I’ve found that playing music adds a wonderful dimension to a PE class. I can use it to energize or calm down a class, or just add some fun. I love it when just the right song comes on and all the kids are singing […]

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.

I love using body percussion activities, so I am sharing some teacher tips and ways to use them in your classes.

I'm sharing the music playlist that I use whenever I teach PE

Here are a bunch of ideas for music class activities for grades K-4 to keep kids engaged in May. Summer's fast approaching, but meaningful music education is still possible! Check out these tips, resources, and musical ideas for your elementary students.

Whether a new teacher or returning teacher, I hope you'll discover some ways to prepare and polish your General Music Classroom Essentials.

Learn all about classroom management for elementary music teachers and take control of your general music classroom today!

Creating a daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly schedule as a PE Teacher is much different than creating one as a classroom teacher. Not only do you have limited amounts of time with each class, but you see every class and every student throughout the month. Keeping organized is essential and I am sharing some of my favorite ways to do that today, along with some time-saving and sanity-saving resources. Organizing the Year If you haven't done so already, be sure to check out my Scope & Sequence Resources to help you get a big-picture view of your yearly expectations for each grade. Then, it becomes helpful to break everything down into units, especially if you are on a class rotation like my district. I see each class for one-week chunks and we are on a three-week rotation. Because of that, I see each group about twelve times during the year. For this setup, it is easiest to make each unit one to two weeks in length. For some of the more general units like agility, movement, and sportsmanship, I incorporate these throughout the weeks since they help support the more sports-specific units like jump rope, basketball, and soccer. Organizing Your Week This is the first year that our district is going to a modified late-start Wednesday schedule. Now, every class will meet for 50 minutes with a 10 minute break in between except Wednesdays, which will be a 40 minute class with a 5 minute break in between. Every day, I see all grades K-5, so being able to organize the flow of the week also depends on organizing setup time during those few minutes between groups. With less setup time between classes on Wednesdays, and accounting for the shorter meeting time, I am going to make Wednesdays my Game Day since prep-work and supplies can stay relatively consistent between classes. I also like to have a Friday Fun at the end of each week where I will have students rotate in their squads to the cool features in our gym like rope swing, climbing wall, scooters, and rotating stations based on our units, both past and current. That leaves every Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday to dive into the units of study and teach skills, work in stations, play mini-games, and incorporate sportsmanship, agility, and assessment. I encourage you to put some of your days like this on "auto-pilot"-- while you will still need to plan them out, the routine makes management easier and builds excitement for the students each week, especially if you only see them once a month-ish like I do. Organizing Your Day While each day is the same, I found as a PE Teacher that I had to be just as organized during my planning time and time in between classes as I was during my teaching time. I see every class every day, so that means that when third grade leaves, I may have a Kindergarten class coming in next. Thankfully, I have a principal who organizes the morning by upper grades (3-5) and afternoons by lower grades (K-2), but equipment needs to be adjusted and stations tweaked to ensure safety and success for each group. This is especially true for stations, which we relied upon heavily last year since it kept kids more separate for COVID protocol. When planning my stations, I try to keep the theme and/or skill pretty much the same in Grades 1-5. I have found Kindergarten to be its own beast, especially the first half of the year, but I will go more in-depth in a leter post. When most of the stations are the same, all I need to do during the transition time is switch out minor things, like the size and/or material of the balls or simplifying the setup with cones or poly spots. I also take pictures of the setups and keep them in my phone, since throughout the next few weeks, I will need to repeat this two more times (since we're on a three-week rotation) for the other classes in that grade. With pictures available, I can double-check when I inevitably forget how a station was setup or which type of equipment I used in second grade versus first grade. Organizing Your Class Just like organizing my week, I like each of my classes to follow a similar structure, K-5. Not only does this build routine and familiarity with the students (especially year to year), but it allows my brain to adjust from one class to the next and not have to worry about planning out 50 minute classes, six times a day, five days a week. I just don't have the bran capacity for that! Each class is 50 minutes long and follows the same general structure: As you can see, the times of these sections range over several minutes and you can use your best guess class-by-class and grade-by-grade to determine what works best. And at the beginning of the year, expect these times to be completely out of whack as you set up routines and expectations. I'll include some tips in a future post about that. My Favorite Planner Some of you have asked where I like to plan everything and, hands down, my favorite teacher planner is from Simplified. I did a huge review of this planner last year that you can read about HERE and watch a walkthrough of on YouTube HERE. This year, there is are updated covers, but the inside remains the same and I found it to be ideal for listing stations, games, accommodations and adjustments, and more for my PE classes last year. Plus, it was so easy to track what activity I had done with what group so I didn't have any repeats or gaps. I used three different colors to plan for each of the groups. *If you have been following me for a while, you know that color coding is my love language! Because of that, it was easy to find what I had done with the group in the previous rotation and make new plans accordingly. As much as I tried to have three identical weeks for each unit, each weeks was just a little different, so being able to keep track of those changes was important. To find out more about the Simplified Teacher Planner, click HERE. What questions do you have about organizing, planning, and scheduling for your year ahead? What suggestions and tips do you have to share? Be sure to leave a comment below and I look forward to hearing from you. Stay well,

