Handling the Hand-Off

I don't know how we got here but for some reason there is A LOT of tension between the homeroom teacher camp and the subject specialist teacher camp around what is and is not appropriate to say or not say when a class is transitioning from, say, music class back to their homeroom. Managing transitions well can truly make or break your day, especially in elementary school, and we all know that there is a lot of work to be done towards getting different kinds of teachers to work together productively and respectfully. Here are my tips for making that hand-off back to the homeroom teacher go more smoothly, especially when things have gone awry during the lesson.

1. Do NOT ask the homeroom teachers to discipline in your place

I honestly have never met a music, art, PE, library, or any other teacher who thinks that they should not have to address misbehavior that happens in their class themselves, and that the homeroom teacher should be the sole disciplinarian, but there seem to be a lot of homeroom teachers who think that's what their colleagues are saying so, in case any of those people are out there giving us all a bad name, let's start here: if something happens in our class, it's our job to figure out how to handle it. Often we don't have enough time or reach to fully address everything within the constraints of our limited class time, and it may be most appropriate and effective to involve other adults- including, possibly, the homeroom teacher- in whatever the follow up is, but we definitely should not be expecting to tell the homeroom teacher what happened and have them figure out how to handle it. Not only is that unfair to the homeroom teacher but it sends the message to the students that you have no power or authority, and in most cases the consequence will be far less effective because the homeroom teacher wasn't there and won't fully know what happened.

2. DO communicate major issues, along with your plan

If it's just small issues, or issues that are chronic that the homeroom teacher is already aware of, I don't mention them unless there will be some follow up that will be happening later- that's just tattling. But if a student is visibly still upset, whether it's because something just happened or because it was a bigger problem, I let them homeroom teacher know what happened and how I handled/ will be handling it. That way if any students try to tattle on their friends about what happened the homeroom teacher knows they don't have to address it again- they can simply remind them of what is already being done and not have to rehash the whole issue. It also helps homeroom teachers know why a student may still be upset without having to ask them to re-explain the whole thing, and be aware of what's happening if a student gets called to the office later, or a parent asks them at pickup what happened. If I'm reporting on something, it usually sounds something like:

"Student A and B got into an argument in the hallway but we already talked through it, everyone apologized, it has been handled so nobody should need to keep talking about it but they might need some space from each other still."

"Student A was being so disrespectful today. I am going to be messaging their family and come up with a plan before their next music class because we are not doing this again."

3. DO ask for input if you're unsure

Some homeroom teachers, unfortunately, are less receptive to this than others, but if you're not sure how much a student is having the same difficulty in other classes and if so, how it is currently being addressed, or you don't know what type of consequence would be most effective for a particular student, I think you should be able to ask the homeroom teacher in a way that still communicates you are taking responsibility for the situation but just want their advice. Most of the time I will say something like:

"Student A was having a hard time today... I already spoke with them but I wanna talk to you later before I do anything else."

Not only does it communicate to the homeroom teacher that I am addressing the situation while giving them a heads up so when you come to them later to ask what they've been doing in class etc they know why, but it also sends the message to the student that you are working together as a team. The one question I will sometimes just ask right then in the transition instead of following up later is to ask the homeroom teacher how they most often communicate with home if I'm not sure who to contact/ the best way to make sure I get in touch. Everything else I save for a private conversation later.

4. To the homeroom teachers: stop assuming

I doubt any homeroom teachers will be reading this but just in case: please stop assuming we are expecting you to do our work when we talk to you about something that happened in our classes. I am willing to bet most of the time, your colleague is just trying to give you a heads up. Because we see students for such short slivers of time, and because we are so used to being excluded from behavior and academic support plan conversations, we know that having more information about how a student's day is going is helpful for informing how to respond to that student the rest of the day. If it were us, we would want to know. With everything that we are dealing with as teachers, we do not need more division between colleagues. We are all working hard, we all care about our students and what happens in our classroom, and we are on the same team!

