Bring La Vaca Lola to life in your classroom with this engaging movement activity that will have your students singing, moving, and laughing! 🎶🐄 Download the free lesson, grab the recording, and see just how easy it is to energize your music lessons. Plus, unlock 30 days of MusicFirst Elementary for free to explore even more interactive songs and resources—perfect for making music magic happen this week! Click below to get started! 🚀🎵
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Ready to take your Boomwhacker play-alongs to the next level? 🎶 This week, I’ve created the Level 2 version of the popular Sia Steady Beat Play-Along to "Unstoppable", with more challenging rhythms like dotted eighth notes and sixteenth notes, plus an expanded range of Boomwhacker notes! 🥁✨ If you liked the first version, your older elementary students will have a blast with this one—complete with free manipulatives, video play-along options on YouTube, and interactive tools on Soundslice. Click here to get the free resources, teaching tips, and everything you need to bring this dynamic activity to your classroom today! 🎉
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🎉 Bring Math & Music Together this Pi Day! 🎶
Looking for a fun, creative way to celebrate National Pi Day (March 14) with your students? Why not combine the love of music and math in your classroom? Pi Day isn’t just for memorizing numbers or serving pie—it’s a perfect opportunity to explore sound, melody, and rhythm with your students.
I’ve got an engaging Pi Day activity that uses Typatone.com, an online tool that transforms typing into music. It’s a super fun way for students to explore how letters and numbers can create melodies, and it’s the perfect way to introduce them to the magic of combining math with music.
Click here to learn more about how to bring this Pi Day music activity into your classroom!
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🎵 Looking for a fun and meaningful way to celebrate Women’s History Month in your music classroom? Imagine your students performing the music of iconic female artists while mastering steady beats and rhythms! This week, we’re diving into an exciting Sia Boomwhacker Play-Along to her hit song Unstoppable — a perfect blend of music and motivation. Whether you have a full set of boomwhackers or just a few classroom instruments, this activity will have your students engaged, empowered, and eager to learn. Keep reading for teaching tips, creative alternatives, and even more female artist play-alongs! 🎤
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Looking for a fun way to keep your students engaged during Statue in the Park or Dancing Freeze? Statue cards add an exciting visual element, helping students strike creative poses when the music stops! While there are plenty of statue cards available online, finding diverse and relatable images can be a challenge. That’s why I created my own—featuring dancers from all backgrounds to show students that anyone can be a dancer! Want to bring these inclusive statue cards into your classroom? Click to read more and grab your manipulatives! 🎶✨ Watch the video here!
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Looking for a fun, engaging way to teach steady beat and rhythm in your elementary music classroom? The Ella Jenkins Sing, Clap, and Play a Steady Beat Play-Along is the perfect activity to get your students singing, clapping, tapping, and playing instruments — all while exploring the timeless music of the "First Lady of Children's Music," Ella Jenkins. Featuring interactive songs like Caney Mi Macaro, Play Your Instruments, and Pole Pole, this play-along brings music to life through movement, call-and-response, and multicultural rhythms. Plus, you can grab free manipulatives to enhance your lesson! Ready to inspire your students with the magic of Ella’s music? Click "more" to discover the full play-along experience!
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#TechTipTuesday: Celebrate Student Birthdays with YuStudio Sampler!
Looking for a quick, fun way to wrap up music class while introducing music tech? Discover how to use the new sampler feature in YuStudio — part of Music First Elementary — to create personalized, student-recorded soundscapes for birthdays or special days. It’s simple, engaging, and a hit with kids. Click to learn how to make music magic in minutes!
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Are you looking for fresh resources, tech tools, and strategies to enhance your elementary music classroom? This past week at the NJMEA conference, I shared some of my favorite free tech resources, classroom tips for PK and K music, and creative app ideas. Plus, I got to learn from amazing educators like Stephanie Leavell and Dr. Missy Strong. Don’t miss out on these valuable insights and resources—click the link to explore everything I shared and get inspired for your next lesson!
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In my recent session TI:ME/TMEA about how to create play-along videos with free tools, I created a play-along video to Aretha Franklin’s Respect, written by Otis Redding. This is a great video to include in a study of Aretha Franklin, or showcasing women musicians, or studying influential songs from the 1960s.
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If you are attending TMEA this year, please join me in 214D today at 10 am and 3 pm! Learn some wonderful ways to enhance your classroom with new ideas and activities that involve technology, moving to music, performing, and more!
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I have used moises.ai (https://studio.moises.ai/) for over a year now, but today was the first time I decided to experiment with the Voice Studio. This plugin transforms the timbre of an original vocal recording to mirror the style of one of their AI voice models.
