I am proud to announce that I have just released a series of my favourite lesson plan packs as booklets available for purchase & digital download through Teachers Pay Teachers (send me an email: jenny@kodalycrafts.com if you'd like a physical copy shipped to you). There are currently 4 booklets available: Bee-themed lessons, Halloween-themed lessons, Night-themed lessons and cat-and-mouse-themed lessons! Each booklet contains a wide variety of folk songs that fit the theme, a

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

One of the best pieces of advice I ever received in my Kodaly training was about the importance of transitions between activities. When working with primary aged students (ESPECIALLY preps!) their attention spans work best with activities that only go for a few minutes, which of course means that if you're teaching a 50 minute lesson, you better have a lot of activities up your sleeve! Now, generally speaking, if a lesson segment is going well, the kids are engaged and there