We wish to share the Pūnaewele Mele (music network) materials posted on these sites with children and teachers in the United States (specifically in the state of Hawai`i), with the hope that the materials and activities will promote acceptance, diversity, and respect among the citizens of our country.
Projects
General Music
This section includes activities on book reading, vocal exploration, singing voice, movements, and instrument exploration.
Music and Social Emotional Learning: A Dynamic Duo
The project consists of a music component and an SEL component. The suggested activities are music-based. We enhance the SEL component by relating the HĀ: BREATH outcomes to SEL’s five competencies. Connecting both SEL and HĀ to music teaching creates a powerful tool for teachers to explore in-depth how students relate music to their emotions.
Hawaiʻi Department of Education (DOE) will launch the state standards in Fall 2025. This site has four lesson plans and videos demonstrating the National Core Arts
Standards (NCAS) in elementary general music, intermediate band and orchestra, and high school choral settings.
In addition, to deepen teachers’ understanding of NCAS, the revised standards provided a suggested music curriculum that enables teachers in the state to relate
standards to the curriculum and use the strategies to assist students in exhibiting skills and knowledge and expressing creative ideas through music.
Music Resources
Teaching multi-cultural and world musics is more than teaching “music”. By having an in-depth understanding of the music of different cultures ourselves, we will be
able to help students sing, play music and gain greater insights into the music of their own cultures as well as other cultures. Once our students have
studied their culture’s music from this integrative approach, they will be better prepared to appreciate and respect music from another’s culture. We as music educators, have an important role as
carriers of culture.
In “Spice Up Phonics Instruction with Music: Singing and Chanting Through the Alphabet,” a variety of musical activities are used to expose children to sample words for each letter of the alphabet. The primary goal of these activities is to guide children to learn phonics using aural, oral, visual, and kinesthetic modalities. Through the stimulation of different senses, children are better able to store a warehouse of sample words in their long‐term memory.