As another school year begins, let’s pause to consider one experience that’s almost certain to make school a better place: making music. Singing as a group is an awesome way to build school community and empower children to do good in the world. While I love it when classes sing…
As September draws closer, early education teachers everywhere are gathering their strategies to meet academic goals for our youngest kids. To prepare children for reading, traditional nursery rhymes remain a terrific tool. Sure, there are some you wouldn’t want to recite in today’s world, but many nursery songs and chants…
It’s spring! Here in New England, we have a beautiful sunshine-y day outside, daffodils are blooming and everyone’s frolicking and eating popsicles. I’m making a video of a spring song that I wrote with a Pre-K class a few years ago. I plan to post it on my Youtube Channel,…
Be a kindness rock star! The poster on the left by Karen Salmansohn provides my motto for behavior management for music specialists or teaching artists or any adult who visits classrooms. (Substitute teachers, there is a special place in Heaven for you.) One of the biggest challenges for any teacher…
I just made a new video of one of my favorite literacy songs, “Dr. Knickerbocker.” Find it now on my youtube channel, LizBuchananMusic, by clicking here. “Dr. Knickerbocker” is somewhat ubiquitous in kids’ music circles, having been featured on at least two children’s TV shows and in numerous books. It’s…
Memo to musicians under 40, of all musical styles and persuasions: Could you share your music with kids? Please? I’m reaching out especially to those of you who don’t look or sound like me, a white female of a certain age, who strums my acoustic guitar and sings folk-y type…
Here’s a series of fall arts activities that include movement, music, art and poetry. These activities are perfect for arts integration into curriculum, offering children a chance to reflect on fall colors and the change of seasons, as well as botany and earth science related to seasonal change. These lessons…
I recently watched a video about arts integration at the Two Rivers Charter School in Washington, D.C. Second graders created giant Jackson Pollock-style paintings while learning about the physics of flight; fourth graders learned about their local rivers by enacting the history of a river through poetry, movement and drama….
It’s great fun to engage children in stories with music and acting. Elsewhere on this blog, you can find posts about my musical versions of stories such as “The Three Little Pigs” and “The Tortoise and the Hare.” Click on “Story Songs” to find several examples. These musical dramas don’t…
I love making music with kids aged 3-6, especially pairing music with early literacy learning, which is a natural fit. I once taught at a preschool where the director told me: “Just have fun singing with the kids,” implying that they’d pick up the literacy learning elsewhere in their day….
