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In this colorful, creative, and interactive workshop, participants will use virtual and in-person manipulatives designed for our current instructional models. We will play and participate in music centers appropriate for all grades and settings: general music, chorus, band, and orchestra with strategies for implementation and organization. A variety of activities from active body percussion with rhythms to independent and group melodic composition will take place. Please bring a set of handheld size colored-objects, a recorder, and/or your band/orchestra instrument to use! 

About Karlena Leal:

Karlena L. Leal has taught General Music K-6, Band 5-8, and Orchestra 5-6 in Tucson, Arizona in the Marana Unified School District, for seventeen years. She currently teaches General Music K-6 at Dove Mountain CSTEM K-8. She graduated from the University of Arizona in December 2003 with a BA in Instrumental Music Education and a minor in Spanish. At the University of Nebraska, Omaha, she instructs the Kodály Level I Pedagogy Course. She has Certification Levels I-IV for Kodály and is a Past-President of AKTS: Arizona Kodály Teachers Society. She also has Certification in Levels I-III plus Master Class for Orff-Schulwerk and previously taught Recorder Levels as a part of the Summer Orff Levels Courses at Arizona State University. Currently she serves on Dove Mountain CSTEM K-8’s PBIS: Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports Committee and is Communications Chair for the MEA. She is a native of Tucson and enjoys spending time with her husband and innovative eleven-year-old daughter as well as time making friendship bracelets.

Jump Into January! at the 

AKTS Chapter Share

Board Members from AKTS will share lessons, strategies and resources to help you recharge and continue to inspire lifelong music-making and learning for your students in a Virtual environment! 

Nichol Elgin - Regional Representative

"Strategies for Adapting Songs, Games, Music Theory and Composition for Online/Hybrid Learning"

Stephanie Brewer - Member-At-Large "Creative Ways to Encourage Student Participation and Retention Online"

Melissa Sassaman - President 2020-22 "Middle School Recorders and Kodály: Quarantine Edition"

Kevin Powell - Past-President 

"Incorporating Improvisation and Play in a Virtual Music Environment"

Karlena Leal - AKTS Spring Clinician

Dress comfortably for singing, movement and dancing from the comfort of your home!

2.0 Professional Development Hours

As we begin the academic year, music educators are challenged to completely rethink their current music curriculum and instruction. How do we move from on-line teaching to hybrid formats? Asynchronous teaching to synchronous? How do we make music together while social distancing? In this workshop, participants will explore practical strategies, activities for teaching music in an on-line, hybrid, or in-person settings. Designed for K-6 music teachers, we will also discuss ideas for modifying curriculum and planning according to the philosophical and pedagogical principles of Kodály-inspired teaching.

About Dr. Leigh Ann Garner:

Dr. Leigh Ann Garner is an Assistant Professor of Music Education at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota. Prior to her appointment at St. Olaf, she taught elementary classroom and choral music for 23 years in the Hastings Public School District (ISD#200). Garner also serves as the Director of the Kodály Institute at the University of St. Thomas, where she teaches pedagogy courses Levels I and II, Folksong Analysis and Materials, and Kodály Master Class. 

A sought-after clinician, leader, and facilitator, Garner teaches interactive workshops throughout the United States specializing in early childhood music, Kodály-inspired pedagogy, curriculum development, standards-based assessments, and undergraduate music pedagogy. In 2016 she was honored as a Teacher of Excellence, and respectively in 2017 as an Employee of the Semester by the Hastings School District.

Over the past 20 years Garner has served in leadership roles at the state and national level for a number of music organizations. Currently, she serves on the Teacher Education Committee of the Organization of American Kodály Educators. In 2019 she and colleagues throughout the country co-authored Kodály-Inspired Benchmarks for Grades 3-5 that align with the National Core Arts Standards.

Garner is also the co-author of Music and Movement: a music curriculum for children ages one-five. Her most recent publication, Cultivating Creative Musicians is a resource designed for elementary music teachers. In addition, she is a contributing author for MacMillan McGraw/Hill music textbook series. Garner holds an EdD from the University of St. Thomas, an MA in Music Education from the University of St. Thomas, and a BA in Vocal Music Education from St. Olaf College.