How it all began

Every time I attended a training or conference, when we introduced ourselves and where we taught, people would often ask me about Montessori and my experiences what it was like to teach at public Montessori schools as a music specialist. When first learning about educational philosophies, I was drawn to Montessori. Her writings and ideas about education made sense to me with what I knew about child development and my values about the role of education. Other educators I met would often ask me many questions about what I was doing or ask me to share resources. The few times I shared things on teacher groups, the resources had hundreds or even thousands of downloads. Later, I came to work in helping design educational resources for some school districts and other non profit education organizations.

In this blog, I hope to share lesson ideas and most importantly, the “why" and “how” behind any resources I share. My goal is to help support educators and offer some alternative ways to approach curriculum planning, project based learning, and give some ideas for seasonal lessons and programs.

At first, teaching music in Montessori schools was quite challenging. I had a lot of gaps of knowledge, misconceptions about the teachings and some foundational concepts, and most importantly, I was not ready for the curious and creative students who were quite different than any others I had taught before. In my seven years teaching in Montessori schools, I taught students ages 3-13 in music, but also had the opportunity to observe many expert Montessori educators and attend many training sessions.

Being in a music specialist role can function very different in any alternative school setting. However, in Montessori schools, there are unique challenges with this as Montessori teachers are trained on music. I had the opportunity to learn so much about music from many Montessori educators and ways of exploring music that I had not learned during my teacher training. One beautiful thing about Montessori is also that I often learned so much from the students themselves. The best education and training I received was my years in Montessori with inquisitive students who thought outside the box and would challenge ideas I had about music education. My students at Community Montessori in Boulder, Colorado were constantly challenging me to examine my curriculum and adapt it to better meet the needs of the students in front of me. Through the years, I found many things that worked, which I’ll share in this blog.

The lessons I will share are NOT the Montessori album lessons of training. I have NOT had any formal Montessori teacher training or attending levels. I do however have experience in many methodologies, including Kodaly, Orff, Dalcroze, Alexander Technique, Suzuki, and more. You will see influences strongly from Montessori, but also from Waldorf as I spent some time in Waldorf schools as well. Piano and voice are my main instruments, so much of my teaching is influenced by those instruments.

At the start of this page, I’ll be slowly posting and sharing about resources I’ve already made in the past. However, over time, I am hoping to be open to new requests so I can best support people who are out doing the important work in schools and programs all over.