We've been reading, listening, and moving to the story "Peter and the Wolf" to learn about the instruments of the orchestra. Students have been very engaged in the story and learning about the instruments! It was a great way to have them very excited and involved in what they were learning! I will definitely do this lesson again in the future and perhaps look for more musical stories that I could stretch beyond a simple read-aloud into a full fledged whole lesson.

This year I decided to give some ownership to my 5th graders by allowing them to help select the music for 5th grade Celebration. I think it is important that they feel like they have some control over how they will celebrate on their big day. I chose several pieces for them to listen to and they were then able to vote on their favorites. This was a great idea. It was neat to hear them defend their opinions and reasons why one particular song would be better than another in terms of its message and the mood it portrayed. Perhaps next year I'll get even braver and allow them to suggest songs they'd like to do. I'm also going to have a few 5th graders create choreography and perhaps even lead the rest of the class in their final performance.

One of the songs they chose was one with a 'good mood' but the lyrics needed some revision. As part of the process of learning the songs, they are changing important words to make them better fit their message. I love having the students so eagerly involved in this process and I'm excited to see how they words to final song turn out! Definitely a great way for students to be involved in the process of being ready for their

Third grade students are wrapping up their recorder composition projects. Most students have been doing a great job of applying what they've learned about rhythm and recorder technique to their compositions and performances. They are engaged and excited about creating their own songs. I still have several students that are really struggling with the basics of even producing a good sound on the recorder let alone understanding how to read the music. I've worked with these students one on one. I've helped them with their compositions and playing technique and yet I see no improvement. Most of these students are not putting forth much effort and they put in no time outside of class to improve their playing. It's frustrating and challenging to continue working with students that do not care to put forth the effort or time on their own. I REALLY want to see each of these kids be successful with the recorder, but I guess I have to realize the level of success for each kid is going to be different and I just have to do my best to help them wherever they are at.

2nd graders did a great job at their performance of "How Does Your Garden Groove"! It was so exciting to see them not only singing well, but also performing and expressing the composer's purpose to entertain their audience. After watching their performance students determined important evaluation criteria and then scored themselves and the entire group. Despite my best effort to explain what a '4', '3', '2', and '1' each looked like there was still a lot of discrepancy between students as to how the group scored. Some students would score the group at a 4 (exceeding, above and beyond) for expression, while others would score the group at a 2 (approaching, getting there). This made it clear to me that I need to continue using this rubric as much as possible so that students truly understand each criteria level. I also need to do more to show exemplars so students really do know what a 4 can really look or sound like.

This lesson was one that turned into a total disaster! I like trying new things with my classes and realizing things that are awesome and must repeats. But its also a good experience to have a lesson that totally flops and figure out why. My first graders have been doing really well with reading rhythms. They've confidently performed by themselves and with a whole group. So I thought it would be neat to blend what they've been learning about different instrument groups with rhythm by having them write and perform different rhythms at the same time! Woah did I overestimate their ability to do this! I definitely jumped them ahead to being able to perform parts simultaneously quicker than they were ready. I wonder if this is even developmentally appropriate? But, I think if I had give them more experience with ostinatos and patterns overlapping they'd be more successful with this type of activity. This definitely made me realize that it is important to build the independence in part reading not just s

Many of my classes have been recently working on composition projects. This is a great way for me to truly assess what students know and understand about what we've been doing together in class. These composition projects have afforded me the opportunity to meet with every student one on one to see what they understand well and help them work through the things they are struggling with. I've enjoyed conferencing with students about their compositions and  hearing them perform them individually. Part of this process has been a self-assessment and peer assessment process as well as a rubric development. I'm getting new ideas each time as I go through these processes, but I still feel like I'm struggling a bit to make them really 'work' well. Some students do a great job of peer assessing, but I'm beginning to realize that more modeling of what this should look like might make it a more beneficial process. I think I might try to save some student work from this year to model with for next year. Students would then have exemplars and not exemplars of how to complete these projects. I'm also struggling a bit with the rubric development. It seems that my criteria and student suggested criteria are the same for these assignments. They realize the importance of the assignment and on what they need to be graded. So I'm still wrestling with the fact of taking so much class time to help them develop the rubrics, when they are virtually the same as what I would choose for important criteria. I would definitely like to re-work my rubrics a bit for next year to really have an area for 'exceeding' the standard and not showing evidence at all of the standard. I don't think I'm giving my students enough opportunities to go above and beyond and really shine. So as this year wraps out and I'm thinking toward next year I will definitely be looking more closely at my rubrics.