The NAfME My Classroom website is an excellent resource for music educators. It provides links to journals, advocacy resources, professional development, and standards-based lesson plans. The lessons plan page offers both plans submitted by other educators and strategies for meeting the arts standards. By using the search tool, teachers can find lessons pertaining to a wide range of music content and age groups.
Classics for Kids is a resources for teachers, parents, and children. It provides lesson plans, music games and interactive links, a podcast, tips for parents, and information about composers, instruments, and music history. The lesson plans (written by my former music education professor, Dr. Kay Edwards) are standards-based and incorporate elements of Orff, Kodaly, and Dalcroze.
The Smithsonian Folkways website offers lesson plans and recordings pertaining to world music. Using the map tool, teachers can select a region and view a PDF lesson plan (primarily for upper elementary, middle, and high school levels) and links to tracks for purchase or streaming. The site also includes information about professional development and interactive features, such as a jazz mixer and "Meet the Mariachi."
This website, powered by Carnegie Hall and based on Benjamin Britten's Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra, introduces elementary students to the orchestra, instrument families, and timbres. The website features an animated story, interactive games, and a lot of interesting and accurate information about orchestra instruments. Students can easily navigate the game using the voice and visual prompts, and there are no required log-in credentials or advertisements.
The AOSA website is a resource for music educators. It provides information about the Orff-Schulwerk approach, advocacy, professional development, and teaching resources (lesson plans covering a variety of music content, videos, literature integration, and technology). Some links are only accessible by AOSA members.
The American Folk Song Collection is a website that music educators can use to search for hundreds of folk songs. Each song includes a PDF of lyrics, melody, game/dance directions, song analysis, rhythms, and original source (some also include recordings). The website also includes basic information about the Kodaly approach.
Teachers Pay Teachers is a resource for a wide variety of teacher-created lesson plans. Teacher-authors can share their lesson plans and resources via digital download, and receive payment in return. The search function allows teachers to find materials related to a particular subject and view the ratings from other users. Music teachers need to use careful keywords and search tactics to weed out lessons aimed at incorporating songs in the general classroom, but there are many great music education plans about music elements, instruments, guided listening, etc., as well as rubrics and visual aids.
The Smithsonian Jazz website offers an education page that features information about jazz and jazz musicians, free streaming recordings, and guided listening activities. Some categories also offer parent guides, lesson plans, and education kits. The website suggests that the appropriate age range is 8-15 years.
The Kidzone by the New York Philharmonic is an interactive website for children to use to learn primarily about instruments, composers, and famous musicians. It includes games, videos, audio recordings, and text. Students can interact with games that allow them to match rhythms, sort instruments into families, build an instrument, create a graphic-based composition, and match instruments and composers. There is also information about children's concerts.
Not only does the Smart Music Blog offer tips for using Smart Music and its related repertoire, but it also includes practical teaching advice from music educators. These tips include information for new teachers, advice about communicating with parents, instrument technique, curriculum guidance, and more. Information is available for teachers of all grade levels.