The background that I have in music has allowed me to know how to read music in both bass clef and treble clef. My background in singing has allowed me to hear the harmony in songs and it is easy for me to find the harmony immediately. In the classroom, both of these skills will be useful because if we are doing an activity with boom whackers, I will be able to help students read the music and help them figure out when they need to play. Knowing how to sing will also allow me to help the students when we are singing songs in class, and I can work with the students who are having trouble hearing and copying pitches. My background in singing will definitely influence my integration of music because I love singing and it is something that I think would be a blast to incorporate into class around any subject. 

Another reason why it is important for students to have music education is because music is a major part of our culture. As Professor Kite stated, “We want students to be able to understand, participate, and create music to be educated consumers.” In order for this to occur, we need to teach music to our students. In our culture we listen to music all the time and music connects people as well as moves them. There are songs for everyone, and it is important for students to know how music works so that they can understand what they are listening to and be able to connect to people through music. 

One activity that I would do with my students would be using boom whackers to play the song “You are my Sunshine.” Before the video is played, the music objective that I would teach the students would be about the different notes and rests. I would then do the chair activity that Professor Kite had us do and have my students clap along to beats. We would then play the song and clap along to the music when the cartoon character lands on the notes. After that, we would play the boom whackers along to the video. The standard that the music objective would line up to in this activity is FA 2.4.1.b which states, “Explore and develop musical ideas (e.g., melody, rhythm) with teacher guidance.” The students in this activity are able to explore the melody by both clapping along to the song and playing it with boom whackers as well begin to understand rhythm through learning about different notes and rests. 

This activity would be super useful if you did not have enough money for xylophones at your school. For this activity you get at least six jars and fill them up with different levels of water, and then put food coloring in the different jars. The music objective that you can teach through this activity is about pitch and matching pitch. The standard that this activity’s music objective fulfills is FA 2.4.2 which says, “Students will sing and/or play instruments to a variety of music that includes music elements if rhythm, pitch, dynamics, and form.” This activity teaches about pitch in the sense that the glasses that have more water in them make lower sounds and the glasses that have less water make higher sounds. Not only could you have your students try to create their own piece of music with these sounds, but you could also use this as a pitch matching activity. You could play each jar and have the students sing back the note that was played. This would not only help them understand pitch, but also practice their singing skills. 

The objective that this app fulfills is FA. 8.4.2.b “Develop and refine solo/ensemble performance skills (e.g. posture, technique, reading music) using guided self-evaluation and feedback from others.” The app Perfect Ear: Music and Rhythm allow students to learn how to read music and help with the technique of understanding music by practicing how to keep rhythm and through listening to scales and being able to identify them. 

The objective that I would use to teach through this app is FA 8.4.1.d. “Present an improvisation, arrangement, or original composition. Explain how elements of music in the student creation are used to communicate expressive content.” This app will complete this objective by allowing students to create their own compositions. Once the students create their compositions, they can share them to the class and with peers and explain why they used the different instruments that they did and what they were trying to express. 

The objective that this app will teach is FA 8.4.2.c, “Perform (formally or informally) music of increasing difficulty using proper tone quality, phrasing, dynamics, and articulation. Demonstrate appropriate performance expectations.” Sing True will allow students to improve their tone quality when singing and help them become more confident and better singers. Sing True will especially be able to assist the students who are labeled as “tone deaf” and struggle matching pitches. 

This website has a wide variety of music including Chinese, Israeli, Mariachi music, and even Appalachian songs. This will be super useful as a teacher because not only does it have a lot of music, but it also has lesson plans to go along with the songs. It also has things such as how to make different instruments such as a Koto, an Asian musical instrument, and Chinese percussion that you could have the kids play along to. I would use this website when teaching about different cultures in history. For example, if we were learning about China in our history book, we could play the Chinese percussion it has on the Xylophone. Another way I could use this website is if we were learning about Native American tribes in our history book or for our state history, we could learn about their music style and how it affects their culture. 

The purpose of this website would be to search any sort of music for any topic that I am teaching. One part of the website that I would especially use would be the holiday song sections. This includes things such as American songs such as Star Spangled Banner and even Christmas music. It also includes a section of folk music, classical music, and religious music. One way that I could incorporate the holiday music into a lesson would be about the Star Spangled Banner. We could learn about Francis Scott Key for a history lesson and then I could have the students write a poem of their own about America which would incorporate language arts. 

The purpose of this website is to use it for anytime I want to integrate classical music into the curriculum. The website has classical music from Beetoven and Mozart, and even pop covers of songs and classical music from Disney movies. One way that I could integrate this into a lesson would be if I was teaching science about flowers and photosynthesis. One song is called Waltz of the Flowers by Pytor Ilyich Tchaikovsky. I could not only play this song for the class, but also teach them the different music terms and have them write at least three music terms that they heard down on a piece of paper. In this way we would be learning about science and music.