There are a lot of music education websites and apps that you can use as a music teacher. Honestly, the possibilities of what you can use are growing each and every year. One of my biggest pieces of advice is to do your own research or take the ideas I share and go explore them on your own. In this blog post, I’ll share some of my favorite music education websites, but also on episode 251 of The Elementary Music Teacher Podcast, I go into more detail about these sites.
Virtual Instruments
Scratch.mit
There are a lot of virtual instruments on this site. It can be a bit tricky to navigate around at first, but once you figure it out, you’ll love it. My favorite instruments are the xylophone, drums, and recorder options.
MusicPlay Online
MusicPlay is a website that also has virtual instruments. It’s a very popular online curriculum, but they also have virtual instruments you can go and explore there as well. I personally love the boomwhackers.
Playxylo.com
This is exactly what it sounds like: a xylophone website. Students can literally open up the website and play on a virtual xylophone.
Composing
Flat.io
Flat IO is an add-on to Google Classroom and you can use it to help your students compose music.
Nearpod and Soundtrap
Both of these websites are fantastic for helping your students with composing music. They’re similar, but have slightly different features, so explore them on your own time so you can decide which one you like best.
Chrome Music Lab
This is one of my absolute favorites because first of all, it’s free to use and second of all, there are a lot of different ideas on there that your students can use from instruments to rhythm stuff.
Incredibox
Another one that I really like is Incredibox. These are just literally some guys that sing acapella and it’s really fun to play around with them and explore sounds.
My Singing Monsters
This is another one that I really like. They’re little monsters that walk around and they sing, but they explore different musical terms as they’re walking around. I wrote a review for this app that you can check out here.
Classroom Ideas
Canva
Canva is amazing for a lot of different reasons. You can use it to create slides and worksheets or have your students do this as well! Check out the Canva for Education option that has so many features.
Google Classroom
Google Classroom is a great resource. Google Sheets, Google Docs, Google Slides- they’re all great. You can use Google sites if you want to create a website for your music classroom while integrating all of the features from Google Suite.
Seesaw
Seesaw is a site that you can use hand in hand with your slide decks and make them interactive.
Assessment
Quizlet
Quizlet allows you to create quizzes to assess your students. You get to set them up the way that works for you and what content you’re covering.
Musictheory.net
What I like about the Music Theory site is that you can use it to assess elementary students on music theory. If you’re covering a certain concept, students can use the music theory site to explore that particular concept deeper.
Jamboard
Jamboard is kind of like the whiteboard you would see on Zoom.
Gimkit
Gimkit is a website you might see some general classroom teachers using a lot. But for the music classroom, you can use it for note naming, musical terms, rhythmic dictation and instrument identification.
Flip
Flip is great for student assessment. They can record themselves in various ways and you can gauge where they’re at while teaching various concepts.
Other Sites
Edpuzzle
Padlet
Boomcards
Is your favorite music education podcast on this list? Tell me about it in the comments below or share your thoughts on social media as you share this post. I’d love for you to share this post or any of the resources on my website with a friend or colleague who you know NEEDS to see it too.
P.S. Are you feeling frustrated or stuck as an elementary music teacher? Check out these free resources to help you teach elementary music with confidence!
Also…I wrote a book called “Make A Note: What You Really Need To Know About Teaching Elementary Music” to help music teachers move forward in your teaching career. You can get your copy here.
