Last updated: January 24, 2026
Thanks for visiting the K–5 Music Department website for Russell Elementary!
Every student at Russell receives a weekly 45-minute general music class, with additional opportunities available for older grades. On this site you'll find pages dedicated to explaining the yearly curriculum for all general music grades, additional musical opportunities both in and outside of Marple Newtown School District, a yearly performance calendar, and more!
As a society, we hold music to an exceptionally high—often unreasonably high—standard. The music we hear on the radio is meticulously edited to near perfection, which can make learning an instrument especially challenging for beginners. In a world shaped by instant gratification, it’s difficult for children to persevere through the inevitable mistakes that come with trying something new.
As parents, it’s important to recognize this. We celebrate early artwork filled with scribbles and glitter by hanging it on the refrigerator, and we cheer when our children put on a tutu, spin, fall, and try again. Yet when it comes to beginning instruments, our knee-jerk response to the squeaks and squawks of learning is often to ask them to stop making noise. While that reaction is understandable, it’s an unfair one. For the sake of our young musicians, we must learn to value effort and growth as much as polish and perfection when it comes to early music-making.
K-5 General Music & Cub Choir
Hi I'm Jon Ruths! I was born in York, PA but raised on a family-run dairy farm in Northumberland county in central Pennsylvania.
I am a 2011 graduate of Shikellamy High School, and completed my Bachelor of Music in Music Education with a piano focus and voice minor from West Chester University of PA in 2015. A few years later I returned to WCU part time and completed my Masters in Music Education in Research.
I spent the first three years of my teaching career at Union Colony Elementary School in Colorado where I taught K-6 general music, beginning band, and choir. We moved back to Pennsylvania in 2018 and I have worked at Russell Elementary since then.
When I'm not teaching, you can find me hanging out with my wife, two boys, and two dogs, hiking, snowboarding, and cheering on Penn State Football, Chelsea FC, and all Philly sports. GO BIRDS!
Elementary music education lays the foundation for a lifelong relationship with music.
The goal of this program is for students to gain an appreciation for music as an art form while developing the foundational skills necessary for future musical learning. Instruction emphasizes the learning process—exploration, repetition, persistence, and growth—because when students are engaged in meaningful musical experiences, strong performances naturally follow.
Singing is the primary focus of instruction here at Russell, as it is the one instrument students carry with them throughout their lives. The ability to hear, match, and reproduce pitch with the voice supports all future music-making and helps students develop the critical listening skills needed to recognize accuracy and expressiveness.
Students also learn to read music notation, play classroom instruments, create music, and perform for others. This program values effort and growth over comparison or perfection, recognizing that every child is musical and capable of improvement. Through guided, supportive instruction, students build confidence, musical understanding, and the skills needed to succeed in both future ensembles and as lifelong learners.