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🎶 Are you looking for a fun, interactive way to review musical concepts with your students? JeopardyLabs is a fantastic online tool that lets you easily create and customize your own Jeopardy-style games—perfect for reinforcing music theory, instruments, composers, and more! You can build a game from scratch or search for existing templates (like “musical instruments”) and tweak them to fit your classroom needs. Best of all, it’s free to use, with a lifetime membership option for just $20 if you want to save and edit games effortlessly. Watch this video to see how you can bring Jeopardy Labs into your music classroom today! 🎵✨ Resource: https://jeopardylabs.com/
🎶 Celebrate John Williams’ 93rd Birthday with a Rhythm Play-Along! 🎉
Looking for a fun and engaging way to bring epic movie music into your music classroom? This rhythm play-along medley features themes from Star Wars, Jurassic Park, Harry Potter, and more—perfect for reinforcing rhythms, dynamics, and articulation in an interactive way! Plus, grab FREE rhythm manipulatives to help your students succeed. Click below to learn more and get started! 🚀🥁👇
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Bring Movie Magic to Your Music Class with YuStudio’s New Game-Themed Videos
Attention music educators! If you’re looking for innovative ways to captivate your upper elementary students, you’re in for a treat. MusicFirst Elementary, powered by Charanga, has recently added exciting updates to YuStudio, its web-based Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) designed for young musicians. The newest feature? Five computer-themed video games your students can compose soundtracks for, including car racing, basketball, flight simulators, and more.
Imagine your students crafting sound effects for a Hogwarts adventure or adding dramatic melodies to a high-speed car race. These bite-sized videos, ranging from 19 seconds to just over a minute, are perfect for teaching composition, sound alignment, and creative scoring techniques.
In this blog post, I’ll walk you through a step-by-step guide to incorporating these videos into your classroom, complete with tips for aligning sound effects, creating background tracks, and adding melodies. Whether your students are just starting or ready for a challenge, YuStudio makes it simple to bring their musical ideas to life.
Click through to explore how these videos can transform your music lessons into cinematic experiences your students will never forget! 🎶
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Celebrate Lunar New Year in Your Music Classroom with Engaging Play-Alongs!
The Lunar New Year is just around the corner, and on January 29, we’ll welcome the Year of the Snake—a time to embrace wisdom, intuition, and new beginnings. To bring this festive tradition into your elementary music classroom, I’ve created a variety of play-along resources designed to strengthen musical skills while celebrating the rich cultural heritage of the Lunar New Year.
From a steady beat play-along for preschoolers and kindergartners featuring the beloved song Gong Xi to Boomwhacker and xylophone play-alongs at varying tempos, there’s something for every age and skill level. These resources, developed with tools like Flat.io and PlayXylo, will have your students clapping, tapping, and playing along with joy.
Ready to enhance your Lunar New Year celebrations? Click through to explore these interactive musical activities and make this holiday unforgettable for your students! 🎶
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Transform Your Music Classroom with MusicFirst Elementary's Rhythm Grids!
Looking for a fun, interactive way to engage your students in rhythm practice? MusicFirst Elementary's Rhythm Grids is the ultimate tool to help your students decode rhythms, compose, and build confidence—all while having a blast!
With features like a lockable "Hear" button, customizable meters, fullscreen mode for group activities, and interactive settings, Rhythm Grids is the perfect addition to your music classroom. Plus, it’s a fantastic self-assessment tool, empowering students to take ownership of their learning.
This is just one of the seven creative tools available in MusicFirst Elementary, designed to make teaching music easier and more effective than ever.
🎶 Ready to see it in action? Try it FREE for 30 days! Learn more here.
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Michael Markowski’s Music Lab is a treasure trove for music educators seeking innovative ways to teach theory and ear training. With engaging tools like chordal slot machines, interval recognition games, and jazz harmony identification, it transforms abstract concepts into fun, hands-on learning experiences. These activities are perfect for supplementing classroom instruction or encouraging students to explore music independently. To discover how this resource can enrich your teaching toolkit, explore the full array of interactive activities at Michael Markowski's Music Lab.
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🎶 Inspire Young Voices with the Legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.! 🎶
Looking for an engaging and creative way to celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day in your music classroom? This lesson plan combines history, music, and technology to help students honor Dr. King’s remarkable legacy through songwriting. From interactive resources like Seesaw to singable lyrics, this activity will have your students learning, creating, and connecting in meaningful ways.
Click now to explore this ready-to-use lesson and empower your students to write their own songs inspired by Dr. King’s dream!
Want the lesson? Please visit https://buymeacoffee.com/elmusedtech to get the lesson plan and to read the blog post.
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Love play-along videos? But not sure how to teach them. Find out more!
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As the third Monday of January approaches in the States, schools will close to observe the birthday of Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Dr. King was born on January 15, 1929. In music classes, many music educators will use numerous resources to study how Dr. King used nonviolent resistance to achieve equal rights. Here are some that I have used together in my classroom along with a Sing-Along/Play-Along.
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