The Elementary Music Life with Erik Whitehill: Recent Episodes
Erik Whitehill
Come and join me, elementary general music teachers... Come for a discussion of general music standards, objectives, and practices. Come for new material you can use in your classroom. Come for a funny story. Come for support after a hard day. Come to be respected, inspired, and celebrated. Come so I am not alone talking to a monkey puppet.
This episode is an essay I wrote as I am struggling with teaching elementary general music via live stream on the internet. It is a call to focus more on student connection and less on state standards.
Feeling run down? Feeling uninspired? Feeling stressed? This short episode contains a framework for guided meditation in the hopes you can incorporate self-care in your teaching.
In this episode, I have provided two major segments:
- My top 10 suggestions for synchronously streaming elementary music classes
- Some selected passages from my Kindergarten Lunch and Recess Duty Journal
I feature a lot of websites in this episode. Here are the links:
- Synesthesia Listen and Draw Lesson from Teach Rock
- https://teachrock.org/lesson/drawing-music-hearing-colors-seeing-sounds
- Go Noodle - Guided Dances
- https://app.gonoodle.com/
- Dallas Symphony Orchestra - Make Your Own In
- https://www.mydso.com/dso-kids/activities/make-your-own-instrument
- "Sorida" from Mrs. Ankrum's Music Room
- https://youtu.be/JwpGibkBsD0
- "Double This Double That" from the Responsive Classroom
- https://youtu.be/g4ea2GmBqFo
- Dan Brown and 'Wild Symphony'
- https://youtu.be/cuIDgTUkhlw
- Mo Willems and 'Because'
- https://youtu.be/lh7S5r78tS0
- Incredibox
- https://www.incredibox.com/
- Isle of Tune
- https://thefwa.com/cases/isle-of-tune
- Chrome Music Lab: Melody Maker and Rhythm
- https://musiclab.chromeexperiments.com/Melody-Maker/
- https://musiclab.chromeexperiments.com/Rhythm/
- Tone Matrix Redux
- https://www.maxlaumeister.com/tonematrix/
- Groove Pizza
- https://apps.musedlab.org/groovepizza/?museid=pS1APISRU&
- Virtual Instruments
- https://www.virtualmusicalinstruments.com/
- https://femurdesign.com/theremin/
- https://www.musick8kids.com/html/play_bw.php?bwswitch=TRUE
- https://www.google.com/logos/2020/mbira/r4/mbira20.html?hl=en&ddllb=1&doodle=122734981≷=zw
- https://apps.makeymakey.com/bongos/
- https://www.musictheory.net/piano
- Virtual Field Trips at Google Arts and Culture
- https://artsandculture.google.com/
- Google JamBoard
- https://jamboard.google.com/
In this episode, there’ll be two segments. The first is a brief biography telling how I ended up living an elementary music life and a bit of credibility building for those who don’t know me. The second part is an encouragement for all of us as we struggle to teach in this time of pandemic.