on manipulatives and tools for my students.

My Project

"Through literacy you can begin to see the universe. Through music you can reach anybody. Between the two there is you, unstoppable."-Grace Slick Literacy and music go hand-in-hand. In my classroom I use many arts integration strategies where I incorporate classroom topics and curriculum while still teaching music skills. Children's books have an endless amount of possibilities in the music classroom. Many books teach music concepts such as tempo, melody, and dynamics. Also, many children's books lend themselves to sound stories. The students are able to take the characters and words in the book and create sounds to accompany and enhance the book. While also teaching music skills the students are practicing their literacy and comprehension skills. Students can create music & instrumental accompaniment to show the main idea of the book or the personality of the characters. These books will help all my students and give us endless possibilities for activities, lessons, and performances.

The funding of this project will allow my students from K-5 to experience fundamental musical concepts in a fun & engaging way, while enhancing & practicing skills learned in the general classroom.

My students will be able to use these books to explore many musical concepts while also integrating literacy. By having these books in our classroom we have constant access to them & can refer to them throughout the year and during centers. With music and books the possibilities are endless!