I’ve taught band (grades 5-12), handbells (grades 6-8) and general music (grades K-8) at inner-city, rural and suburban settings. I have been fortunate and blessed to have won two national and one state teaching awards and have been a presenter at the National Middle School Association Conference. I love helping my students connect music with other content areas!
I grew up in a suburb north of Columbus, Ohio and graduated from Otterbein University. I am passionate about all things music and love to spread that joy and enthusiasm onto my students. I started my teaching career as an assistant high band director at a school in Dayton and while there our band placed in the top 12 of a national marching band competition. I moved on to teach band and handbells at a middle school in the Dayton Public School system. While there I was fortunate to have a few mentors who passed on the ability to teach so much more than “just our curriculum.” From there I moved to northwest Ohio, where I met my husband. We are exact opposites (he was “in sports” and I’m obviously “music”) yet we are soul mates for life.
I started creating teaching resources out of sheer need as the “textbooks” where I currently teach were from the mid 1980’s. The “new” technology in them pertained to CD’s and the “latest” Broadway musical was Annie. Hence my need for teaching materials. I opened a Teacher’s Pay Teachers store in the summer of 1995. From there I expanded to a store at Boom Learning. For those unfamiliar with Boom Cards, they are digital task cards that are self grading. These have been exceedingly important, at least to me, the past couple of years.
I realize that many teachers can’t or won’t use either Boom Cards or Google Resources, so I have developed this website to allow teachers the ability to provide and use digital exercises at an affordable price and allow them to see/purchase downloadable resources to use in their own personal classrooms.