Hungary Preview!!!

Rendering of the Kodaly Institute

I can't believe I leave for Hungary tomorrow!!!  I am so excited for the 3 weeks of intensive classes to better myself as a teacher! I am signed up for musicianship, choir, elementary pedagogy, and singing games!  I arrive in Kecskemet on Sunday, take a musicianship placement test, and classes start bright and early Monday morning.   I already got a PDF of songs to learn for my pedagogy class and at least half of them are new to me so I am really pumped.  

I hope to post at least once or twice a week (if not more) with new ideas/songs/ games I have learned.

One of the songs on our list to learn was this Squirrel song.  I am hoping it has a fun game or instrumentation, because I am always looking for more tom-ti songs.  If not, it will still of course be used, but my 5th and 6th graders are often a tough sell.  I will have to start coming up with my own "orffestration" for it, that my students can learn and then adapt to make it their own, just in case :)

With traveling, however, comes a few (tiny) downsides.  I realized this week that when I get back I will only have ONE WEEK to get my new classrooms ready.  Luckily my custodians let me in early to start getting furniture placed and instruments set up.  On Tuesday when I got to school, my general music room looked like this (and the big table covered in stuff is not even in the picture):

Now, a few days later it looks... better... but I am still a few hours of work away from being ready for students.  Command hooks are going to be my best friend as I lost a lot of storage in the move.  A full classroom tour will come in August, when everything is set up.  :)

I hope everyone is having a wonderful summer!