Reverberations: Teachers Teaching Teachers is a weekly, online publication available to members that publishes models of best practice from Orff Schulwerk classrooms in the form of lesson ideas, student-tested teaching strategies, articles related to classroom applications, and more.
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List of Reverberations Articles
Music for the Harvest Season
This reprint from The Orff Echo, Fall 1988 includes a collection of harvest themed resources. Included are selections from Music for Children, folk songs, speech play about apples, nursery rhymes, and Japanese haiku. There is something for all ages; harvest the materials that best serve the needs of your students.
Playful Preparations
These short, playful activities introduce skill-building activities that feel like a playful preparation. Explore ways to play with: first introduction to instruments, mirroring as a way to help children calm and focus, preparation before singing or body percussion, mallet play, and pre-recorder activities.
Brand New Sneakers
This canon is good for early in the school year with older grades or choir. It is a study in duality – the bright and shiny sneakers at the beginning of the song (Dorian) inevitably decay into the darkened, stained, and smelly abominations of the footwear world in the deep and musty feeling of Phrygian mode.
Welcome One, Welcome All
This canon is wonderful way to begin a school year or to use as a school assembly song throughout the year. Two teachers share ways to teach the canon through movement and offer ideas to extend learning with this song in the classroom.
Friend Shapes
Students often take us in directions that we are not prepared to go, and being open to that experience is part of the joy in our work. What does that look like through the lens of an inclusion classroom? This article addresses ways to set every student up for success and maintain student choice in the lesson.
Hippity Hop
Gunild Keetman stressed the importance of rhymes and sayings that children easily pick up from adults. “Rhythmic Speech plays an important part in this approach and makes use of this interest. Old rhymes and counting out verses are used, and these often make an unforgettable impression on a child. It is therefore of the greatest importance to set a standard of quality in the selection of texts.” This lesson makes use of a lesser-known rhyme with speech and untuned percussion instruments.
Passing the Classroom Management Torch
A teacher, who retired after over 30 years as music teacher in a private school, interviews the teacher who took over the position. The main topic of conversation centers on how the new teacher worked within an established program and brought her own style of classroom management into the music room.
Walking With Keetman
Beginning elemental music and movement experiences with walking can immediately engage students and push them to make creative choices in a playful and accessible way.
Using Those Little Yellow Books…and the Supplements
No matter what you call them – “The Little Yellow Books”, “Music for Children” or “the volumes” – this material is the primary source for Orff Schulwerk teachers. Do you wonder where to start or how to use these teaching gems? This article includes an annotated list of Reverberations articles from the AOSA Resource Library that address ways to navigate this material and apply it to one’s own teaching.
So Many Books!
The author shares suggestions for selecting children’s books to use in an Orff Schulwerk classroom. The article also includes a model for adapting a book for student-centered performance.
Conference Videos: Looking Back at 2024 in Des Moines
Annotated set of videos from the 2024 AOSA Professional Development
Conference in Des Moines IA. Videos include links to session notes.
Building Our Future Together: A Message of Gratitude
AOSA announces three new scholarships and invites members to be a part of the inclusive environment where every voice matters.