Teaching With Musicplay

Our kids had way too much screen time during lockdowns, and we are still seeing the effects. How do we keep children's attention in a classroom, when they are used to watching 6 second TikTok videos? Even Disney movies are moving at a pace that's much greater than they used to.  In this newsletter, I'm going to begin a discussion on increasing engagement in your music classes. This is too large a topic for just one newsletter, but this is very necessary for our tired, hard-working, dedicated music teachers.

MusicplayOnline

Features:

• Search now includes documents (e.g.: search for solfa worksheets)
  • These documents are downloadable as PDFs or you can print from the website
• PDFs can be added to a "My List"
  
  • The "+ Add to My List" button is on the bottom right of the documents

Units:

• Alphabet Songs and Activities
  • Long Vowels videos and concept slides have been added to the unit
  • Concept Slides from Alphabet Songs have been linked in the unit
• Musicplay Madness 2023
  • New unit added to MusicplayOnline
  • Uploaded pre-made bracket for class use, which coincides with the Musicplay Madness 2023 song selections 
  • Uploaded blank template bracket for class use

Song List:

• Updated "The Old Gray Cat" Illustrated Minibook
• Uploaded Canadian and American coin word rhythms
  • Linked to Shiny Penny
  • Linked to Johnny Lost a Quarter

MusicplayOnline

Units:

• Peter and the Wolf:
  • Updated Peter and the Wolf Minibook

MusicplayOnline

Units:

• Programs:
  • Added Friends Forever, A Musical Revue
  • Added Composing America, A Musical Revue 
• Listening Units:
  • Added Level 1 Worksheets to Rossini's Ghost
• Theory:
  • Added custom word rhythm tool to Composition Unit

Song List:

• Chumbara
  • Added word randomizer tool to Interactives

MusicplayOnline

• Song List
  • Added Kids Demo to "Take My Little Car"
  • Added Kids Demo to "Tommy Thumb"
• Black History Month
  • Added concept slides for Back American Musicians and Composers, with links to Safeshare and Youtube
• Our Musical World
  • Added "Notre monde musical - Livret passeport" (Our Musical World Passport Minibook) to extra resources in each country unit
• Lesson Planning
  • Added "I Can Statement" flashcards for Kindergarten through Grade 5 to Lesson Planning Overview
• Solfa Practice
  • Added Echo Sing activities to Level 8 (drm sl d')

A teacher in the Musicplay Teachers Group on Facebook asked what I thought was a great question.  Why teach solfege?  

MusicplayOnline

• Our Musical World
  • Added "Brazilian Capoeira" video to the Brazil unit 

It's tough to decide what to focus on in February!  Whether you want to celebrate Lunar New Year, Valentine's Day or Black History Month --- or ALL of them, MusicplayOnline has units, songs in the song list and listening activities for you.