Organized Chaos

Tuesday, January 20, 2026

"Shine" Theme Elementary Choral Program

Sometime in the last few years I became a person who chooses my elementary choir concert pieces to fit a unifying theme. For our spring concert this year we are going to be doing a theme of "shine"! I always include a mixture of traditional choral pieces (usually with at least one non-English song) and modern/ pop songs, and this concert includes all of those! I'll also share some of the other songs I considered that I didn't end up using but would also fit the theme well and would work well with elementary chorus.

I found the pop song for this program a couple of years ago when I was looking for something else and I've been trying to find a way to fit it into a chorus concert ever since! I ended up finding a complete program around the theme of shining light, which seems fittingly hopeful for current times.

Brighter Days by Emeli Sandé I am going to have the 2nd verse be solos, and add a lower parallel harmony on the chorus.

Let the Sun Shine Down by Peter Johns This is a nice, easy two part arrangement that includes singing the melody in unison, then in canon, then as a partner song. There are a few lyrics I changed to avoid religious connotations since I have some students who wouldn't be able to sing it otherwise, but it was simple changes (like changing "God speed" to "peace be").

Shining Moon (Ngam Sang Duan) traditional Thai arr. Audrey Snyder I wanted to have a song about the moon shining as well, and when I came across this 2-part arrangement of a Thai song (which I was able to verify is in fact commonly sung in Thailand) I knew this was the one! There are lyrics in English included but I am planning to have my students sing only in Thai. It is mostly in unison or in canon but also includes a few parallel harmony spots so it should be another accessible song for my group.

Besides these, I found several other choral pieces I considered doing that are a similar level of difficulty and fit the theme very nicely:

Kokoleoko traditional Liberian arr. Victor Johnson I wasn't sure if I could get my current group to really buy into this one but I'm definitely keeping it for future consideration!

Hola, Media Luna by Laura and Eddie Cavazos If I hadn't just done a song in Spanish this year I probably would have done this one!

I Want to Rise by Mark Weston I did this one a few years ago and I decided it was too soon to do again but it would also fit this theme!

Any of the songs I used for my "Stars" theme concert from a few years ago would fit well here too, and there are actually quite a few pop songs I've already done in other previous concerts that would also fit:

Cover Me in Sunshine by Pink

Waiting on a Sunny Day by Bruce Springsteen

Brighter Day by Michael Franti

I confess I actually considered doing an entire concert of just "Brighter Day(s)" songs, with Emeli Sandé song I'm doing this year, The Michael Franti song listed above, and Brighter Days by Blessing Offor... I decided it was too confusing but if someone decides to go for it let me know! :)

I'm really excited about this program and I think the students and the audience will enjoy it as well! You can see all of the themed elementary choral programs I've put together in this post if you're looking for more great songs:

And if you want to see all of my posts related to teaching elementary choir, from rehearsal techniques to my favorite songs, arranging pieces for elementary choir to my favorite warmups, you can see them all here.

Tuesday, January 13, 2026

Music In Our Schools Month® 2026: "United Through Music" Song Bracket

This year the theme for Music In Our Schools Month® (MIOSM®) is "United through Music". I have been doing a "musical March madness"-style song bracket, where students listen to different songs each day and vote on their favorites, for several years now, and for the last several years I've tried to tie the songs into the annual theme NAfME chooses. To connect with this year's theme, I've decided to choose songs that include 2 or more languages, to show how music can connect people across cultures and languages.

The theme of "United through Music" is not new- NAfME is using the same theme as last school year. If you didn't use my song bracket last year, I did an entire playlist of songs that combine two or more musical genres (many of them also from different cultures), which you can see here. I also did an entire playlist of songs focusing on unity/ togetherness in 2023 for their theme that year, "Music Is All of Us", which was a similar theme! If you didn't use my song bracket that year and you'd rather focus on lyrics with themes of unity to connect with this year's theme, you can find that list of songs here.

