This Too is Music

This Too is Music guides and motivates teachers to foster playful and motivating classroom conditions that enable elementary students to thrive as musicians in every way-as singers, improvisers, critical listeners, storytellers, dancers, performers, and composers. Told through anecdotes and illustrated with musical examples, the book explores how all of these aspects of music making are intertwined, quelling any doubts teachers may have regarding their abilities to create an environment where children can improvise, dance, compose, and notate their musical offerings. While the book acknowledges the importance of traditional approaches to teaching notation and performance, the emphasis is on the student's point of view, illustrating how young musicians can learn when their musical ideas are honored and celebrated. Various teaching ideas are presented-some exploratory in nature, others involving direct instruction. Regardless of their nature, all of the activities arise from research on children's musical development in general and their development of notational systems in particular. The ideas and activities have been tested in multiple elementary-classroom environments and pre-service settings. The activities center on music through movement, song, various types of performances, improvisation, and composition and notational development. These activities, which encompass both small-scale classroom lessons and large-scale productions, engage children across subjects, including language, drama, and mathematics. Activities encompass both small-scale classroom lessons and large-scale productions. The book underscores the timeless quality of this pedagogy; even in our digital age, this musical environment appeals to children. The work invites readers to adapt the ideas to their own teaching settings, showing both pre-service and established teachers that they can teach music creatively to build community and to inspire all who enter there.

Arts & Photography

Upitis, Rena

Music

Oxford University Press

This book shows how creative maths can really work. Exploring the ways in which maths skills can be learned through cross-curricular activities based on visual arts and music, the book presents maths as a meaningful and exciting subject which holds no fears for children. The authors recognise that while maths-phobia prevails in our increasingly mathematicised world, attitudes and approaches to teaching the subject need to be reviewed, and issues such as gender stereotyping, which encourage maths-apathy, need to be tackled at an early stage. Within this collection of classroom-based stories are detailed examples of integrative mathematic projects; these will give teachers the confidence to try out cross-curricular activities in their classes. The book also provides support with difficult areas such as assessment, planning and development. Fascinating to read in its own right this book will appeal to the specialist and non-specialist alike.

Creative Mathematics

Science & Math

Higginson, William

PHILLIPS EILEEN

Mathematics

Routledge

THIS TOO IS MUSIC

Heinemann Drama

Author and educator Rena Upitis has written a unique book to help regular classroom and private music teachers recognize and foster children's attempts at notating music as they engage in improvisation and composition. Through a colorful, engaging narrative, Upitis describes a "whole music" classroom where teachers, using a child-centered environment, can introduce activities encouraging children to compose and notate their own works. Familiar techniques from a whole language classroom -- such as the use of writing folders and conferencing -- are refashioned in a music context. 
Including over seventy examples of children's invented notations, comparing the development of music notations with invented spellings,Can I Play You My Song? is full of ideas for individual projects, small group compositions, and full-class works.

Can I Play You My Song?: The Compositions and Invented Notations of Children

Children's Books

If we take seriously the notion that school buildings present students with powerful messages about what society values, then school architecture needs to be radically re-thought. For a century and a half, we have built schools that lack adequate light, good furniture, inviting entryways, and green spaces. This is the time to do it: we are in the midst of a major surge in school construction. For the next several years, construction will begin on two new schools every day in the United States alone, and that doesn't even take into account school renovations. But many schools are aesthetically and environmentally deficient, and these schools sap the life right out of students and teachers and everyone else who goes there. Indeed, when adults are invited to think about their lifelong passions, learning that they willingly pursue, most identify something associated with the arts, the body, or the natural world. And yet, very few adults will say that they learned about the thing they love most (cooking, kayaking, playing the guitar, weaving) at school. How is it that our lifelong learning has so little to do with schooling? This book makes the argument that school architecture, even more than curriculum, delineates what students will learn at school.

Raising a School: Foundations for School Architecture

Architecture

Wintergreen Studios Press

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Books by Upitis, Rena