Class Openers for Elementary Music. Organized Chaos. Fun ways to establish a routine for the beginning of each elementary general music class as a warm-up and allow student leadership as well.
Teaching elementary music with no touch singing games? That is a tall order, but here are 6 fun suggestions for general music classes!
Looking for engaging, musical games to play with your students? Here are a few of my favorite games and activities for elementary music classes, children's choirs, and elementary group classes.
Teaching kids to sing is very important, but can be challenging. There are ways that kids can be taught to sing that are not difficult for the parent or teacher to implement.
I love using body percussion activities, so I am sharing some teacher tips and ways to use them in your classes.
The school year is just about over so here are eight end of year music class activities for the elementary music classroom.
Singing games are a great way to teach musical concepts, incorporate movement, and give children an opportunity to sing alone and with others. They're perfect as gathering activities, ice-breakers, or a quick change-of-pace in the middle of rehearsal. A few months ago, I shared seven fun
Looking for some sol mi songs for the elementary music room? These are the perfect folk songs to teach sol and mi and melody!
Pass the Shoe is a fantastic song for practicing steady beat in the elementary music classroom. It's a short song with a catchy tune, making it easy for students to internalize. The accompanying game can be modified in multiple ways to fit nearly any age group and skill level.
Beat passing games for the music room: Great singing games for the upper elementary music classroom!
We've all been there: one class is ahead of the rest of the grade level, it's the last day before a vacation, you're stressed/ tired/ sick and can't think straight to teach a regular lesson, it's a weird schedule day and the kids are spinning in circles, there's a last-minute change and you can't do the lesson you had planned... Whatever the reason, we all have days when we need to step out of our regularly-scheduled sequenced curriculum and do something different for one class period. Sure, you could throw on a movie or pull out some worksheets. But those types of classes can result in lots of behavior difficulties (and no wonder, the students are usually bored!). Here are my favorite ways to use those "one-off" class periods in meaningful musical ways. These ideas are ones that don't require too much thinking on my part, don't require advance planning to set up, can be done with large or small groups, and keep students engaged for an entire class period. 1. instrument merry go round I actually use this activity as a part of my regular "curricular" lessons as well, but it's a good one to pull out when I want everyone to stay focused and engaged but I know they're going to be antsy. I have every student pick out one instrument (usually I limit their options to small percussion on specific shelves in my room) and bring it to sit in a circle on the floor. Then I tell them to play when my hands are open, and stop when I close my hands. If they play/ don't play at the wrong time, they're out for the next round. Once they get the hang of starting and stopping, I have them leave their instrument on the floor, stand up, and move over one spot around the circle. Then they pick up the new instrument and repeat. Keep going around the circle and switching instruments! The great thing about this is I can use it to review a variety of concepts. Instrument names and playing techniques are obvious ones, but I can also teach dynamics by having them play louder/ softer when I hold up dynamic symbols or move my hands bigger or smaller, review instrument classification by calling out certain types to play on different turns, or practice rhythms by having them echo patterns instead of starting/ stopping. Lots of ways to change it up! 2. Musication I purposefully save videos from this awesome YouTube channel to use only for this purpose so that I know students won't get tired of them. They are most well-known for the play-along videos for Boomwhackers and hand chimes with color-coded notes, but there are also play-along videos for percussion (which is great for large groups and younger students), and even chord play-alongs (which I use with ukulele but could also be done with guitar, piano, etc). One other pro tip for these: you can slow down or speed up the videos on YouTube without distorting the sound by clicking on settings (the gear icon at the bottom of the video) and selecting "playback speed". This is a perfect way to keep classes engaged and "up the ante" by repeating the same song but speeding up each time! Of course switching the parts/ notes they're playing is another great way to change it up and keep everyone on their toes. 3. posters I don't do this often but every now and then, especially if I'm under the weather and I don't think the students will be too high-energy, I'll have the class make posters to hang up on the walls. Sometimes I'll have them make posters for an upcoming music event to hang up around the building, including reminders about concert etiquette. Other times I have them make posters about something they're learning: instrument families, a musical element, music vocabulary, etc. Bonus: it's great to have student work to actually display on the walls because most of our student work isn't visual, and administrators (and kids!) love to see that in the classroom! 4. soundscapes There are so many ways to do soundscapes- I've written an entire blog post just about all the ways to do them here- but the most basic one I pull out most often in this scenario is to write down names of places on slips of paper, fold them up and have students draw one from a jar, and then have small groups come up with a soundscape to match that scene using only their voices and found objects they have in the room. So for example if a group has the beach, they may make the sounds of waves by flapping a piece of paper, seagulls with their voice, beachballs getting hit by hitting a chair, etc. If you're reading this right now and thinking ha, I wish I had a sequenced curriculum laid out for me that I could even stray from in the first place! Don't worry, you're definitely not alone- I talk to so many music teachers every week who are planning their lessons week by week or even day by day from scratch! You can get my complete curriculum with all the plans and materials for the entire school year for K-6 general music here, or learn exactly how to make your own in this free e-course here. I hope these lesson ideas are helpful the next time you find yourself in one of those situations- I'll be using a few of them this week after I finish my concerts and try to finish the week until our vacation!
