If you’re a parent reading this, I hope these months of the pandemic have given you some opportunities to share extra special experiences with your children. I know it can be pretty tough at times, especially if you are trying to do that other job (the one where you might…
October can be a month of opposites. Where I live, sometimes the weather is warm in October, and sometimes it feels quite cold. Sometimes the wind blows softly and sometimes it’s loud, whipping and whistling through the trees. Sometimes the leaves move fast, dancing and whirling, and sometimes they float…
Introducing children to musical opposites is a great way to introduce basic musical concepts such as tempo, dynamics and pitch. It’s also a good way generally to introduce the concept of opposites. Children can learn about the concept of opposites with my song, “The Opposite Game,” which is on my…
This is for all the music teachers who have endured a “bad day,” especially at the start of the school year. I have been teaching music for young children for more than twenty years, and those days still happen to me. One of them was today. But upon reflection, most…
It was a bit too cold on Thanksgiving this year in New England, a reminder that real winter is just around the corner. You can find some of my favorite winter songs and stories on this blog. Leo Lionni’s classic story of Frederick the mouse is always great. You can…
Hello, all you teachers and other musical people getting ready to sing some awesome songs for the Halloween season! It’s less than two weeks away. At our Children’s Music Network conference last weekend, some people wondered if we should stop singing the song “Dem Bones,” given concerns about singing old…
This is an October song that I enjoy every fall with young children. The tune is at this link. October, October, leaves orange, green, red, yellow, brown. October, the wind blows. Leaves falling down, down to the ground, leaves fall down to the ground. With its ¾ meter, this is…
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…
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….