Of course a major part of making the transitions go more smoothly is to have solid procedures in place that ensure students are calm and focused before sending them off. Here is my post explaining my routine for the end of class to get them lined up quietly and ready for the next thing, and here is my post on my strategies for the various aspects of management for elementary music.

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Nowruz (Persian New Year) Chaharshanbeh Suri Song

Did you know the Persian New Year, Nowruz, begins on March 21st? The celebrations began last week in Iran, Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan, and many other countries and are continuing this week. I recently learned a song about one of the Nowruz traditions in Iran called Chaharshanbeh Soori, or fire jumping, that has been perfect for exploring and identifying uncommon time signatures with my upper elementary students. I highly recommend this song and the lesson activities I used!

If you are unfamiliar with how Nowruz, the Persian New Year, is celebrated in Iran (many other countries celebrate in similar ways as well), the beginning of this video is an excellent description that you could share with elementary aged students to learn about the holiday:

One of the traditions that's not mentioned in this video, though, is Chaharshanbe Suri, which is the "Red Wednesday" fire festival celebrated the last Tuesday night before the new year. This read-aloud is a great way to introduce the tradition to kids in a relatable way if you have the time, and the video below gives a nice quick explanation of both the fire jumping and the spoon hitting traditions (which is very similar to trick or treating so elementary aged students always enjoy learning about it) of Chaharshanbe Suri: 

The song I want to share today comes from this video, which demonstrates the song and explains a game and music lesson activities to go with it:

I wrote out the notation of the melody with a transliteration (pronunciation) of the lyrics below. As always I recommend listening to the native speaker in the video above to learn the proper pronunciation of the lyrics rather than reading them from the English letters below alone!

The lyrics are:

اسفند دونه دونه،چهارشنبه سوری مونده         

آتش داریمیه خرمن،میپریم روش باهم            

سرخیِ تو از من، زردیِ من از تو.               

Which roughly translates to:

Esfand (the last month of the Persian calendar) is over, it's Chaharshanbeh Soori (Red Wednesday)

Let's jump over the fire together

My yellowness is yours, your redness is mine

The last line, which is sung twice at the end of the song, is the phrase that people say as they jump over the fire, meaning they are giving their pale, yellow, sickly skin of winter to the fire, and taking the red, healthy, rosy skin from the fire as spring begins. 

This song is a perfect addition to my lessons on time signatures with 4th and 5th graders because of the interesting 5/8 time! First I had the students doing the clap/ pat pattern with the recording (I clipped just the part where she sings the song in my slides), then I introduced the holiday and fire jumping tradition and taught them the last repeated line and had them try to sing along while still doing the clap- pat pattern through the whole song. In the video the woman suggests having students play percussion instruments with the song and take turns jumping over a pretend fire, so I did something similar: I had half of the students either play a pattern on the djembe, playing the low bass tone in the center of the drum on the downbeat pat and the higher tone on the edge of the drum on the claps, or play steady eighth notes on a shaker. The other half of the class lined up in front of the plushy campfire I happen to have from doing campfire songs at the end of the school year (really you could use a red scarf, or anything small as the "fire"). While we sang the song, the students in line tried to jump on the claps and land on the pats. First I had them jump together in time with the beat while staying in place, then once they got it I had them take turns actually jumping over the fire plushy one at a time. We had to slow the song down but once they got it, it went really well and they loved trying to keep the jumping going through the whole song! Then I had them trade parts and do it again.

All the clapping, jumping, singing, and instrument playing in 5/8 really helped them internalize the pulse before I asked them to try to identify the time signature. Having the shaker playing eighth notes is definitely important for helping students figure out what the time signature is! It's the perfect way to get them to experience how the 5 eighth notes are often split into groups of 2 and 3.

You could certainly use this song for other concepts like same and different phrases, or do re mi fa solfege notes, and you could definitely add more pitched ostinati to create an ensemble piece with it as well, or even have students play the melody on xylophones or other barred instruments, but I think the clear pulse and simple melody, along with the fun movement game that even upper elementary students can get excited about, make this a perfect song to use to explore time signature/ meter, and it was an easy way to introduce students to a tradition from Iran that most had never heard of!

