Get to Know Our BTS Arts Educators: Chalynn Thomas Spotlight

Get to Know our BTS Arts Educators

Chalynn Thomas, BTS Music Educator

Uintah School District

Chalynn Thomas is a BTS Arts music educator and has been since 2011. Chalynn engages teachers and students alike with her innate charm and enthusiasm. She works tirelessly to create engaging, innovating, and rigorous music and art integrated lessons for students in kindergarten through fifth grade.

Teachers not only learn music from attending her classes, but they also learn effective classroom management strategies, scope, and sequencing of multiple subjects, and how to relate to students of all ages. She is an outstanding mentor to all her teachers.

Chalynn’s accomplishments do not stop at the classroom door. Mrs. Thomas has taken an entire grade level of students to the Utah State Capitol to drum rhythms about creating and passing a bill. Prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, she and her fourth-grade students created rhythms and songs about the local landscape and releasing fish into the Green River. Check out the video here:

She has volunteered her time as a presenter at BYU’s Arts Express and Learning Edge Conferences, Uintah Basin Education Summit, Uintah School District Arts R Core Workshops, and other arts integration professional development days, and the hospitality chairperson for National American Orff Association Conference. When not involved in a music or art project, she is looking out for her 94-year-old neighbor, taking in stray cats and dogs, or hiking and biking with her husband.