Music Sketchbook

This is a great tool to help your kids capture their musical thoughts on paper. The basic idea is based on the early childhood practice of having children document their thoughts through drawing. Once the child is finished drawing, the teacher asks, "Tell me about your picture," and then s/he writes what the child said below the drawing.

The same process is used here.

1. Child/ren work out their ideas in the square boxes; this could be a picture or words or graphic notation.
2. The music teacher then asks, "Sing/chant/play me your song."
3. The space at the bottom of the page is used to document what the child/ren performs in standard music notation.
4. The checkboxes on the sides can be used to document what areas of the curriculum were covered. These are based on the National Standard for Music.

Watch me explain how I created the sketchbook.