If you want to incorporate more simple songs from Iran in Farsi / Persian, this rain song is also perfect for spring (or really any time of year) and I used it primarily with my younger students. You can also find more songs from around the world and search by language or country/ region on this page, and see all my other lesson ideas for teaching meter (including tons more lessons to practice 5/4 time) in this post: 

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Arab American Musicians to Share with Students

April is Arab American Heritage Month and this year it feels more important than ever to recognize and celebrate the contributions of Arab American musicians! There are so many amazing people to highlight, but here are a few of my favorites to share with elementary students.

Paula Abdul

As I was thinking about this list I realized I don't highlight dancers and choreographers enough in my classroom- Paula Abdul is an Emmy and Grammy award winning singer and dancer, and many students still recognize her from her time as a judge on American Idol. She has Syrian Jewish heritage. This video shows her singing and dancing with a song that elementary students can enjoy and even has a shot of the original American Idol judges at the end:

Amir Elsaffar

Amir Elsaffar is an Iraqi-American composer, singer, and trumpet and santur player. He combines jazz, Western classical, and Iraqi Maqam styles in his music. The beginning of this video shows his song "Hemayoun" where he starts off playing the santur and then switches to trumpet:

DJ Khaled

Of all the people on this list, students are most likely to recognize DJ Khaled, a Palestinian-American DJ and producer. My favorite song to share with my students is this one from the "Wrinkle in Time" movie with Demi Lovato- it's a great song with a great message, and of course includes his signature phrase, "another one" at the beginning:

Kareem Roustom

Kareem Roustom is a Syrian-American-Canadian oud player, director, and Emmy-nominated composer. He has written film scores, arranged for pop singers like Tina Turner and Shakira, and worked with many well-known classical musicians including Daniel Barenboim and the Kronos Quartet. I had a hard time picking just one video to share that represents his work, so here are two! The first is one of his more widely-performed pieces called Dabke, performed by a youth orchestra:

And here he is performing on oud:

I hope this gives you some new people and music to share with your students during Arab American Heritage Month and of course, all year long! They aren't US American but if you are looking for more musicians with Arab heritage to share with your students, here is my list of Contemporary Palestinian Musicians with lots of fantastic examples my students love! 

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Iranian Rain Song: چک چک باران (Check Check Baran)

I love using different songs with similar themes to compare and contrast specific musical elements- I find using songs with lyrics that are about the same topic makes it easier to draw young students' attention to the musical aspects of the songs. One of my favorite themes to do this with, especially in the spring, is rain! I have found so many lovely rain songs from all over the world over the years, and today I have another to share with you from Iran that is so very versatile for so many musical concepts, you're sure to find a way to use it in your classroom!

This is a children's song from Iran called چک چک باران which means "Drip Drop Rain". The word for the "drip drop" sound of raindrops in the title is "check check", which is also repeated several times in the song. I found several videos of children in Iran singing the song (including this video of students performing the song in a school concert with recorders), playing it as a beginning piano song like this video, and even this video of a music teacher teaching how to play the melody on a glockenspiel, and when I asked one Iranian person they recognized the tune and said it was an old song- I wasn't able to get much specific background on its origins but clearly it is commonly known and used in schools in Iran as well.

