2024-2025

October in Music!

Halloween Week was so much fun! I brought out the black lights and all the classes got to do some glow-in-the-dark activities! From glow-in-the-dark rhythm sticks and light up sticks, to glow-in-the-dark cups, following a glow-in-the-dark spider string, singing spider songs with spiders, passing the witch's broomstick - everyone had a lot of fun!
In Junior Kindergarten, Kindergarten, and 1st grade,  we focused on playing with rhythm sticks in October. We sang lots pumpkin, fall, and Halloween songs. Our scarves were often used as leaves blowing in the wind.
In 1st grade, we also added some other rhythm instruments to a few of the songs.
2nd graders worked on drawing notes and learning their names. They also enjoyed singing “Pumpkin, pumpkin” and do a circle game with it. We also added an accompaniment with instruments to “Pass the pumpkin round” song. Their favorite song was probably “Whacky Halloween”. We continue to work with Mr. Red and Mr. Blue to learn “Are You Sleeping” in English, French, Spanish, German, Polish, and Chinese.
Music Game Week: 3rd graders focused on reviewing solfege games from last year. 4th and 5th graders worked on note name games, to practice their note names on the staff.
Instrument Week: Boomwhackers! 5th graders worked on the song "Ghost of John", accompanying the song with three different parts. 4th graders played their boomwhackers to songs like "The Monster Mash" and "Little Monsters". 3rd graders played rhythm sticks and boomwhackers to "Dem Bones"
Stations Week: We used our black lights from last year for a glow-in-the-dark rhythm activity! So much fun! Other stations focused on some candy rhythms, playing songs on the rainbow glockenspiel, practicing how to draw a treble clef (3rd), playing Hot Cross Buns on xylophones (4th), and accompanying "The Ghost of John" in small groups (5th).

September in Music!

In Junior Kindergarten and Kindergarten, we used September to explore different kinds of shakers. We played egg shakers, maracas, and fruit and veggie shakers. We learned to remember our spots that we sit on, how to get into a circle, how to line up, and how to stop playing when my hand goes up. We sang songs and are working on recognizing if we're using a singing voice or a speaking voice (or a whisper or a shouting voice). I won't be able to share many pictures of Kindergarten this year, because all classes have about half of the students that cannot be pictured online. I will sometimes share more pictures on Seesaw or ClassDojo.
1st graders reviewed some songs from last year, and already moved through shakers, rhythms sticks, and boomwhackers. We started discussing "Big Beat" with our new friend BEET, and "Little Beat" with our new friend BETSY.
2nd graders really enjoyed starting off the year with the song "Up the ladder". They also spent some time on the song "BINGO", adding cards with letters, to eventually switching to various instruments. I also introduced the first solfege syllables and we started working on "Are you sleeping" in different languages.
3rd through 5th graders will work with a weekly "theme" this year. We will rotate through "Music Games", "Instruments", "Music Stations", "Movement", and "?" - a catch-all for random activities. Students see posted outside of the room, what we're working on. It doesn't mean that we only do musical games or only instruments and no singing, but our focus of that lesson will be the "theme".
Week 1 was an introductory week. Week 2 was "Music Games". This week focused on games that had students practice note values.
The next music time was "Instrument" Week. Grades 4 and 5 worked on a drum piece called "Quadraboom", while 3rd graders worked on "A Sailor went to Sea" with four different instrument groups: woods, metals, shakers, and skins.
During "Station Week", students rotated through stations that focused on note values and rhythms. I thought the station with play food was very interesting!
The next time in music, we focused on movements. We learned the Russian folk dance "Sasha". The students had a blast and begged for a repeat!

Welcome to Music Class!

The room is ready for the new school year, and I am excited to start! I am even more excited that I will only be at Spring Mills this year! In all these years of teaching, I have always traveled between buildings, and this is the first time that I get to be at only one building!
We have a new friend, Sharkbait, who will be helping with making sure our students stay focused.
3rd-5th graders will walk into the music room to the sound of a different instrument each time they come to music. This will expose them to lots of instruments, their sound, and what they look like.
All grades will work together to create a mosaic masterpiece! Whenever I catch somebody being on task, giving a great answer (right or wrong!), being helpful and kind, being a leader, I may put a little sticker on their shoulder. At the end of class, everybody with a sticker gets to put a mosaic sticker on our picture outside the music room. Let's see how long it will take us to figure out what it is!
Empower Hours in 2024-2025:
Winter:
Spring Mills Orff Sharks!
A new ensemble focusing on instruments like xylophones and drums
Thursdays 4:15pm-5:15pm
January and February 2025
4th and 5th grade only!

