MelodySoup.org | A pinch of this and a touch of that make each music lesson more special than the last...

Feeding Your Creative Fire Without Burning Down the Forest – (13 ways for music teachers to avoid burn out)

by Bonnie | Jun 5, 2019 | music teacher encouragement, Reflections and Caveats, Teaching in a Crisis

Burnout among teachers is real! IF you are a music teacher you already KNOW the things you face daily that put you most at risk of burnout. After 20 years of teaching music here are some things that help me avoid burnout. 1. Celebrate The Good Stuff - even if it's...

Generating Buy-In Through “Auditioning” a Non-Auditioned Choir

by Bonnie | May 28, 2019 | Choir Resources, Reflections and Caveats, Singing with children, singing with children

For the last 10 years or so, at 3 different campuses students interested in singing in the volunteer extracurricular choir simply turned in a form (paper or digital) to join choir. In anticipation of next year's choir, I decided to try something new, and I am so glad...

Reflections On Year 1 of Teaching Ukulele

by Bonnie | Apr 19, 2019 | Music Classroom Resources, music teacher encouragement, Reflections and Caveats, Teaching Music 101

This year my fifth graders and I embarked on a new adventure.... We learned how to play ukulele. Before adding this to our musical adventure there were quite a few steps that my co-teacher and I had to accomplish. Research and Funding Before we ever started planning...

Roots of American Music – Here at Home

by Bonnie | Mar 11, 2019 | Fund for Teachers, Professional Development

This last week was the deadline to submit the 2019 FFT travel fellowship. Seeing all of the posts reminded me that it was time to reflect on just how significantly my recent FFT fellowship has informed my teaching this year. Some of the things I planned to do as part...