Kalina Stokes, one of this year’s Emerging Pioneers in Music Education, offers her reflections on how SongWorks has enriched her teaching practices.
Each year, my fourth grade students participate in the Carnegie Hall Link Up program presented by the Virginia Symphony Orchestra. They learn multiple pieces of music, several of which include recorder parts for them to learn and play during the concert! We devote a lot of time to preparing for this special event, and so I decided to create materials that would make the experience more playful and musical.
At the concert, students will play the familiar theme from the “Largo” movement of the symphony, From the New World, by Antonín Dvořák. To introduce the piece, we listened and imagined we were going on a journey, picturing places and things we might see along the way. Next, students followed a melody map, moving their whole arm as if they were conducting the piece. In the included picture, you can see two students taking turns following sections of the map as we listen.
I included the map I created in a handmade booklet that each student got to keep. I modeled the booklet after one made by Vicky Suárez at the 2025 SongWorks Conference. I intended for my students to feel the way I felt when I realized I got to keep the booklet and take it home—surprised, excited, and special! In addition to the map, it includes both the simplified and advanced recorder parts they could practice for our symphony concert. I am excited to share this resource with the other teachers in my division as they prepare their students for the program!