Spring:
Spring Mills Voices: Hats! The Musical
Thursdays 8am-9am
April 3rd - May 15th 2025
3rd-5th graders

2023-2024

Enjoy your summer!

​Rest-Relax-Recharge!

Congratulations to our winning class: Mrs. Sheldon's 4th grade!

Mrs. Sheldon's class was the winning class of our year-round competition between the classes. They got the most stickers, closely followed by Mrs. Popadince's 2nd graders and Mrs. McGraw's 1st graders. Mrs. Sheldon's class got cookies and cupcakes and celebrated on the last day of school. Great job everyone!

Recorder Karate Stars

Congratulations to our Recorder Black Belts:
Maddy King
Addie Webster
Freya Oltesvig
Teya LaPratt
Xavier Olszewski
What an amazing achievement!! Bravo!

And Freya Oltesvig even passed the Silver and Gold Belts! She worked very hard for these belts and sent in lots of videos this year. I'm very proud of you!

June in the Music Room!

We finished the school year with lots of Orff instruments! We also added our new Joia Tubes into the rotation! 
For the last week of school, I pulled out the big parachute, all our puppets, and in 4th and 5th grade our playground balls. What a great week to finish off a wonderful year together in the music room!

Spring Mills Voices present: Pirates! The Musical

This was an exceptional group of 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders! They learned a whole musical in just eight weeks! They were such a fun group to work with - focused, talented, engaged, and kind to each other. Arrrrrrrgh!! Congratulations on two fantastic performances!

May in the Music Room!

In May, all grades worked for two weeks with the KidStix program! I love working with this program, because it engages students at every age. We focus on different skills in different grade levels, The older grades especially enjoy the play-alongs.
4th and 5th graders also played ukuleles in May! In 4th grade, we reviewed what we learned last year. We also practiced playing some of our recorder songs on the ukulele. In 5th grade, we worked on adding different chords, so that we could play along to some popular songs. There was quite a bit of jamming going on!
5th graders explored some music apps on the chrome books. We had some creative musical compositions!
2nd graders had a lot of fun working on different stations!
All grades enjoyed doing some play-alongs with boomwhackers!

April in the Music Room!

5th graders started April by finishing up their Theme and Variation Unit. Their task was to choose a theme, come up with two variations on the theme, and perform it on instruments together. I watched some great group work and heard some fantastic variations!
All grades had a big focus on rhythms in April and May. In JK, K, and 1st grade, we still focus heavily on practicing to keep a steady beat. That could be with our hands, beanie babies, any kind of rhythm instruments, or drums. We also echo rhythms with the help of our puppet friends. In 1st grade, we also start reading simplified rhythm notation. In second grade, we have moved from the simplified rhythm notation to regular rhythm notation. Students are working on reading, but also notating rhythms. In 3rd through 5th grade, the rhythms get more and more complex. Students also do rhythm dictations, where they hear a rhythm and have to write it down. We practice this in lots of different ways, with popsicle sticks, cards, and white boards.
​2nd graders have been getting to know the solfège syllables all year. Now, we have moved on to discover where they are positioned on two lines. It’s great to watch when things “click” into place and students suddenly have a lightbulb moment.
In April, our brand new desk bells arrived!! We were so excited to put them to the test right away! All grades thoroughly enjoyed the play-along videos and there was a high concentration in the room. It was so fun to watch when the students recognized a tune or started singing along. We sometimes even added some boomwhackers too!

Band and Choir come to visit Spring Mills!

Students from Oak Valley Middle School came to visit Spring Mills to show our 5th graders what they get to look forward to in 6th grade. Our 5th graders got an introduction to all the instruments and got to ask questions about middle school. They were a great attentive audience!
We also had choir students from all Huron Valley middle and high schools come visit as part of Bass Voice Day! It was so much fun to see former students and watch them perform!
At the end of April, students got to try out some instruments and see what they might like to play in band next year. I can't wait to hear what they choose to do in middle school!

DonorsChoose Project - Color Our World With Music And Joy - or Joia?!

I wasn't planning on having a DonorsChoose project this year, but when they announced in March that there was going to be a match coming up, I decided to jump in. :-) Right now, our classroom has one set of those desk bells (which can also be played on the floor) and we have only used them during "stations" time. But they are much more useful than for simple exploration. They help with solmization and playing tunes. Even my youngest students will be able to play melodies by following the colors and by pushing the button on top of the bell (instead of shaking them). Thanks to all our donors, we now have 6 sets and each student in the class can have a bell. I'm looking forward to using the bells as soon as they get here!

