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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Black Female Composers to Share with Students

As Black History Month comes to a close and Women's History Month begins, today I'm sharing some of my favorite Black female composers from a variety of genres and time periods that I'm excited to share with my elementary students. 

I realized a few years ago that the majority of the female musicians I was sharing with my students were singers. There are so many fantastic singers to share but I certainly don't want my students to internalize the idea that girls can only be singers in music! As I have started to search more intentionally I have been thrilled to rediscover some composers I had forgotten about as well as learn about many amazing female composers who are completely new to me. 

Florence Price (1887-1953)

I'm sure many music teachers will, like me, recall learning about Florence Price in college. She was, to quote Wikipedia, "the first African-American woman to be recognized as a symphonic composer, and the first to have a composition played by a major orchestra. Price composed over 300 works: four symphonies, four concertos, as well as choral works, art songs, chamber music, and music for solo instruments". Learn more about her on her website. I like sharing her Piano Concerto in One Movement with my elementary students:

Mary Lou Williams (1910-1981)

How did I not learn about this woman until recently?!? Mary Lou Williams was "an American jazz pianist, arranger, and composer. She wrote hundreds of compositions and arrangements and recorded more than one hundred records... Williams wrote and arranged for Duke Ellington and Benny Goodman, and she was friend, mentor, and teacher to Thelonious Monk, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Tadd Dameron, Bud Powell, and Dizzy Gillespie" (source). Amazing! Learn more about her on her website, and use this short preview of the documentary about her to share who she is with students:

Micki Grant (1929-2021)

Micki Grant was a "multi-award-winning lyricist, composer, writer, director, actress and singer, revered as a trailblazer for African Americans in theater, television and music for over six decades...She was the first woman to win a Grammy Award for the score of a Broadway musical, winning Best Score for Don’t Bother Me I Can’t Cope in 1973. She was also the first woman to earn Tony nominations for all three musical theatre writing disciplines: book, music and lyrics" (source). Learn more about her here, and hear the full cast recording of "Don't Bother Me" here. This video is completely unrelated in many ways but it shows her acting in a scene where she's talking about music, and shows a lot of her personality:

Sylvia Robinson (1925-2011)

Sylvia Robinson is another musician that I can't believe I didn't learn about until recently. She is known as the "Mother of Hip Hop" and founded the label Sugar Hill Records. She co-wrote and produced Sugarhill Gang's "Rapper's Delight" and "The Message" by Grandmaster Flash and The Furious Five! She also wrote "It's Gonna Work Out Fine" for Ike and Tina Turner, among many others. You can read more about her here, and I like showing students the song she wrote and sang, "Sunday", alongside the Moby song "Sunday (The Day Before My Birthday)", which samples Sylvia's recording, from 2003. I wouldn't show it to elementary students, but this video is a great summary of her and her work:

Chanda Dancy (1978-)

Chanda Dancy is a film and TV soundtrack composer. She has written the scores for "Blink Twice", "Devotion", "I Know What You Did Last Summer", "I Wanna Dance With Somebody", "Swiped", and "Lawmen: Bass Reeves", which won her an Emmy nomination. Her background as a strings player is always really interesting for my students to learn about! Learn more about her on her website here. I like using this video to introduce her and her work:

I hope this gives you some fresh ideas of musicians to share with your students! It has been so much fun for me to learn about these composers myself and share them with my students. What other Black female composers have you shared with your elementary students? Help us all add to our lists by sharing your favorites in the comments! If you are looking for more female musicians, you can see my first list here and my second list here. You can also see all my previous posts on Black musicians in this post here.

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Music In Our Schools Month® Activities 2026

It's time to get ready for Music In Our Schools Month® (MIOSM®) again! I love the buzz in my school building around music education each year I do this, and you can create that buzz too without a lot of prep work (promise) because I'm laying it all out for you here, from a March Madness song bracket to advocacy posters and in-class activities my students beg for every year! Each year I do things a little differently so here is a run-down of everything I'm doing for Music In Our Schools Month 2026.

