Music lessons at the beginning of a school year can be tough for any grade - you've just come back from several weeks' holiday, it takes a while for everyone to get back into the rhythms of school, you need to spend some time establishing classroom rules & expectations and recapping prior learning before you can delve into anything new. All of this applies to every year level I've ever taught, but when you're starting with Prep kids (Prep/Foundation, your first year of school

One of my favourite Kodaly quotes talks about making music a joy for your pupils rather than a chore. Today I'd like to talk about an activity for junior students that is exactly that - Joy. Pure, unadulterated fun! For the activity "Two Teddies on a Trampoline" you will need a canvas parachute (as pictured below) although you can also get away with using a large sheet of stretchy fabric such as lycra. You will of course also need two teddies: Place the two teddies in the mid

Until I started teaching junior primary students, there were certain things about music teaching that I took for granted. The ability to wipe your own nose or tie your own shoes, for example. Another thing I definitely took for granted was a tacit understanding of what it meant to keep a steady beat. But this is not guaranteed. The beat, just like anything else, is something which must be consciously taught to our students, and the earlier we can teach them, the better. So ho

Prep music lessons can be a magical time - the children are young, with a vivid imagination and a thirst for knowledge. They haven't yet learned to be cynical about school or self-conscious in front of others. I therefore try to make the most of this golden window of opportunity and have them perform in front of their classmates and in front of me as often as possible so that they get used to it and it's no big deal later on. This means lots of solo-singing games - one of my

I'd like to introduce you to a Kodaly Crafts regular - Peanuts the Elephant. Peanuts usually makes an appearance in one of my first prep lessons and will be a mainstay of the music room for years to come. He's a great all-purpose puppet and my students respond to him in a really great way. In the early days of prep music, I use him for vocalisation exercises. I ask my students to follow Peanuts' trunk with their voices - when his trunk goes up, their voices must get higher.