Planning ahead with Music Express

I've mentioned Music K-8 Magazine before which is really my favorite elementary education periodical. However, I also get John Jacobson's Music Express Magazine. I like this magazine for different reasons than I like Music K-8. My favorite parts of this magazine are the listening maps and the pop songs. The kids love the pop songs, so it's nice to have someone else figure out which ones are kid-appropriate. Last year I discovered that the Music Express website lists the songs and activities that will be in the future issues. You can access this year's sneak peek here. I love that feature. It really helps me with planning, especially if I think I might want to program one of the pop songs for our spring concert. This year I subscribed to the electronic version of the student magazine which will save me from having to scan the listening map to be able to project it. I also like that it won't take as much room to store. We'll see if I like it as well. The drawback to this magazine is that it is so expensive and that makes it not accessible to some schools. I'm very fortunate that our music booster organization, Friends of Music, makes this purchase for me each year.