Glow Night!
​What a night! So much fun! It was amazing to see my vision come together!
A huge Thank You to our HVEF Foundation for the grant that made this evening possible!
Thank You to Ms. Erica Robinson, who came on this crazy journey with me and made amazing glowing art pieces with the students.
Thank You so much to our PTA and the volunteers! We couldn’t have done it without you!
Here are some pictures from the week of the glow night and from the Glow Night itself (plus a few short video snippets). Leading up to the glow night, each class got to try their routine with the black lights in the music room. I loved watching it all come to life!

March in Music
Students in Junior Kindergarten through 2nd grade sang various rainbow songs and used scarves, ribbon scrunchies, ribbon streamers, and rainbow hoops to show the different colors of the rainbow. 
Kindergarten and 1st grade students also used "Toobaloos" to check how their voice matched the singing pitch. It was very fun to watch students' reactions when they heard their voice so close to their ear!
​1st graders worked hard at accompanying the song “I’ve got a dog” with a bordun on boomwhackers and xylophones.
Congratulations to Mrs. McGraw's class and Mrs. Popadince's class to be the next two classes to get their 10th sticker. Both classes chose a Game Day!
​2nd graders worked with instruments this month. They used hoop stations to practice audiating with instruments. At the end of the month, they also played “yackerheads” and xylophones to accompany the book “Mortimer”.
​3rd graders learned a lot about the different instrument families in March. We listened to Maestro Carl, played an instrument guessing game, and played the card game “Fiddlesticks” to practice recognizing instruments and their families. They also started working on rounds and duple/triple meters.
4th graders are hard at work practicing their recorders and testing for belts and beads. I opened up "D" Days for testing during their recess time and often have around 15 students in my room. Way to go and keep up the great work!
​5th graders have explored their new form “Theme and Variations” for the last few weeks. We listened and analyzed quite a few examples and even added parachute movements to one of the pieces. Their final task is to work together in groups to create their own theme and variation. I can’t wait to hear their final product in April!

February in Music

February flew by! Every grade started practicing for their glow night routine using different props:
Junior Kindergarten and Kindergarten: snowballs and painted fish
1st grade: LED foam sticks
2nd grade: painted finger gloves
3rd grade: tennis balls
4th grade: finger lights and hula hoops
5th grade: light-up drum sticks
​With all the snow days, we of course had to add some snowball fights and ice skating to our lessons! There are so many funny pictures! Their faces - priceless!
​Kindergarten students continued to work on using their singing voice, by following shapes and drawings. We even used puppets to help us with singing. They also got to know all the songs from the Carnival of the Animals by Camille Saint-Saëns. We added a lot of movements and explored how Saint-Saëns used different instruments for different animals. 
​1st grade students continue to focus on perfecting their steady beat. We practiced in lots of different ways – with body percussion, rhythm sticks alone, rhythm sticks in groups of 2, and even a big long train. 
​2nd grade students explored the story “In the Hall of the Mountain King”. We listened to the story and to the music. We learned where the composer Edward Grieg was from. We analyzed the rhythms of the song and spoke along with ta’s and titi’s. We added movements to the song and practiced keeping the beat by throwing penalty flags to each other. The culmination was two groups performing the song at the same time, one on guiros, the other one with playground balls.
​3rd graders kept working on understanding the Rondo form. We analyzed various songs, added scarves, the big parachute, cups, and tennis balls as tools to recognize this form.
4th and 5th graders continue to work on their recorders. We practice songs in class, but it is important that students also practice their songs at home. In order to make progress, students need to practice their recorder often, but not necessarily for long. They also started working on their choreographies for the Glow Night, which are a little more tricky than the other grades...

January in Music

​We started the new year 2024 with a BANG – at least, until the snow came and stopped our classes… All classes in all grades participated in two weeks of drum circle time! Students learned the names of the different kinds of drums and how to play them. They learned what it means to listen to each other and to react to each other. Some of the other activities that we did were: the rumble, rhythm echo, rhythm pass, call and response, signals, meters, sevens, orbit, and body conductor. Many students enjoy drum circles and I always discover some hidden drummer talents!
Students in 2nd and 3rd grade also worked on exploring note values with pop tubes and rhythms with rhythm rockets. 4th and 5th graders also kept working on rhythms, not just reading them, but also playing them on the recorder or playing a rhythm bingo.
Picture


Wishing you all a

wonderful start into a

​fabulous year!
​
Let's go, 2024!

