Amy M. Burns

Elementary Music Technology and Integration

Amy M. Burns has taught PreK-grade 4 general music for over 25 years at Far Hills Country Day School (FH) (https://www.fhcds.org/). She also teaches grade 5 instrument class, directs the FH Philharmonic, is the Performing Arts Department Manager, and teaches privately in the after-school conservatory after being the director for over 20 years. She has authored four books and numerous articles on how to integrate tech into the elementary music classroom. She has presented many sessions on the topic, including four keynote addresses in TX, IN, St. Maarten, and AU. She is the recipient of the 2005 Technology in Music Education (TI:ME) Teacher of the Year, the 2016 New Jersey Music Educators Association (NJMEA) Master Music Teacher, the 2016 Governor’s Leader in Arts Education, and the 2017 NJ Nonpublic School Teacher of the Year Awards. Her most recent publication, Using Technology with Elementary Music Approaches (2020), published by Oxford University Press (OUP) is available from OUP and Amazon. Burns is also the Community Coordinator for Midnight Music (MMC) at https://midnightmusic.com/, the General Music Chair for NJMEA Board of Directors, and the Elementary Music Consultant for MusicFirst (https://www.musicfirst.com/), a company built by music educators for music educators, dedicated to helping music teachers and their students make the most of technology in the classroom.

Integrating with Integrity: Composition, Writing, and Social Studies (3C)

January 27, 2022  /  Amy M. Burns

In second grade, my student musicians composed a four-measure melody. By third grade, they are ready to compose an eight-measure melody that they can perform on the recorder. The students were given the guidelines of composing an eight-measure melody using the notes B A and G and the rhythms quarter, eighth, half, and whole notes. They also composed a drum line as an integration to their STEM to STEAM unit which involves the students creating drums or a pitched instrument from recycled materials. Once the students composed their melodies using noteflight (http://www.noteflight.com, a cloud-based notation program), we exported the melodies into GarageBand and I gave the groups of students certain musical styles to create an introduction, accompaniment, and coda. Once completed, they wrote lyrics to their melody from the facts that they studied about the state they presented at their Adventure America presentations. Once finished, their music was published here. The third graders loved this project and the results. I adored the integration of social studies in music class while keeping the integrity of the music curriculum intact.

Hudson

Isabella

Isabelle

Ava

Lucy

Blair

Kennedy

Tyler

Christina

Luca

Emily

Tripp

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