Singing is an important part of elementary music classes, group classes, and of course, children's choir. So what do you do with a child who has trouble matching pitch and singing tunefully? Here are six practical strategies for helping children discover their singing voices.
Elementary music teaching resources for general music teachers. These are the foundational resources you need to establish a music curriculum.
Teaching elementary music with no touch singing games? That is a tall order, but here are 6 fun suggestions for general music classes!
The woe of the elementary music teacher. Singing. It can be difficult to get students on the same page sometimes. Sometimes it’s unhealthful singing, sometimes it’s not wanting to sing. Whatever the case, here are some things you can do to encourage good singing in the elementary music classroom. Long Game Teaching students to sing […]
Why MUSIC is so Important in Child Development. FREEBIE POSTERS for you to use in social media, posters in your classroom or flyers. It’s a jpeg file. Just download onto a blank document and size to your need-then print or upload. Here’s some links to some ideas and resources you might want to check out …
Five fun and action-filled circle games to practice rhythm, pitch, and more with your elementary music students.
How to Teach Beginning Harmony. Organized Chaos. Strategies for introducing harmony singing for the first time in elementary choir or general music.
Looking for some easy ways to implement body percussion activities into your music lessons? Easy ways to use body percussion in your classes.
5 Ways to Introduce a New Song. Organized Chaos. Engaging and effective ways to introduce new songs to elementary students.
This week I will be exploring the 4 voices (speaking, calling, whispering, and singing), and other vocal timbres, with my kindergarten classes. Today I thought I would share some of my favorite lesson activities to introduce and practice the 4 voices. 1. Apple Tree This game is my favorite way to introduce different voices- I do this with kindergarten and I have 3rd graders who are still asking to play it! First we learn the song: credit: Music a la Abbott Once the students know the song, I have everyone spread out around the room, sitting down on the floor. Everyone sings the song together, and after we sing "knocks me out", the students pretend that an apple knocked them out and lie down on the floor. I tell them the only thing that can wake them up is my singing voice. Then I repeat the song with all kinds of different voices, switching between voices mid-song. When the students hear my singing voice, they sit back up and sing with me until the end of the song. The first student to be sitting upright and singing with me at the correct time wins (and if they sit up too early they are out for that round). They love it because I do all kinds of silly voices, not just speaking and whispering, and I love it because they get lots of practice distinguishing the singing voice from other vocal timbres! 2. Boom Chicka Boom This is a great song for teaching echo songs, and I always bring it back when we are practicing echo format, but it is also another great song to sing in a variety of voices! Here's an example if you've never heard the song: There are tons of variations you can do with this one, obviously, and I usually come up with one or two new ones each year. My favorites, though, are "custodian style", which I do in the low voice of our school custodian (who is great and the students love him) and change the words to "broom chicka mop-a chicka", and "baby style", where I change the words to "poop chicka mama-chicka" (which pretty consistently makes everyone fall on the floor laughing). 3. Variations I love using this opportunity to sing some songs that I either want to throw in but haven't found a good spot in the curriculum to put it, or that the students have requested (or have some connection to). We sing the song in our best singing voices, then we do the other 3 "main" voices (speaking, calling, and whispering), and then I have students suggest other voices. Giants, frogs, babies, and robots are usually popular choices :) 4. Voices Poem Once we have spent plenty of time exploring our voices, it's time to actually label some of them. I found out about this cute little poem from another music teacher in my district and plan to use it this year to assess how well students can switch between voices: This is my speaking voice - I use it every day This is my whisper voice - it's quiet don't you say This is my calling voice - I use it to say "Hey!" This is my singing voice - I like it, it's okay!* *1st part of this line is sung on "sol", the last note is sung on "do" What are your favorite ways to teach and explore vocal timbre with your students? Share your ideas in the comments!