School-wide March Madness Song Bracket

I started doing a March Madness- style bracket with songs tied to the national theme for that year's MIOSM a few years ago and it has been a huge hit in my building! I go into detail about how I set everything up and run it in this post so check there if you've never done this before, but basically each class votes every day in their homeroom, and the song that gets the most classes' votes goes on to the next round. We play the winning song from the day before in the lobby where all the students enter in the morning and announce it on the morning announcements each day as well. I am super excited about this year's bracket- I am doing songs that include 2 or more languages (to tie in with this year's theme of "United through Music")! You can find the full list of songs for this year's bracket, plus a free template to set up voting in google slides, in this post.

Advocacy Posters

We've had a lot of turnover in teaching staff the last few years in my building and I've noticed a trend of teachers not taking seriously the importance of music classes in the comments they make to me, to each other, and most importantly our students. So I'm ramping up my advocacy efforts this year, especially focusing on getting my colleagues to understand that music class actually enhances their overall education rather than taking away from their "more important learning" as many of them seem to think, especially in relation to the ensemble classes and pullout instrumental lessons. 

I looked up some of the latest research studies and compiled some of the key findings that I thought other teachers, school and district administrators, and parents would find striking, and put them on these simple posters. I will be putting these up around the school and also sending them as images in emails to families throughout the month. Hopefully this will spark conversation and reflection for the other adults in the broader school community! I've also posted them here as a free download if you want to use them in your own buildings.

I've also had this bulletin board display up on the wall outside my classroom for years now, promoting the importance of music for its inherent value rather than just how it can help you do better in other subjects, mostly aimed at my students. If you haven't used this before I highly recommend it, I always get tons of positive comments and wonderful questions because of the display, and it's an easy way to periodically have students create their own posters talking about one of the inherent qualities from the display to add to the board and change it up.

Rhythm Battle: Music Class Activity #1 (K-6)

I do several special activities and contests during music class in the month of March to celebrate Music In Our Schools Month, and the one I've been doing with every class, every grade, every year that I've taught (now 2 decades!) is the Rhythm Battle! And my students still look forward to it every year. We start class with this each time they come to class. They sit down, I start the music, and I put up a slide on my projector that says "Rhythm Battle!". When the intro is ending, I count off 4 beats and click to the next slide on "four". There is a 4-beat rhythm on that slide. If the class claps it correctly, I click to the next 4-beat rhythm slide on the 4th beat, and they have to continue clapping with no pause. They keep going until they make a mistake. When they mess up, they go back to the first slide and start over. Whatever their longest run is before the song ends, that is their class score for the day. I have a score board for each grade so we keep track throughout the month, and the class with the highest total score at the end of the month wins. If you want to see the slides I use, you can get them here.

Disco Duel: Music Class Activity #2 (K-3)

This is another music class activity I've been doing my entire teaching career! I used to do this one with every grade as well, but a few years ago I came up with a different game that I do with my older students (see below), so now it is reserved for just my K-3 classes (although sometimes my older students ask for it too, and I save it as a reward activity if they finish everything else they need to do and we have some extra time left). Cards with the name of a movement (like "cowboy", "DJ", or "hop"), along with a matching picture, are on the whiteboard in a few columns (I usually do 3-4 columns). Before we try it the first time, I teach them the movements for each- they are all movements that can be done with the beat. The last card is always "boogie", which is free dance- students make up their own. To play the game, students perform each movement for 8 beats, reading from the left column, top to bottom, with the beat of the music that I play. BUT I start each group at a different time (I relate it to a canon for older students), so that when the first group finishes the first column, the second group starts. When all the groups finish, I pick the winning team that did the best job of performing the moves correctly and staying on the beat for the correct number of counts. I've updated the movement cards- you can get them here if you're interested.

