You have to understand before you can play....

Students use the UPS Check in math class to solve problems. Why not modify it slightly to use in music class to solve their musical problem – reading the notation from the staff (TEKS 4.2A and 4.2B)? So that is what I did, with some encouragement from my math-teaching colleagues. When I introduced it, my students’ first reaction: “We do that all the time! We even did it in third grade!” So I told them “Great! Then you already know how to do it!” The language on my UPS Check for recorder was specific for my content, and I think they will need some practice getting used to it, but I was encouraged to see my students teaching each other how to play new lines of music on their own. You have to understand the music you are reading before you can play it, right? #bisddlp

Elizabeth Shier, M. Ed.

Music Teacher...Girls On the Run Coach