Teaching With Orff is a website with free resources for music & movement educators with lesson plans, teaching tips, and instrument repair videos to support your work. Visit Teaching With Orff for lesson plans and advocacy tools.

Elemental ‘Ukulele Lesson:
Lavender’s Blue
Roger Sams and Lorelei Batislaong

Are you interested in teaching ‘ukulele while continuing to work on the skills that you’ve been cultivating through Orff Schulwerk and Kodály processes? The new Purposeful Pathways supplement, “Elemental ‘Ukulele”, by Lorelei Batislaong and Roger Sams is designed to support just that kind of learning.

Children’s Lit and Lessons that Fit: Henry the Hungry Hound​
Theresa Cocci

Discover how a kind old woman, whose love for baking and giving away her delicious pies, suddenly discovers that her plans may change.  Could it be her mischievous but lovable pup named Henry silently waits to devour those pies?  A final twist on the last pages reveals a silent partner, that encourages the young child to use their imagination and question Henry’s guilt.

Coppernickel Goes Mondrian​
Aimee Curtis Pfitzner

Lesson to be used along with Coppernickel Goes Mondrian, by Wouter van Reek, used with permission from Enchanted Lion Books.

Straighten Up and Fly Right: Jazz Movement in the Elementary Classroom
Jennie Rozsa

I designed this lesson to expose my Kindergarten through 2nd grade classes to the Nat King Cole Trio and Jazz. I used this dance in a performance in a private boys school in San Francisco, CA, and teach it now with Kindergarten through 3rd grade students in a public school in Solon, Ohio. Across the country, students have loved this lesson and have fallen in love with Nat King Cole’s enchanting voice. I hope that you and your students enjoy this movement activity and the incredible music it brings to your classroom. 

Haru Ga Kita (Spring Has Come)
​Janice Boychuk

Haru Ga Kita (Spring Has Come) is a Japanese shôka (“school songs” used to introduce Western music). Tatsuyuki Takano wrote the text and Têichi Okano composed the melody in 1910. This song is special to me because as a child, I remember learning Haru Ga Kita to perform for my school’s May Day performance. We borrowed aloha shirts from our fathers to wear as yukatas (summer kimonos) and danced in a big circle around the basketball court.  

Apples
Matthew Stensrud

Matthew Stensrud shows how you can use one theme, yummy fall apples and guide children to experience, create and compose a bushel of musical experiences for all of your K-5 general music classes.

Rain of Leaves
Joan Eckroth-Riley and
​Wendy van Gent

Last week Joan Eckroth-Riley and Wendy van Gent told us about Music Learning Theory and how MLT and Orff-Inspired teaching can work together. This week they have prepared a fall lesson that combines the philosophies beautifully.

Diwali Dance
Manju Durairaj

For Hindus, Diwali is one of the most important festivals of the year and is celebrated in families by performing traditional activities together in their homes. Diwali or Divali is a contraction of the Sanskrit word Deepavali, that means “row of lamps”. Small clay lamps filled with oil are lighted to signify the triumph of good over evil. These lamps remain lit through the night and houses are cleaned to welcome the goddess Lakshmi. Firecrackers are burst to drive away evil spirits. During Diwali, all the celebrants wear new clothes, and share sweets and snacks with family members and friends. Diwali.

The Long Game: Growing from Play
Christopher Giles and
​Michael Vasquez

Teachers often fall into the pitfall of learning new pieces at each grade level to teach new concepts.  Taking a familiar piece and spiraling it from primary to advanced levels gives students a foundation to build upon.  The pdf linked below demonstrates how we took one piece, Halloween Night, and used it to meet multiple objectives in the primary, intermediate, and advanced levels.  All activities are built as independent lessons within each level.  It is not our intent for anyone to use all components listed below, but to give suggestions on how one piece can be used multiple ways.