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.
Join in the fun with this exciting play-along for the song, "Puppy for Hanukkah" written by Daveed Diggs, William Hutson, and Jonathan Snipes. Gather your instruments, including C, E, F, and G boomwhackers, tambourines, rhythm sticks, and maracas and shakers, and get ready to play!
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Get ready to rock with this boomwhacker play-along for older elementary students, featuring the fun tune "I Want Candy" by Berns, Feldman, Goldstein, and Gottehrer, performed by Kidz Bop. This is a perfect jam to bring out during the Halloween season, as it's all about sweet treats and no mention of spooky stuff.
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Well, it's that time of year in the States. Personally, I loved Katie's picture of the few pumpkins and the purple packages of tangerines being sold in her area where here, if you turn around, you are presented with a pumpkin patch, hayrides, and pumpkin spice everything...not that I mind. I do love my pumpkin spice.
If you need some Halloween/Fall Play-Along Videos, especially if you are teaching on Halloween, please feel free to use these. If you like my resources, please consider buying me a coffee at buymeacoffee.com/elmusedtech.
Read MoreThis past week, I researched Canva's AI tools and had it rewrite the song, Five Little Pumpkins, and turn it into a whimsical tale. It was amusing, to say the least. I had fun using Canva to illustrate and record that tale. Most of this video was produced in Canva, with the recording of the song done in Soundtrap, and the final edits to put the three videos together in Final Cut Pro.
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In this video, I am using Canva's animation tool to record the movement of the snail. This can be used as a play-along video and a sing-along video. You could also use this as an assessment and place it in an LMS platform or Seesaw to share with your students. Like my resources? Please consider buying me a coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/elmusedtech
Resources: Blog Post:
Seesaw Activity: https://app.seesaw.me/pages/shared_activity?prompt_id=prompt.e995c45f-2425-4b93-a737-abe664e428c4&share_token=b-lfU1JtS6qZy3NrDJH-4g
Snail, Snail: https://kodaly.hnu.edu/song.cfm?id=833
Canva for Education: https://www.canva.com/education/
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If you are coming to summer break or a holiday break where warm weather might be involved, this play-along will bring your students to break in a fun and educational way. Plus, it celebrates Beach Boy Brian Wilson's birthday on June 20. This is an intuitive play-along for elementary students to perform successfully. The blog post also contains interesting facts and resources to learn more about the artist. #students #artist #elementaryteacher #elmused #elementarymusic
Read MoreThis new play-along is challenging! The tempo is quick, there are a lot of chromatic notes, the rhythm has a lot of playing on the offbeats, and the play-along encourages one to look ahead when performing it. I would highly suggest slowing down the tempo on YouTube by clicking on the settings choosing the “Playback speed” and slowing it down to 0.75 or 0.50.” Or use the “Transpose ▲▼ pitch ▹ speed ▹ loop for videos” Chrome extension that will allow you to change the pitch and key of most YouTube videos. In addition, I would use the screenshots/file found here in the blog post so that your students can practice this before trying it with the video.
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Countdown to 2023-10 Tech Tools or Tips for Elementary and Middle School General Music: #10 Two Important YouTube Tips
For the past few years, I have counted down to the new year with a top ten list. I begin on 12/23 and end on 1/1. The list is comprised of 10 tech tools or tips for elementary and middle school general music. This top ten list will have a tech tool or tip featured each day in a short video and blog post. When we reach number one, I will follow it with a video of all ten tools and tips. Therefore, you can follow me daily, or come back on New Year’s Day and catch all ten at once.
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Read MoreIt’s beginning to look a lot like…
That time of year when we are about to approach a holiday break and we need activities to quickly and intuitively use in a class of elementary music students. There have been so many wonderful contributions from numerous elementary music educators that I wanted to make this Wakelet so these activities were all in one place.
Check out over 170 music activities to celebrate the winter or December holidays in those last few days before the holiday break! Like my resources? Please consider buying me a coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/elmusedtech.
