H! I'm Amy M. Burns, the creator of amymburns.com and the proud author of "Using Technology with Elementary Music Approaches." By day, I'm rocking it as an elementary music educator at Far Hills Country Day School, and by night, I'm the Community Coordinator at Midnight Music and an Elementary Music Consultant at MusicFirst. Get ready to join me every Tuesday for some snazzy tech tips to jazz up your music class with MusicFirst Elementary! Dive into this awesome K-5 program (soon expanding to Preschool through grade 6) featuring cool printable lessons, groovy music from around the world, instrument goodies for bands and orchestras, and tools to whip up epic movie soundtracks! Hit those links below to snag a spot for a 30-day free trial and unlock a treasure trove of detailed videos. Let's make some musical magic together!

Grade 1 Unit #techtiptuesday: Each unit includes a lesson incorporating activities such as playing instruments, improvising, and composing.

I enjoy exploring lessons that involve active music participation, such as playing instruments, improvising, and composing. These units within the first-grade curriculum cover all these activities. Some lessons also incorporate a few of these activities.

I enjoy discovering lessons that involve active music participation, like playing instruments, improvising, and composing. Within the first-grade curriculum, these units contain lessons encompassing all these activities.

• Unit 1 Name Song

• Unit 2 I Wanna Play In a Band

• Unit 3 Rainbows

• Unit 4 The Music Man

• Unit 5 Round and Round

• Unit 6 Zootime

There are also lessons that include some of these activities.

Music Explorer Included in Grade 1’s Compositional Activities!

In first grade, the composition activity now includes Music Explorer, one of the six creative tools found in MusicFirst Elementary. With this activity, your students can compose a section of the song as a group. I have my students come up to the interactive whiteboard to do this, but you can have them also use a device connected to a projector or as a center in the class, or as a station. You have a choice to use three notes of CDE/DRM or five notes of CDEFG/DRMFS. Then you can choose six different ways for your students to compose from non-pitched notation to pitched notation on a traditional staff. When the students compose, the program will only allow the notes that you set up. It is intuitive for them to compose and once finished, you can switch around to show them what their music looks like on a traditional staff. You can also have them practice the rhythms without pitches. And if you click on file, you can save and export the music that they create.

Add a splash of pizzazz to your learning journey by tossing the "Zootime" lesson into your "My Lessons" mix by clicking “add to my lessons”. Then click on My Workspace and scroll down to My Lessons. Find Zootime. Just tap on edit and dive into a realm of Booomwhacker play-along delight. It's a groovy medley that gathers all your Zootime goodies in one thrilling spot!

Stay tuned for more MFE tech tips on #TechTipsTuesday next week!

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