Teaching elementary music? Learn all about classroom management strategies to control those fifth graders in the blog post!

Teaching elementary music? Here are some ideas for using elementary body percussion activities to help your students feel the beat.

Denise Gagne asked if I would have my students do some rhythm grid jumping to one of John Jacobson‘s songs. We found we liked Sky Full of Stars and here...

It happens at every level, at every school I’ve ever taught in. A student asks, “can we play freeze dance today?” I’m always torn. I want my students to have fun and …

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.

Here are EASY OUTDOOR music and movement activities that your kids in all grade levels will love! It's like a musical field day!

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!

Hi, I’m Frank Petras and I’m excited to talk about an activity I came up with last year called “Roller Ball”. I’ve always been a big proponent of finding new and creative instant activities for my students. Activities that require … Read More

Five fun and action-filled circle games to practice rhythm, pitch, and more with your elementary music students.

Getting the right gear is part of making physical education a fun and exciting part of every student’s day. By modeling and introducing students to all of the wonderful ways to exercise and participate in physical education, physical education teachers can help them develop healthy habits. Check out these PE teacher favorite items and […]

Kids love balls and I use them to teach concepts, in team building, during rehearsals and more! Here's my ten ways to use balls in the music class room.

First year elementary music teachers face a lot of difficulties-- this is how to get ready for your first year!

We are finishing up Unit 1: Rhythm and I feel like I have brought out all the "old material," already tried some cool new material (like centers!)

Check out this post for creative and exciting ways to add scarves into your music activities. Also, find some specific scarf music examples.

A Musical Chairs variation that's suitable for use in a classroom space and with large numbers of students.

