This six-hour session will engage teachers in activities that, over time, will enable their students to express their own ideas through music. Too often music teachers focus only on the “perform” domain, helping students to recreate and perform the music of others rather than creating and sharing their own musical ideas. Wouldn’t it be fantastic if students felt like they had something to say musically and were given the chance to say it? This workshop will help teachers empower their students through exploration, creation, improvisation, arranging, and composition. We will explore how activities can be built from the very early stages of music learning and scaffolded over time until children are fluent, confident, empowered speakers of the “language” of music.