There are so many ways to open a class musically. Just like our morning routine sets the tone for our day as teachers, the opening activities of your music class set the tone for the rest of the lesson. We want those activities to be: Musical Engaging Purposeful
Singing is an important part of elementary music classes, group classes, and of course, children's choir. So what do you do with a child who has trouble matching pitch and singing tunefully? Here are six practical strategies for helping children discover their singing voices.
There are so many questions right now, and very few answers. The one that melts my brain the most right now, though, is how to teach elementary music class without anyone being able to sing (and I know I'm not the only one struggling with this)! If we are teaching in-person in some way, shape, or form, there is a good chance that singing won't be safe to do. I don't have many answers but here are some of the thoughts and ideas I've come up with so far. 1. Non-singing participation So much music involves singing, but we can have other people do the singing on a recording (or pre-record ourselves singing) and join in with the music in other ways: Play an ostinato on instruments or body percussion Show melodic contour, steady beat, dynamics, or mood through movement Dance Use props- cups, bean bags, scarves Play along with the melody on a pitched instrument (boomwhackers, xylophones, virtual instruments like Song Maker) Show solfege pitches with hand signs 2. Non-singing vocal performance How much of this we can and cannot safely do will depend on ongoing research findings, but it seems likely that we will be able to use our voices in ways that don't project as much, whether that's humming, whistling, or speaking. Depending on what I'm trying to teach through the song, I can adjust the activity: humming for melodic elements and speaking for rhythmic elements. We could even switch back and forth between the two to get a little bit of both! This would actually be a great way to really focus on what we're trying to practice. 3. Singing outside the classroom This option depends on what our school model looks like, but I could potentially have students learn how to do something vocally while they're in class, then have them practice doing it themselves at home and even record themselves (via something like Flipgrid). Those recordings could potentially be used in the next class period, or individual recordings could be combined to create a "group singing" experience that we all watch together. 4. Approaching concepts through non-singing My primary solution that I keep coming back to as we try to completely reinvent ourselves is to go back to the concepts I'm trying to teach and come up with different ways to "get there". So if the concept I want to teach is singing in canon, I can have students perform in canon with movement, instruments, or body percussion. If the concept is 4 voices, we can listen and identify recordings of the different voices instead of performing them all ourselves. If the concept is showing high and low, we can do that with our bodies, on instruments, or with online notation (like Song Maker mentioned above). The thought of music class without singing is depressing and terrifying. It seems completely ridiculous. We may find in a few weeks that we're all back to distance teaching and all of this will be a moot point. Or we may somehow find out that there are, in fact, safe ways for us to sing in groups in school. But for now, I think it's important for us to at least think through our options in case we're presented with this situation, whether it's at the beginning of this school year or later on when buildings start to reopen. We are all being stretched in ways we never even dreamed, and it's critical that we collaborate as a profession and support each other! If you have other ideas you've come up with for in-person music teaching without singing, please leave a comment. I will be continuing to update the Distance Learning Resources page to include ideas for social distancing and modified teaching through covid- don't forget to look there for all my posts related to these unusual times we're living through.
These 7 Tips will help kids sing on pitch, improving their voice and their understanding of music. Teaching kids music can be fun for both sides with these tips!
Scotland's Burning is a song that works well as a starter to harmony because students can sing it in a round easily.
Singing games and folk dances are a wonderful way to create rich musical experiences, introduce a new musical skill or concept, build musicianship, develop confidence, cultivate the singing voice, and support the development of rhythmic understanding and the ability to keep a steady beat. Here are 1
Looking for a fun way to teach crescendos and decrescendos? The Monkey Game is the most requested game in my elementary music room-- and will be yours too!
Let's pause for a second with the pop songs because if you love using pop songs with your students, you also may like harnessing the power of those fidget POP
The Yellow Brick Road Blog is a website dedicated to providing music teachers with fun education resources for serious music literacy.