December in Music

I love to work with songs from the Nutcracker! They lend themselves to so many movement possibilities! We get to use streamers, parachutes, candy cane horses, and even instruments to interpret the music that we’re hearing. All grades experienced at least one song this December, but 3rd grade did a very thorough study of the Nutcracker. I tried something new with 5th grade. We compared Duke Ellington’s Nutcracker with Tchaikovsky’s version. We had some interesting conversations! Great job 5th graders!
​In Junior Kindergarten, Kindergarten, and 1st grade, we also sang a lot of Santa and holiday songs, played along with instruments, and got to have singing conversations with puppets.
​In addition to the Nutcracker songs, 2nd graders also took a look at the book “The First Notes – the Story of Do, Re, Mi”, written by Julie Andrews.
​4th graders are deep in recorder study! Since the recorder is still pretty new, practice and practice is the way to go!
​Congratulations to Mrs. Sheldon’s class for being the first class to reach 10 stickers! They chose an Instrument Day as a reward!
​5th graders had a tricky task in December. In addition to finishing preparing their songs for the Highland Tree Lighting, they also learned a three part accompaniment for “We wish you a merry Christmas”. The students seemed to really enjoy working with the boomwhackers and rainbow bells.

Highland Tree Lighting
Our 5th graders did a great job representing Spring Mills at the Highland Tree Lighting! They sang two songs by themselves and led the community sing-along. Thank you for coming out, 5th graders!

HVEF Grants for Spring Mills and Kurtz

Thank you very much to the Huron Valley Education Foundation for the two grants I received! Without the HVEF many of my projects would not be possible. I'm extremely excited to start planning a Glow Night together with Ms. Robinson for Spring Mills! And I'm just as excited to add some instruments that are color coded for my categorical students at Kurtz. Thank you.

Missoula Children's Theater Visits Huron Valley Schools!

What an amazing week we had in Huron Valley! Brianna and Lindsay from Missoula Children’s Theater spent the week in Huron Valley and visited Spring Mills, Country Oaks, Kurtz, and Oxbow Elementaries. Our students in JK through 3rd grade enjoyed an assembly that explored how to write and perform a story. Students in 4th and 5th grade had workshops in the music classroom that had to do with improvisation and acting. We sure learned a lot this week!
21 of our Spring Mills students worked super hard all week after school rehearsing the musical “The Princess and the Pea” together with students from all the other elementary schools. They learned the songs, memorized their lines, practiced choreographies, and learned a lot about being on stage. It was very impressive to see the changes from day 1 to day 5! And it was incredible to watch a show come to life in just one short week. Congratulations to all our students on a fantastic job performing two shows on Saturday for family, friends, and the community! Here are some pictures from rehearsals and the dress rehearsal.

November in Music

In November, all grades used boomwhackers at some point during the month. Junior Kindergarten and Kindergarten students did a first introduction to boomwhackers with the song "Downtown", 1st grade worked on steady beat, 2nd grade played along with their solfège song, and 3rd through 5th grades played along to the song "It's Corn!".
Junior Kindergarten students got a little help from some 5th graders to echo sing some easy reader books. They used toobaloos to check their singing voice. It was super cute to watch!
Students in Kindergarten and 1st grade loved pretending to have a kite fly with them using scarves and ribbon scrunchies! Kindergarten students got introduced to opposites like high and low, fast and slow, loud and quiet. We got to experience those opposites in lots of different ways - with our bodies and singing voice, with the super stretchy, with the small parachutes, and on the smart board with a game. 1st graders reviewed those concepts, but also focused on steady beat vs. rhythm, and they loved singing and playing along to "The Earth is our Mother".
2nd graders focused heavily on solfège and reading rhythms in November. They learned all the solfège syllables, learned to sing the songs "Whacky Do Re Mi" and "Do Re Mi" from the Sound of Music, and practiced the order of the syllables with some card games. They also played along with boomwhackers and hand bells. It all culminated in them watching three scenes from "The Sound of Music". 3rd grade reviewed the solfège syllables, songs, and games, and did some mystery solfège song guessing games. They also learned about steps and skips and started their unit on Rondos.
4th graders received their recorders at the end of October and November was spent playing lots of recorder! In the beginning, it can be tricky to find out, how much (or better how little!) can you blow before it squeaks! This is why it is important to practice at home! In class it can sometimes be tricky to hear yourself. At home, it is much easier to hear your recorder and hear your squeaks. I'm not asking you to play 30 minutes each day, but 5 minutes each day will go a long way! Your fingers will get used to the recorder, you will realize how little air you need, and your tongue knows what to do. So far, we have learned the notes B, A, and G. Play around with them, have fun, improvise!
5th graders focused on learning their songs for the Highland Tree Lighting, learning how to play DJ Bobo on the recorder, and we built with Legos. Students had to build rhythms using Legos. They first had to build rhythms that I wrote down, then rhythms I spoke, and then rhythms I played. Afterwards, they had to come up with as many rhythms as possible using the Legos.

