First Steps in Music for Kindergarten and First Grade: In Action

The First Steps in Music curriculum becomes real in this DVD featuring FAME-certified master teachers Lindsay Jackson teaching a kindergarten class and Andrew Himelick teaching a first grade class. Shot in real-time in their own classrooms, both Jackson and Himelick sequence a wide variety of activities, teaching techniques, and strategies from John M. Feierabend’s curriculum. As with the other DVDs in the “In Action” series, each class includes an optional commentary track where Dr. Feierabend and the teachers describe in detail the decisions and approaches they take with their students. This DVD is a wonderful introduction to the First Steps in Music curriculum, demonstrates how a male teacher can model singing with young students, and includes at its heart the goal of helping every student become tuneful, beatful, and artful. Lindsay Jackson has been an elementary music teacher and choral conductor for 13 years and currently teaches in Bryn Mawr, PA. She sings soprano and enjoys accompanying her students on guitar, dulcimer, autoharp, and ukulele. Andrew Himelick has been an elementary music teacher for more than 25 years with Carmel Clay Schools in Carmel, IN. He has also been a director with the Indianapolis Children’s Choir for 20 years. He sings baritone and enjoys playing the piano, guitar, banjo, autoharp, and recorder. John M. Feierabend, PhD, has spent decades compiling songs and rhymes from the memories of the American people, in hopes that these treasures will be preserved for future generations. John Feierabend is Professor Emeritus and former Director of the Music Education Division of The Hartt School of the University of Hartford.