Vocal warm up routines that are fun are EASIER to remember. And singing warm ups using animal sounds employ a lot of the "primal" sounds beginning singers need to learn how to use.
Books for elementary music? You can teach musical concepts in elementary music with books! In this post we have 9 book based lessons for elementary music!
These fun Musical Games with ping pongs are great for music classes, they're fun, cheap and easy to set up and always very popular!
Looking for fun ideas to practice rhythm in the music room? Are you tired of the same ol', same ol'? Below are four ideas from four of our bloggers! From Linda: I don’t know about you but I love creating form using word chains! I especially love using manipulatives that the students can rearrange to create their own composition. So go ahead and grab that stack of beanie babies you use for tone matching and steady beat activities and Let’s Make Music! Set out 4 beanie babies in a row and have the students echo you. Each beanie baby will receive 2 beats. Rearrange the 4 and have the students echo you again. Continue the process substituting different beanies and changing the order. Eventually, start speaking the A section “Let’s Make Music” while you are arranging four beanie babies. Once you are finished speaking the A section the class should be ready to speak and clap the new beanie baby arrangement. Continue the process – rearranging the beanie babies during the A section. Repeat the lesson on a different day but add non-pitched percussion instruments in place of clapping the beanie baby arrangement. It would be fun to have the students sit in a circle during this lesson and to pass the instrument to the person on their right while speaking the A section. When they are finished speaking the A section they will have a new instrument to play for the B section! Have them continue to speak the beanie baby arrangement first and then play the rhythm of the words on their new instrument. Continue the process. Extend the lesson one more day by dividing your class into groups of 3 or 4. Each group should create their own beanie baby composition to speak and play. It will be an eight beat composition with each beanie baby receiving 2 beats. Perform ABABA. Everyone speaks A and a different group performs their composition for one of the B sections. If you would like a copy of the lesson plan and music for your files click here! http://bit.ly/LetsMakeMusic Enjoy making music and I’d love to hear how you used the lesson with your students! From Elaine: When it comes to working on rhythm-reading in music class, I believe in repetition. Yes, friends, you heard it here first: repetition is key. And there’s nothing wrong with doing the same thing over and over as long as it works. For a long time, I struggled with making rhythm activities more fun. Let’s face it, reading rhythm patterns can be a little boring. So when I’m working with the kiddos reading rhythmic patterns, I like to add a simple backing track. I like to call this “Rhythm Jams”. Here’s how it goes: because this is a sight-reading game, I display several rhythms on my board and randomly choose one at a time. I usually point to the pattern using my fancy finger-pointer. While the beat track is playing, I count the group off for each of the rhythm patterns. Sometimes, I go back to one we’ve already performed just to see if students are more accurate the second time. After we finish the displayed rhythms, I switch the track and the rhythms. This way the kids can try different rhythms in different tempos. Switching things up frequently adds to the excitement and the amount of time you’re able to continue the repetitive activity. By the end of your Rhythm Jams session, your students will be up out of their seat shaking what their Momma’s gave ‘em. Trust me. Can’t find a rhythm track to use? Try THIS website. It’s a huge compilation of YouTube videos featuring a wide variety of groovy rhythm tracks. From David: One of my favorite things to do when working with rhythm is to teach kids to look for rhythm in everyday words and phrases. You can start introducing this concept on the very first day of class while you’re learning kids' names by saying their name and then clapping the rhythm. Da-vid becomes ta ta. Mel-a-nie becomes ti-ti ta. Kim is ta rest. Mag-da-le-na is ti-ti ti-ti and so on. As soon as you get kids to start thinking that all words have rhythm you have the ability to make anything a game and make any word part of a song. I’m trained in Orff Schulwerk and in my levels classes we learned about the work of one of Orff’s most influential students, Gunild Keetman. Keetman was originally Orff’s student but quickly became his contemporary as she and Orff worked together to create what we now know as Orff Schulwerk. Keetman had a huge role in the theory behind everything that we learn and do from rhythm to movement, recorder, and more. One of the things that that I love the most from Keetman is her focus on “Rhythmic Building Bricks.” She says that the building bricks are the smallest rhythmic units that we use when we build our songs and rhymes. There are five building bricks that Keetman referred to over and over again for 2/4 and 4/4 time. Once kids learn to break down phrases with these building bricks they can decode and figure out the rhythms for anything. I usually start with words that kids already know and ask them to think