Before you begin prepping for so & mi, students need to understand the basic concepts of high and low pitch - they need to be able to compare and contrast two notes and work out which is higher and which is lower. So how do we teach this? I like to begin with songs that expand their vocal range and pitch-pattern the music in a nice subtle way. We're not yet asking them to consciously identify high and low, simply to copy our movements. Songs such as "Flea" and "We're Going Up

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 teaching sequences happens when students have discovered so & mi and are ready to start writing down the notes they hear. They're ready to move beyond stick notation and using an "s for so, m for mi". They're ready for the stave. When I was undertaking my Kodaly levels, I remember this being an area of much discussion - how can we make this less complicated? How can we make this fun? I believe the answer lies in applying the Kodaly approach to this, just l