Year: 2018

I started September planning to keep up with putting all the resources for Can Do 3 on this site in time for each month as it came. I’m not keeping up with my plans. Life keeps getting in the way!

Maybe that happens to you once in a while in the classroom?
There’s science and math, language arts, assemblies and maybe even a snow day or two. Classroom teachers have huge curriculum expectations to meet as well as personal goals.

Even when you don’t see all the up-to-date resources for Can Do 3 on the site, I’m working at it, just one bit at a time.
Classroom music sometimes needs a “one bit at a time” approach.   Just choose one song or one dance or one warm-up … and do that! If there’s music time left, sing through favourite parts of the repertoire, play the instruments in a rollicking cacophony, relax to the strains of quiet instrumental music … all this meets the most important part of including music in ordinary class life…

… so that students will be able to find in music
a lifelong source
of enjoyment and personal satisfaction

Walter Pitman
Learning the Arts in an Age of Uncertainty
Ontario Curriculum Purpose

 

Doesn’t matter what the calendar says, somewhere deep inside, I know the year begins in September with school starting. The holiday schedule, staff meetings, the now familiar class rearranging due to enrollment, lists of students and curriculum goals may look the same on paper, but I’m different every year and that can make everything have new possibilities. Take a minute or two to consider how you have changed in the past year and its possible effects on teaching.

Same thing for students. This year each one will be reading and exploring science, doing sums and running races in different ways from last year. There are the “me” things like growing taller, or not; friends changing; family dynamics affecting who I am now. There are the school things like new teachers, class rooms and class room expectations.

September music can be a safe haven in the midst of change. Even more than stories, good songs may be sung again and again. Since we’re different, what the songs mean to us may change some, but the feelings that go with them will be there somewhere. So add a few new songs this September, but include some familiar music as well. It can be a touchstone in the midst of constant change.