Here are the lyrics in their original Persian (Farsi), the roman letter transliteration (pronunciation- please listen and mimic the actual pronunciation rather than just trying to read this transliteration, it's just there as a guide!), and the English translation:

چک چک باران از توو آسمان      check checke baran az tu aseman           Raindrops check check from the sky
می باره نم نم روی درختان          mi bareh kam kam ruye derahktan         It's drizzling on the trees
چک چک باران از توو آسمان      check checke baran az tu aseman           Raindrops check check from the sky
می باره نم نم روی درختان          mi bareh kam kam ruye derahktan         It's drizzling on the trees

قطره های آب تازه و شاداب        ghatrehaye ab tazeh oh shadab                Fresh and refreshing drops of water
رنگین کمان شد تو نور آفتاب      rangin kaman shod tu nure aftab              It became a rainbow in the sunlight
چک چک باران از توو آسمان    check checke baran az tu aseman             Raindrops check check from the sky
می باره نم نم روی درختان        mi bareh kam kam ruye derahktan           It's drizzling on the trees

And here is a notation of the melody (I've notated it with quarter notes and paired eighth notes, but you can see how it can be notated with quarter notes and half notes in the music teacher's glockenspiel tutorial video linked above):

There are quite a few concepts that students could learn and practice with this song, including AABA form/ phrase structure, duple/ simple meter, low sol, rhythm, instrumental ensembles/ orffestrations, or even recorder playing. 

The AABA phrase structure is a great way to have students practicing same and different identify the repeating and contrasting phrases, and relate that to AABA form, or just to identify musical phrases. I have students do this by drawing a long arced line in the air, starting a new line for each phrase, and then ask them to tell me which phrases were the same and which were different. Listening to the song to identify the phrases also gives them the opportunity to hear the song a few times before I have them practice singing it, which makes it easier for them to learn as well.

This would also be a great song to pair with the Japanese rain song "Amefuri" (see my blog post on that song here) to learn about simple vs compound meter. This Iranian song is very clearly in simple, duple meter, while the Japanese song is in compound meter. My favorite way to have students learn and experience the difference is to have them march around the room with the simple meter and skip with the compound meter. Even my youngest students can feel the difference immediately! I don't get into the weeds with compound vs simple meter too much beyond explaining to my older students (3rd grade and up) that the "skippy" song splits the beat in 3 (we practice counting 123 123 with the song to hear it) and the "marchy" song splits the beat in 2 (this one is easy to feel because of the paired eighth notes). 

This is also a great song for practicing reading, notating, identifying, and singing low sol, because the first repeated phrase begins with a clear low sol going to do. When I am introducing low sol with songs like this I actually start with the last measure of the first phrase and work backwards one measure at a time to establish where do is first and then get students to figure out that the sol note is lower, and have them count down (visually and aurally) from do to figure out that it's sol. 

Depending on how you notate the melody (see the eighth note version above and the half note version- just notated at "half speed"- in the glockenspiel video linked in the first paragraph), this song is a perfect for practicing reading, notating, identifying, and singing quarter notes and either paired eighth notes or half notes. Because the rhythm pattern repeats in each measure, it's an easy way for students to aurally identify the rhythms. I have students first learn the song, then pat the beat while singing it, then clap with the rhythm of the words while singing again, then clap the rhythm without singing. Once they can do that, I give them rhythm cards (here is how I made mine) and have them notate the rhythm with the cards together in small groups.

This is also a great song to add some simple pitched and unpitched percussion accompaniment because it really just sticks with the tonic and dominant chords the entire song! Any simple ostinati using D and G would fit together well with the melody, and it lends itself nicely to adding a simple groove with some drums and a few other simple classroom instruments (as they've done in the recording in the video above). Even students as young as 2nd grade can put together a simple instrumental accompaniment to play while they sing the melody!

I'm planning to use the song with my 3rd graders for recorder. Instead of using "Old MacDonald" to teach low D, I'm going to use the first section of the song to introduce low D. So much more exciting than a nursery rhyme! I might even bring it back later when they are learning high C and D and put the whole song together... we'll see! But the melody is simple enough that it's perfect for introducing those new notes and practicing reading and playing them on recorder.

I hope this gives you some ideas to use this song in your classroom with your students! It's such an easy way to introduce students to a song from Iran and get them singing in Persian/ Farsi, and it's a great melody to use for so many fundamental concepts. I am so excited to be adding this to my collection of rain songs from around the world this spring- you can see all of the rain songs I've shared, including all the lesson plans to go with them, in this post:

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