Melody Match: Music Class Activity #3 (4-6)

After doing this with my older students for a few years now, my 4th-6th graders take this just as seriously as the Rhythm Battle! So this year I'm changing it up and keeping track of points to make it a competition between classes as well. The basic idea of Melody Match is to see how many note letter names the class can identify in one minute. Depending on the grade it might be just treble clef on the staff, adding ledger lines, or treble and bass clef- this could even be done with solfege. A note comes up on the screen and I call on 1 student to name the note. They get one chance- if they're right the class gets a point and I pull up a new note, if they're wrong I go to the next student and continue until they get it right (or the timer ends). The total number of notes they identify correctly in one minute is their class score for that day. Here are the links for the different versions I've set up for my students (all with 1 minute timers): treble clef on the staff, treble clef from middle C to high A above the staff, and treble and bass clef on the staff. There are endless ways to adjust these for different games to practice pitch names! 

What are your plans for Music In Our Schools Month® this year? I really think this is the perfect opportunity to celebrate the importance and joy of music education, and there are so many great ways to do that without making your life miserable with things that are too much work. I'd love to hear other ideas you're trying this year in the comments below, and let me know if you have any questions about the things I'm doing! If you want to see all the other things I've done over the years, here are all my posts on the topic.

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Snow Themed Lessons for Preschool Music

With early childhood music classes I love using themes to help activate students' imagination and connect my lesson to the world around them. This time of year one of my favorite themes is snow! I use these music lesson activities with preschool, kindergarten, and younger self-contained special education classes and they have been a hit. Here are some of my favorite activities to use in snow-themed lessons.

1. Snow Songs

There are tons of great songs about snow but my favorites for this age group include: 

All of the Snowflakes (great for getting non-verbal students to vocalize, and a fun song that will get everyone singing! I use this song with 2nd grade for a composition activity as well- see my full lesson plans in the linked article)

I Have a Little Snowman (I use this to introduce and show notes going up and down with movement)

It's Wintertime (this song isn't just about snow but it does talk about snowmen so I often include it with my snow themed lessons- it's an additive song that includes a different instrument students can play for each verse)

2. Movement Activities

It's Snowing Outside (this song invites movement in the lyrics so it's easy to learn and great to reinforce steady beat and practice moving safely in space)

Winter Scarves (the linked video demonstrates scarf movements you can do to match the lyrics about snow- my students love this calming song!)

I Live Inside a Snowglobe (I have students sit and do motions while they sing the verse at the beginning, stand up when it says "shake it up" etc in the chorus and do the move to match the lyrics, and then sit back down when it says "and then the snow falls down". this is a great one for practicing following directions for students who are working on self control because they have to start and stop a lot throughout the song but in a fun way)

Snowman Dance (this is a great brain break type activity I like to keep in my back pocket when students are unfocused, a lesson just isn't going well, or I see they need to get up and move for a few minutes because students just follow along with the simple dance movements in the video)

3. Iconic Play-Alongs

I like using iconic notation play-along videos to get my youngest students to track notation and relate it later on to paired eighth note, quarter note, and quarter rest notation. I also use these same icons off-screen by printing out similar clipart and putting them up on the board for students to read while I point, or have students use them to create their own patterns too!

Snow Day (hat=quarter, mitten=eighths, blank=rest)

Snow! (skate=quarter, snowman=eighths, shhh=rest)

Snowman Village (hat=quarter, snowman=eighths, rest sign for rest)

4. Books

All of these are books that I pair with music lessons.

Froggy Gets Dressed (I use the lessons in the article linked here every year with Kindergarten)

Snow Music (perfect for adding sound effects with instruments and/or found sound)

The Snowy Day (a classic book that's great for vocal exploration)

I hope this gives you some fresh material to use in your early childhood lessons this winter! Many of these are honestly also great for older grades when you want something fun that's still musical but doesn't require a lot of brain power, so they're great to keep on hand no matter what age you teach! What other songs and music lesson activities about snow do you use in your elementary music classes? I'd love to hear more ideas in the comments. Want to see how I incorporate winter and snow themes into all my grade levels K-6? Here's my full curriculum for January with full lesson plans and all the visuals and materials!

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