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One of my favorite holiday pieces is “Christmas Eve/Sarajevo 12/24” by Savatage / Trans-Siberian Orchestra (1995). It is a combination of “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” played in the beginning of the song by a solo cello, and then in a round with a flute and guitar. The next part picks up the tempo and is the melody of “Carol of the Bells” or “Shchedryk”, the Ukrainian New Year’s song by Mykola Leontovych, written in 1916. I recently arranged this piece for my school’s Philharmonic, which consists of students in grades 4-8 who play strings, brass, woodwinds, and piano. They had a wonderful time learning to play and perform the song, and it inspired me to create this play-along video. For this video, I edited the song and slowed down the tempo so that it could be successfully performed by elementary and middle school students.
Like my resources? Please consider buying me a coffee at https://www.buymeacoffee.com/elmusedtech.
Read MoreNeed musical activities for early childhood and elementary classes for this shortened week? Take a look at the Being Thankful/Giving Thanks/Thanksgiving Music Activities Wakelet (https://wakelet.com/wake/zeVd8qvk_TuEbRCXzbL4I) and read the blog to see some of the highlights from the Wakelet!
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What happens when you can use Zoomerang to create quick boomwhacker snippets? Currently, a work-in-progress, hopefully by the end of the week, I will find out!
Read MoreThis is the fifth installment of my summer project of creating play-along videos of songs and concepts found in the Kodály and Orff Schulwerk approaches. This week, I feature We Are Dancing In The Forest Play-Along (Boomwhackers, Percussion, and Recorder) video.
Each video (found on my YouTube page) will be accompanied by lesson manipulatives. The lesson manipulatives can be found on my Teachers Pay Teachers page starting in September (these free manipulatives are now showing up on my TPT page). Up until then, you can have them for free (as seen below and beginning to show up on my TPT page). This gives you the opportunity to use the video for free to work well with your classroom approach or purchase the lesson that goes along with the video on my TPT page. Either way, the videos are free to use in your classroom.
Google slides: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1fHjgrbaRpyIiBY6aLjXf0XuRk8G-96EGEj94rr9w2_w/copy
PDF File: https://drive.google.com/file/d/10_7A9PKoapFKYa7ZvIojoJ55OizNpaY9/view?usp=sharing
Seesaw Activity: https://app.seesaw.me/pages/shared_activity?prompt_id=prompt.49b4ebe7-65bd-48d8-802f-a95ce1a54873&share_token=DmycA2--QjqHlOUx6gERkw
YouTube Play-Along Video: https://youtu.be/hCwj2SRlunY
Read MoreThis is the fourth installment of my summer project of creating play-along videos of songs and concepts found in the Kodály and Orff Schulwerk approaches. This week, I feature the Long-Legged Sailor Play-Along (Boomwhackers, Percussion, and Recorder) video.
Each video (found on my YouTube page) will be accompanied by lesson manipulatives. The lesson manipulatives can be found on my Teachers Pay Teachers page starting in September (these free manipulatives are now showing up on my TPT page). Up until then, you can have them for free (as seen below and beginning to show up on my TPT page). This gives you the opportunity to use the video for free to work well with your classroom approach or purchase the lesson that goes along with the video on my TPT page. Either way, the videos are free to use in your classroom.
Here are the resources and blog of the lesson plan:
Blog: http://amymburns.com/elmusedtech/lls
Google Slides: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1yZc3cVj3E5cecZ8lBgcx0KsRdEhQlcXopEJMAfvgyXw/copy
Seesaw Activity: https://app.seesaw.me/pages/shared_activity?prompt_id=prompt.ef00279b-e26e-4235-a8ea-94d66cb93e73&share_token=rfB59kRcRnKJQVr-jd5TXQ
PDF of Slides: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1aEsBUC9yEyPGZ6fiBMnAagNL_6ZjYV85/view?usp=sharing
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