As I have done the last few years, I'm going to be setting up google slides files with the songs for each day embedded in the slides so that classes can vote in their homerooms. If you want to see how I organize the logistics so classes can vote every day regardless of whether they have music that day or not, check out my 2021 MIOSM post (and definitely let me know if you have any questions, I'm happy to help). Doing it in slides was such an easy way to have all the songs organized and make it easy for the homeroom teachers to report their class' vote rather than having to email me every day! I don't have the rights to share the song files, but you can make a copy of my slide templates and add the audio files yourself by clicking on the image below (it will automatically ask you if you want to make a copy)- here is a tutorial on setting it up in slides using the templates:

In my song lists each year I try to include songs from different genres and time periods, representing artists of different backgrounds and including different languages, and this year is obviously no different. You'll find a blank slide template in the slides file linked above: I use that to show the lyrics in their original language and in the English translation for parts that are not in English.

Here are the songs I'll be using in this year's bracket, with the languages included in each song included (in no particular order):

1. El Ritmo by J. Esho (French, Arabic, Spanish)

2. Djapana by Yothu Yindi (English, Yolnu Matha - northern Australia)

3. Con un vezzo all'italiana by Mozart (Italian, French, English)

4. Ojos Asi by Shakira (Spanish, Arabic)

5. Spider by GIMS and DYSTINCT (French, Arabic)

6. Uewo Muite Arukou by Mimy Succar, Nora Suzuki, Tony Succar (Japanese, Spanish)

7. Wanna Be Yours by Violette Wautier (Thai, English)

8. Four Women by Sara Tavares, Chiwoniso, Deborah, and Joy Denalane (Brazilian Portuguese, Shona, French, German)

9. Aaj Ibaadat by Javed Bashir and Shreyas Puranik (Sanskrit, Hindi)

10. Jerusalema Remix by Master KG feat. Burna Boy and Nomcebo (Nigerian pidgin, Zulu, Yoruba, Hausa)

11. Golden by HUNTRIX (Korean, English)

12. Period by YonYon, Taichi Mukai (Korean, Japanese)

13. Nus Nus by Noam Tsuriely (Hebrew, Arabic, English)

14. Girl On Fire + Ala Tabiaty by Alaa Wardi and Nesma Mahgoub (English, Arabic)

15. Aicha by Moe Phoenix (German, French, Arabic)

16. So Far by Habanot Nechama (Hebrew, English)

17. Nah by Marie Bothmer and Lord Esperanza (German, French)

18. Zemër by Dhurata Dora and Soolking (French, Albanian)

19. El Baile del Kkoyaruna by Pascuala Ilbaca y Fauna (Spanish, Quechua)

20. CHANGE by E.SO (Mandarin, English)

21. Mungu Halali by Blinky Bill and Wambura Mitaru (Swahili, English)

22. Libre by Alvaro Soler and Monika Lewczuk (Spanish, Polish)

23. Hitzeman by ZETAK and Oques Grasses (Catalan, Basque)

24. Lathi by Weird Genius and Sara Fajira (Javanese, English)

I'm excited to see how the students respond to this year's playlist, and I'm curious to see which song wins out in the end! What are your plans for Music In Our Schools Month® this year? What are other songs that fit this theme? I'd love to hear more suggestions in the comments below- I'm sure there are plenty more great ones out there. If you're looking for more ideas to use for MIOSM, here are all my posts on the topic.

Tuesday, January 6, 2026

Tuesday, December 30, 2025

Music Teacher Planner December 2025

Each new year brings fresh motivation to get organized! I love looking through my planner from the first part of the school year over winter break before refilling it with fresh blank pages for the spring! Today you're coming with me to look through my planner from the first few months of the school year before we start fresh in January.

I actually showed the first few weeks of the school year in a separate video this fall. Here are my monthly and weekly planner pages from the end of August through the end of September:

And then here are the rest of the weekly and monthly pages through the end of December 2025, including a custom page I made to use over break! This is one of the things I love about using a printable planner like this- I can throw in different pages whenever I want to without feeling like I'm wasting anything and make it tailored to my needs.

If you're looking to get more organize in 2026 I've got you covered! This is the planner format I use, and you can see all of the Organized Chaos Planners designed specifically for music teachers here as well. If you have any questions about how I use my planner etc, please leave a comment and I'll be happy to help!

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