Veterans Day Celebration at Spring Mills
The Empower Hour "Spring Mills Voices" prepared for a concert for our Veterans during the past eight weeks. They sang a beautiful concert with patriotic songs, songs to honor our Veterans, fabulous solos, and even a flag routine! In the morning, they performed for Veterans and 3rd through 5th graders, in the evening for Veterans, families, and friends. A huge Thank You to Biggby Coffee in White Lake and in Hartland, Tim Hortons in Hartland, The Looney Baker, and Meijer for their generous donations for our small reception for our Veterans after the morning concert!

October in Music

Junior Kindergarten, Kindergarten, 1st grade: After singing "5 little speckled frogs" in lots of different ways (a crowd favorite was of course the jumping frogs!), we switched to fall songs and Halloween songs. A big hit this year was "Blowing in the Wind". We also played drums and xylophones.
Students in Kindergarten all the way through 2nd grade still love the spider song! Nothing for the faint-hearted! :-)
​2nd grade: Students got to know the names and note values of the whole note, half note, quarter note, quarter rest, and the barred eighth notes. We explored them in various ways – singing a song, drawing them on paper, drawing them outside with chalk, and even forming them with pipe cleaners! We also sang some Halloween songs (big hit: Whacky Halloween) and sang the book “13 Nights of Halloween”.
​3rd grade: We finished some cup routines, sang apple and other fall songs, and accompanied the “Shake them Bones” book with instruments.
4th grade: Our big focus in October was to learn how to read the notes on the staff in order to get ready for the recorder. We did this lots of different ways: with a song, with bingo chips, alone, in groups, as a class, on the smart board, with a game,... We also got our recorders in the last week of October!! That is always exciting - and scary for parents! :-) We also looked at the book "Skelly the Skeleton Girl". Everybody loved the zombie walk on Halloween!
5th grade: We continued to review the note names on the staff, kept working on our recorders, and worked on a two-part accompaniment to the song "The Ghost of John".

September in Music

In Junior Kindergarten and Kindergarten, we started the year off with lots of songs - some familiar ones and some new ones. We also started playing instruments using different kinds of shakers - egg shakers, maracas, and fruit and veggie shakers. We learned to stop moving at a specific moment and how to move safely around the music room.
In 1st grade, we reviewed some songs from last year and started working on some new songs. We jumped right back in solidifying our steady beat. We added a song and a xylophone accompaniment to the book "All are Welcome Here" and sang a welcome song in Spanish.
2nd graders already played a variety of rhythm instruments as well as xylophones, right in the first month back! They also started singing "Are you sleeping" in different languages and learned about the different note names and values.
3rd through 5th graders did a lot of reviewing of concepts. Note values were practiced by playing various music games. All classes were very strong in reading rhythms. 5th graders reviewed the note names for the recorder and 4th grade got their introduction into note name reading for the recorder. Students in upper el also worked on cup passing routines in rows and circles.

Ready for the new school year?
The room is ready! I'm ready and excited to start the new school year! I can't wait to explore our theme for the year: Music Genres! My beat buddies, ribbon scrunchies, and scarves are washed, instruments are clean, and Mr. Red got a new buddy this summer: Mr. Blue! I'm looking forward to another fabulous year of learning and fun activities. I'm also excited to welcome Missoula Children's Theater to our community in the week of November 13th. More infos to come in a few weeks...
If you're looking for ways to donate to our music classroom, we have a DonorsChoose page and an Amazon wishlist. If you're doing some end-of-summer or fall cleaning and have any stick horses laying around that your children are no longer using, I'd love to give them a new home. I sometimes do horse riding activities with my lower el classes and it would be more fun to do them with actual stick horses than with candy canes... Thank you!

2022-2023

Summer!

I was fortunate to take some post-graduate classes this summer. I took two classes that focused on teaching music to students with special needs, one class about equity in the music classroom, one about positive behavior in the classroom, and one ukulele class. It was a lot of reading and writing, a lot of ukulele practicing, but I definitely got some great ideas in all the classes. For my ukulele class, I had to record a lot of songs during the 8 weeks of the course. I had to record two videos for a "final virtual concert". I had two of my daughters help me with the vocals on "Hallelujah" - this was a first for us and it ended up being a wonderful experience. I thought I'd share our performance with you as well...

Recorder Stars

Congratulations to our 5th graders Kennedy, Naomi, and Kenny, who all got the black belt in Recorder Karate! Kennedy achieved even more! She was the only student this year to receive the silver and gold medal for her recorder playing. Pretty amazing!

June - here comes the end :-)