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.

Math and Kindergarten/1st Grade: Using Groovy Music to Show Form in Kindergarten/1st Grade Music Class

January 30, 2022  /  Amy M. Burns

In K and 1, the music educator and students can use the cloud-based software from MusicFirst called Groovy Music to create music. Consider this a “GarageBand” for younger students. 

Using Groovy Shapes, music educators can reinforce shapes, colors and patterns while having the students create a song in a guided form. The students also experience musical terms such as dynamics, tempo, melodies, bass, chords, and more.  

Using Groovy Jungle, students can experience creating a song using the same musical elements listed above. However, they can also use the text tool to write lyrics or poetry to their songs. It is a nice way to make a cross-curricular connection with writing. Finally, if your students are studying the rainforest, they can create a song about the rain forest that can have written facts using the knowledge they learned from science class.

Above you will find pictures and below you will find two video clips of Groovy Music. The first video shows the process of learning Vivaldi's "Spring" 1st Movement through movement with a parachute. The second video shows my Kindergartners’ composition using Groovy Shapes. They created a song with the same form of Vivaldi's Spring: ABACADAEA.

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