2 Comments

by Tamsyn

April 19, 2016

Travel the world by learning about music!

When I was a kid, one of my favorite memories is when my family went on a pretend tour of the world.  My mother put up a large map for the purpose of our travels and we spent a week in different countries for an entire year.  Each time we "traveled" to a new country, we would draw a line from the country we had visited to the country we were visiting.  During that week, we would eat at least one authentic meal from that country, learn a song or two, check out any books the library had featuring the culture of that country, and do a related craft.  It was lots of fun and I really internalized geography as a part of that experience.

There are a group of fantastic public school music teachers who have had the same idea.  The idea was spearheaded by Elizabeth Caldwell over at Organized Chaos.  Not only have they been visiting a few different countries with their students during music period, but they have blogged about their resources and collaborated with each other to share what they have learned.  I have been very impressed with their work and I wanted to share their blog posts with you.  Other bloggers involved that I have drawn from are:

I will be adding to the "world tour" as I stumble across resources.  If you have a great resource not listed, please share it in the comments!

world musc tour

Packing your Bags...

Connecting Cultures around the World

Multi-Cultural Kids Music Videos

World Music- Finding "authentic" music for the classroom​

North America

Native American Music​

Mexico- Los Machetes Folk Dance​

Native American Music​

South America

Brazil​

Bolivia​

Oceana

Hawaiian Music

Philippines

New Zealand- Maori Music​

Oceana​- Music and Movement activities

New Zealand​- Maori Song

Australian Music​

Asia

China

Japanese Music​

Japanese Weather Game Song​

Chinese New Year​

Chinese Music​

Africa

African Music

Mozambique​

Europe

Irish Music​

Spain- La Cucaracha​

German Kid's Songs​

Ireland- Celtic Music​

About the author 

Tamsyn

My name is Tamsyn and I love music. I got my bachelor’s degree in vocal performance from USU. I spent many years teaching private piano lessons until I had children of my own. I have attended several children workshops on how to teach children music. I really like the Kodaly method, but have adapted a lot of different techniques for my own children.

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  1. Thank you for sharing! Your family world tour sounds awesome! Having grown up in 3 continents I am passionate about bringing the world to my students in a deep and meaningful way. I hope other music teachers and parents will be inspired to infuse some experiences from foreign cultures into their children’s lives!

  2. This is awesome. It’s so much fun for kids to learn about music from all over the world. I love how different the music sounds, depending on the location. Love it!

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