What's New in Musicplay with Denise Gagne

Blog Posts

How to Plan an Elementary Music Concert/Program

Whether you are a first year teacher or a seasoned veteran, planning concerts is a lot of work.  A holiday concert can be an event that brings school and community together.  When you ask adults what they remember most about elementary school, it's rarely the math classes - it's the events that they connected with emotionally, and most often they remember the year they were a snowman in the Christmas play far better than they remember learning the times tables.  Too often though, the responsibility for the holiday concert falls on the shoulders of the music teacher.  Since this is a school event, it is really necessary for the entire staff to be involved.  This newsletter is coming early this year (I've usually published this in Dec) as you really need it NOW - not in December.
Denise Gagne
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Blog Posts

Equity and Diversity on MusicplayOnline

Musicplay is a PreK-6 elementary music curriculum that uses many traditional and composed children’s songs, singing games, folk songs, rounds, choral music, and listening examples. The development of Musicplay started in 1995, was first published in 2000, and has had many updates since then. When Denise first chose songs for the program, there was no Google to research the history of these songs. 

Denise Gagne
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Blog Posts

New Programs for Concerts with John Jacobson and Denise Gagne

How far ahead to you plan your programs? We have new options this year from John Jacobson’s JJ&Me site and from Musicplay!  You’ll get ideas for Nov. 11th, Holiday Concerts, and Spring Concerts. John Jacobson and Denise Gagne will share their musicals, revues, and great choral pieces for this upcoming season.  
 
You can register for our webinar with Denise and John here: Register for Webinar!
 
There are now eleven programs on MusicplayOnline - five for holiday concerts and six for any time of year.
Denise Gagne
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Blog Posts

Music Room Rules, Name Games, and more!

Name Games

There are many great name games in Musicplay, and most are found early in the grade level, because the hardest thing the music teacher needs to do is to learn the names of all the kids they teach! I did pretty well learning names with up to 700 students/week, but often had twin trouble (Sherry and Shelley Fischer) and sometimes I'd mix up the Kirsten, Kristen, and 3 Jason's in a class would confuse me.
Denise Gagne
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literacy and music, alphabet songs

Music and Literacy... Sing and Learn!

Music and Literacy - Sing and Learn

This is part one in a two (maybe more!) part series of blogs AND webinars.
I teach music so that children will learn to be tuneful, beautiful, and artful.  I want children to be confident singers and players, perceptive listeners, and creative movers and music makers.  
 
So my #1 goal is not to teach literacy.  But there are many studies that show that learning music is strongly linked to improved literacy skills.

Denise Gagne
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Blog Posts, E-Learning, E-Learning Music Lessons

Music Lesson Plans PreK-6 Lesson 17 (January Week 2)

In this post, I’ll share music lesson plans for PK-6 for January week 2. I create these lessons at www.Musicplayonline.com and they are set up in a step-by-step format with videos, interactive activities, solfa and rhythm practice, optional worksheets for a 45 min. music class. If you have 2 classes/week, there are many extensions possible. Many teachers use the Musicplayonline website “freestyle” -is choosing their own songs, and the activities that go with them. Or they use the Ukulele, Guitar, Recorder or Boomwhacker sections to teach instruments. But if you’d like easy planning for a week, or have a sub coming in, these Lesson Modules are great!

Denise Gagne
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