Music Reflection

 Music is, in my opinion, the best communicator. I really believe that it has the ability to touch the emotions.  When emotions are involved in the learning process, the memory connections are must stronger and more easily recalled. Music should most definitely be included in the elementary classroom. Almost all little children love to learn fun melodies and rhythms. When you apply education lyrics, it will be that much easier for them to retain the information.

From the assignment, I learned that creating music with a familiar melody is much easier than trying to write lyrics and create a melody.  Writing the song was easy because we took the tune of "Mary Had a Little Lamb" and place the information in with the rhythm.  I tried to find away to organize the lyrics so that they had an order to them, such as North to South, however they didn't fit the rhythm very well that way, and that bothered me.  In either case, at least the children would know what state were part of the original thirteen colonies. In presenting, I noticed that some of the girls in the group were singing the song very fast and that was hard for the class to catch on. I tried to slow it down a bit so they could process the information.  That was the only real thing I noticed needed changing. 

I will use music as much as I can in my future classrooms.  I'm sad to say, the only time we sang in my elementary school was when we were preparing for a school recital or something. Luckily, I had personal lessons outside of school, but we did do have some music classes every once in a while.  I like how we've been taught in this program to use music to create songs that are actually about the topic we are learning. Sometimes I just don't think about things like that, so I'm glad it was brought to my attention. I will create songs for any topic possible to help my students better remember. Music is fun and engaging for most students, so to learn something in a fun and engaging way will improve their memories of it. 

I will continue to take music classes. I talked with my music teacher at UVU and she said that there will be a class next fall semester for elementary teachers that requires them to learn specifically about music in the classroom. I'm excited to take that class! I will study more instruments and maybe even a few classes concerning music therapy. I want to minor in music, so this is going to be a big part of my classrooms! I'm excited to help children find a love of music, and learn through it.

The group project was a little difficult because everyone was kind of shy to work together on a song. I felt the most comfortable with it, I think, so I kind of pushed the song along.  Everyone contributed equally. People found books on our topic, we all collaborated on ideas.   It was a fun project and I felt we presented it well together! I would maybe ask my future students to delegate among themselves the responsibilities and choose one thing I want them all to collaborate on together.