Post 2: Award-Winning Teacher Blog Review

Opening Photo

In this post, I will be reviewing Ms.Butler’s blog titled Elementary Music Methods: Real Life Edition. In her blog, she discusses her experiences as a first year elementary music educator. Upon opening the blog, a unique intro picture (pictured right) captures you as the viewer immediately. The blog background is sky blue, with what looks like clouds throughout the background. The text on the page is a darker color, making it stick out and easy to read on the page. However, the linked tabs are all blue, making it a little more challenging to read. However, the different shades of blue, as well as the color change upon moving the cursor over the link makes it easier to distinguish between the two shades.

On the right hand side, right below the picture at the top, is a link to her Pinterest page, under a tab titled, "Follow Me". This account contains many ideas for classroom games, classroom management ideas, and other creative concepts for projects to do with or for the classroom. 

Directly beneath that link is a description of what the blog is about, which is very simple and clearly stated. The title of this tab is "About Me and My Blog" The blog, per the description, is about Ms. Butler’s experiences as a first year teacher in the elementary classroom, as well as a place for her to share ideas about teaching lessons and obtaining resources. 

Beneath that, there is a section of tabs titled, "Catch Up!". This section contains the different posts, which are organized by month. Each month has a drop down menu into the titles of the different blogs, which makes the page less cluttered and well organized.

Below the months, there is an option to "Follow by Email," in which the viewer can input his/her email, and then get updates about the blog. There is also a total page viewer count below the email sign up section, which is up over 460,000! 

Note card used in class

Beneath the page view counter, there are some RSS feeds for the posts and for all comments on the page, so viewers can get live updates about comments and other posts on the blog. Directly below that, there is a search bar, so the viewer can search anywhere in the entire blog for the information they want to find.

The second post on the blog is from March 17, 2014, which is clearly stated at the beginning of the post. The post is about how Ms. Butler taught a lesson on African drumming to her classroom. There is a picture of the note cards used in the lesson in this post that, which is located above.

Instruments Used

During the lesson, they used different instruments, and the layout of the instruments used are located to the right. This lesson is an excellent use of many resources in the classroom, as well as an excellent way to expand the musical backgrounds of the students in the classroom. 

This blog is very well organized, and has a great, simple layout, making it easy to maneuver around the site. It has received an A+ specialty teaching blog rating, and I can see why. This blog has significant information that can be very beneficial to a young elementary music educator, as well as someone looking to build a successful, well designed blog.