Originally Posted by The Orffsite Webmaster on Sunday, January 8, 2012

This blog is short and sweet, really sweet!  As I told my Twitter followers, you will want to kiss my feet in gratitude after checking this out! ha. The folks who put these evaluation rubric ideas together are the ones who really get what Orff Approach teachers actually do in the classroom. You won't find much evaluation of music literacy, symbols, lines/spaces, etc. You will find things like creativity, movement, playing...

Originally Posted by The Orffsite Webmaster on Saturday, July 23, 2011

I've written previously about building your own Personal Learning Network (PLN) using Twitter. The news is getting out. It is a valuable resource for elementary music teachers and music teachers in general. Unfortunately, the word hasn't seemed to have spread across the land of Orff-Schulwerk . So far I've discovered only about ten folks who Tweet anything related to Orff process, instruments, lesson plans, books, use of ...

Originally Posted by The Orffsite Webmaster on Monday, June 6, 2011

It's summer time! Time for many of you to take more training in your profession. I have taken Orff Level classes for the last three summers and am "taking off" this summer. I'm actually going to be busy writing arrangements and lesson plans. I'll be brushing up on my djembe technique via YouTube lessons and completing a couple of podcasts. Back to the subject...
I hope that as you take the Orff Levels you are beginning to cr...

Originally Posted by The Orffsite Webmaster on Tuesday, May 31, 2011

It is really tough weeding through all the irrelevant and even offensive posts when conducting a Twitter search using Orff for the search term. I just want to find tweets concerned with how others are using the Orff Approach in the classroom. I'm looking for Orff based lessons, books, musical instruments etc. Instead I find 500 comments on Orff's "O Fortuna", which is fabulous (but I've heard it, already!) The worst is find...

Originally Posted by The Orffsite Webmaster on Sunday, April 10, 2011

You've recently attended a great Orff workshop. The presenter methodically guided you through the lessons and gave you detailed notes and exact procedures. You get back home and are excited to share the lesson with your students. You begin the lesson just like you witnessed it, but sometime before step 3, you get this sick feeling that you've lost them. Something's not right. You taught them exactly like your workshop pres...

Originally Posted by The Orffsite Webmaster on Monday, September 6, 2010

Talking about approaches to teaching elementary music can sometimes resemble a discussion about religion! My purpose here is to share a way that's worked for me and not to bash another approach. In fairness, here's an email I recently received. Elementary music teaching is a big world. Orff-Schulwerk is the area I'm exploring, but it's not the only part of the universe. Dive in. The water's fine. Here's an email comment...

Originally Posted by The Orffsite Webmaster on Friday, July 16, 2010

The Orff Approach is like teaching a kid to swim. You don't first sit them down with a book and tell them to read it and learn the terminology. With Orff, you put the kid in the water first. You have the whole process of swimming broken down into elemental pieces and start with the easiest and build on it until the kid is swimming. They learn to hold their breath and make bubbles in the water. Learning is a game. They play ...

What I Learned in Level III

Posted by The Orffsite Webmaster on Monday, July 12, 2010

Well, I'm officially certified in Orff-Schulwerk. That means I know enough about the approach it to be dangerous! My Level III instructors did a great job in dealing with process and sequence, which is really what attracted me to Orff-Schulwerk in the first place..no it wasn't identifying Lydian modes and playing the recorder, although I improved at both. I was pleased to find out that no matter how badly ...

Posted by The Orffsite Webmaster on Saturday, July 31, 2010

As an Orff-Schulwerk elementary teacher and a former secondary music teacher, I can say I'm glad to have almost gotten out of the music contest level of instruction. In secondary music, recruiting and comparing my first division with another schools first division was of primary importance. Outside performances was next on the list, after all, a performing group must perform. Sure, I had non-varsity groups where students with lesser...