Peeping Through Our Classroom Window
Mrs. Lynn's class STICKS with The Nutcracker for some music of the season....
Take just one minute and watch them in the video below to see how movement can help young musicians to organize the structure of a piece of music as they participate in the music.

Active listening is a key skill to develop in the music room. When students engage in 'active listening' they are mentally engaging in the music with understanding, predicting what might happen next. The process of predicting is what makes us hooked on music: it's immensely satisfying when the music resolves as you expect it to, yet it is so exciting when the music takes you to a place you didn't expect!   
One of our responsibilities as music educators is to build lots of music experiences to support the development of a rich and varied music vocabulary from which our students can draw to make predictions....and become lifelong active participants in the music of their culture.  

I have enjoyed putting some of these strategies to work in my own classroom. One of those strategies was to provide the opportunity for students to compare and contrast major and minor tonality. 

​In the two-minute video above, students from Mr. Kuehl's class share their reflections on major and minor tonality. Eavesdrop on conversations in the music room in this next installment of 'Peeping Through our Classroom Window...'