One of the things I worried about the most my first year of teaching PE was what to do if I needed a substitute. This was also in the time of COVID, when we were bouncing back and forth between in-person and hybrid, so even I wasn't sure what we would be doing one week to the next. No matter the climate, having solid substitute plans are an important part of getting set up for PE-- it will alleviate stress when you're probably already stressed enough with whatever is taking you from school that day, and allow you to rest, recover, and heal knowing your students are in good hands. Types of Substitute Plans There are two main categories of sub plans: Planned and Emergency. Planned is when you know you will be gone in advance. You can create plans that are continuous with what you have been working on, you may even get the chance to set our equipment before you go, and you can leave specific notes to the sub, who is maybe even someone you chose in advance. Ideally, all of our sub days would be planned. They still require lots of work, but at least you are healthy when writing them and can get everything squared away before you go. Emergency plans are some of the trickiest to plan, but an essential part of your prep for the year. These are used on days when you or a family member is unexpectedly sick. Maybe you need to be out of school last-minute. You don't have time to set up, you have no idea who will take your classes, and you don't have the energy or brain power to figure it out the night before or morning of. You will inevitably need both types of plans at some point during the year, so it's best to have a rough outline for Planned absences and a folder or binder with Emergency plans all ready to go as early as possible in the school year. What All Sub Plans Need No matter if it's Planned or Emergency, there are certain things that all sub plans need. This includes: rosters for each class (ideally with photos) squad/small group lists how to get the class' attention/transition procedures (I have an electronic whistle which is great when a sub comes since they can use it, too!) daily schedule class schedule helpful students (2 per class) students who need some extra behavior support students with health concerns what to do if a student gets hurt Nurse Pass & Health Room procedure (I also include a small baggie with extra masks and bandaids to give to students if needed) Office Pass Bathroom Pass & procedure Water procedure emergency plans (fire/tornado/lockout/lockdown) building phone numbers where to find materials for games (if any) where the adult bathroom and faculty lounge are school rules & consequences (school forms, if necessary) PE rules & consequences rewards (stamps or stickers) for students line up procedures at the end of classI am careful to mark "confidential" on the top of any pages that include sensitive student information, but it's important for the sub to know about these things, especially health and behavior concerns. I also include a sheet of small stickers for them to pass out to students at the end of class. I want kids to feel excited about a sub and know there are positive reward for a job well done when I am away. For an editable version of this checklist on Google Docs, click HERE to get your own copy! Lessons to Add to Sub Plans These next ideas will differ based on whether you are writing Planned or Emergency plans, but it's important to include the following: warm-ups games and activities cool down Mindful Moment/reflection script *Find out more about my Class Schedule HERE. Something I am cognizant of is that I may be comfortable with a lot of equipment and supplies, but chances are, my sub isn't. Not only do they not know where they all get stored in the gym, so setting up could be a real hassle on emergency sub days, but they probably don't feel comfortable managing so much equipment with K-5 students all day. Because of that, whether I have planned absences or not, I try to limit equipment to just the basics and keep the materials easy to find and easier to manage. Games & Activities for Sub Days Simple but fun games are always on the menu for sub days. You want to ensure that there aren't complex rules or excessive competition, both of which make it overly challenging for the students to understand and the sub to manage. Equipment should be easy and safe, if any is used at all. Whole-class games are best so that all students are engaged the whole class. Standing around waiting for long periods of time can quickly become a management nightmare. Making games consistent across K-5 (with accommodations for older and younger grades) makes it easy for the sub to teach all day and also works in your favor, as students will remember the sub games from year to year. So what games and activities work? Some of our favorites include tag, relays, and challenges. I'm linking some helpful videos by one of my favorite YouTubers, PhysEdGames: Top 10 Tag Games Team Memory Pool Noodle Relays Pizza Tag (or any type of Sharks & Minnows game) Steal the Bacon Any of these 12 Fun PE GamesMany of these require very little equipment, but some of them do require noodles, hula hoops, sit spots, etc. We use those often enough in PE that they are front and center in my equipment storage, so it's easy for me to get anytime and also easy for a substitute to find. Teach the Sub Games Most of these games I reserve specifically for the substitutes, but I also teach them during the first few days of class at the start of the year. Not only are they simple and easy to organize, they keep everyone involved and teach students what these games are called and how they are played correctly. That way, if and when a sub is called in, the kids already know how to play the game the sub announces. I will also sprinkle these games in from time to time throughout the year, because what they learn in August is hard to recall in February! My recommendation is to give the YouTube links to the substitutes in your sub plans. We submit out plans over Google Docs, so inserting a direct link is helpful. I have found with most things PE that it is easier to watch and understand than to write out the details and try to visualize it in your head. If you have any specific changes or clarifications to the rules, be sure to add those into the plans so you can ensure they have what they need to successfully lead the students. Having Emergency sub plans & a template for Planned days away ready at the start of the year can help alleviate additional stress when the time comes for you to be out from school. I hope these ideas gave you a springboard to creating your own plans and please share any of your favorite sub games and activities in the comments below. Bonus points if they are K-5 and require a small amount of equipment! Stay well,

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!

Playing classroom games is not just about having fun, it can serve as a tool to create a positive learning climate too. Read on to find out..

Blog posts about elementary music, practicing music, and teaching Children's Church! You may think those things go together, but they do! Check it out!

Here’s 10 ways to use a parachute in the music classroom. Activities will help students learn and practice music concepts. Parachutes can be used for so many fun activities in the music room. I’ve discovered that they are especially helpful during the latter part of the school year when students are more “squiggly” than ever! […]

Lesson planning doesn't have to be difficult-- with these tips, you can make lesson plannig easy, even as an elementary music teacher!

Do you have a favorite rhythm game or activity to use in your music lessons? Rhythm is something that always needs review, so you can never have too many

Movement lessons your fourth and fifth grade music students will want to do. These are simple & easy lessons for elementary music class.

Movement lessons your fourth and fifth grade music students will want to do. These are simple & easy lessons for elementary music class.

Teaching elementary music with no touch singing games? That is a tall order, but here are 6 fun suggestions for general music classes!

I’m Tanner Roos from Linn Grove Elementary School (Linn-Mar) in Marion, Iowa. Recently we started using the parachute with my kindergarten through third grade students. The activity I’m going to highlight is called Parachute Surfing 2.0. You could also call … Read More