Hope you have had a wonderful start to your year! Since it is January, I am posting my five favorite pins of this month.

If you are a blogger, feel free to join the linky party by following the directions at the end of this post. Here are my five favorite pins this month! You can click on each picture to be taken to the original pin.

#1: Snowman melodic activity

I love this idea of breaking down a song into its parts: lyrics, rhythm, and melody! I've been trying to break down songs like this with my students, but I love this visual!

#2: Teaching Music Backwards

This is a really interesting article about teaching music history backwards, so that you can teach students about a musician's influences, then study those influences, then study the musicians influencing those people, etc. This could be a great way to bring in more relevant and current music, then work backwards to the masters!

#3: 8 things to have at your desk

This is a great list to take to the store so that you're ready for anything while teaching! (I could have used a glasses repair kit the other day when a student's glasses broke!)

#4: Tinikling Blog Post

My friend Tanya wrote a great blog post about tinikling...if you've never tried tinikling but want to try something different in your music room, this is a really comprehensive post that could help! My colleague Jenna just got done with a tinkling unit and it got me thinking I should try it too. (As an aside, my only memory of elementary music was that I got to do tinikling at the 6th grade music concert!)

#5: Ho Hey Orff arrangement

I LOVE this song, so when I saw this pin I was intrigued. She outlines a step-by-step process of teaching the song for barred instruments, non-pitched percussion, and ukuleles. I think I'm going to try this with my 5th graders later this year! AND the lyrics, in my opinion, are appropriate for kids, which can be hard to find with pop songs!

There are my five pins! If you'd like to see more pins like this, make sure to follow me on Pinterest. Happy pinning!