about how many sounds/syllables a word has. I’ll give them a word like “backpack” (two sounds) and ask them to figure out the building brick that goes with it (ta ta). Then we might try out school (one sound) and figure out that it works with the brick ta rest. The most difficult part of all of this is when kids have to decide whether a three sound word is ta ti-ti or ti-ti ta. I try and give them simple words to figure out like “puppy dog” where the sounds are easily separated. There are a million ways you can teach and reinforce this idea that a word has rhythm. I have several sorting games for rhythm centers and interactive SMART board activities that I use to help kids start to categorize words by their rhythm. Eventually I give students other words or a word bank full of words to categorize and sort out. From there you can do a number of things. Teach kids a nursery rhyme or song and then have them work in small groups or pairs to break it down into its rhythmic building bricks. Here’s an example using the nursery rhyme “Rain, Rain, Go Away.” Try an example with the whole class to explain the process and then break them into small groups and give each one a different nursery rhyme to work on. Once the students have figured out their rhythm have them speak the poem and then speak the rhythm. Then have them clap the rhythm or play the rhythm on rhythm sticks. After 3 or 4 minutes, have the groups switch so that students can do the same activity with a different poem. Looking for good nursery rhymes to use in class? I have a free list of them on my blog. Check out the link here: http://www.makemomentsmatter.org/rhymes.html This last fall I took this idea of rhythm building bricks and turned it into a center game. I had little cards with different words and their corresponding rhythms. Students sorted out all the words (about 30 of them total) into five different piles – one for each of the building brick rhythms. Then they arranged them into patterns and wrote down the patterns they created. Every kid walked away from class with a rhythm that they composed using the different rhythmic words. This meant that they gained experience arranging rhythms into different measures and phrases (a composition activity) and they reinforced the idea that each word has its own specific rhythm. Here’s a picture of my kiddos in action. From Tracy: I have found that rhythm skills can be tricky to differentiate in my classroom. Usually we work on rhythms as a whole group or in sections. I plan centers that allow me to work with small groups but struggled for many years to find a way to challenge my gifted students and provide rhythmic remediation for others. Here are a couple of my favorite websites and apps for differentiating rhythm skill work. Music Tech Teacher has several activities and quizzes that address rhythm skills. I use Rhythm Billionaire with 5th graders and Listening to Rhythms with 3rd graders. I think you’ll find several activities there that your students will enjoy. http://musictechteacher.com/music_quizzes/music_quizzes.htm Rhythm Trainer is great for targeting specific notes and note combinations. It can work well with 1st grade through high school. Choose the notes you want to use and then start. Students hear a rhythm and then click the notes given to recreate the rhythm. http://www.therhythmtrainer.com/ Rhythm Cat is an app that works best on an iPad. It starts with very simple rhythms. You tap the iPad to play the rhythm and it gauges if you have played it correctly. Complete the rhythm with only a slight mistake or two and you progress to the next level. Each level comes with an explanation of the duration of the new notes and most levels have a rhythm track and guiding melody. https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/rhythm-cat-learn-to-read-music/id488167475?mt=8 Rhythm Repeat is another app that I really enjoy. I use it to challenge my gifted musicians. It is a little like the electronic Simon games in the way you play. You will hear a melody and have to tap it back in rhythm using 3 different colored dots. The difficulty increases quickly and will prove to be an exciting challenge to your students who need it. Difficulty can be set and uses more dots (pitches), increased tempo and more complex patterns. FUN! https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/rhythm-repeat/id455680974?mt=8 Hope you and your students enjoy these rhythm activities! Sing, Teach, Love!
Building singing routines into your class structure from pre-kindergarten and kindergarten is vital to helping kids find their voices, normalizing singing, and encouraging singing as a joyful activity. In the first 5-10 minutes of your class, you can incorporate simple Sol Mi singing that does all of those things! In this blog post, I’ll share with you ideas about: what to sing, including some age-based modifications getting your students to lead the activities how to assess students, and...
How to teach melody in elementary music class for first year elementary music teachers-- from high and low to solfege to notes on the staff.
Learn how to incorporate awesome and easy creative movement activities into your music class. Read this post for tips and ideas!
Looking for engaging, musical games to play with your students? Here are a few of my favorite games and activities for elementary music classes, children's choirs, and elementary group classes.
