Ice Skating Themed Elementary Music Lessons

My favorite event in the winter olympics has always been figure skating! With the next winter olympics coming up soon, here are some of my favorite ice skating-themed lesson activities I've used in my elementary music classes, along with the concepts that I use them to teach. 

Skating by Stephanie Leavell

I love using this skating song with my self-contained and early childhood music classes! Of course it is made to be an easy to learn, singable, fun song for young children to sing and move with (including sections that tell you to move and stop), but I actually use it the most sitting in chairs with instruments, usually either egg shakers or jingle bells. We hold the instrument and glide it around and stop, which is a great way to get kids to practice following directions, sing, and explore instruments at the same time.

Skating by Vince Guaraldi Trio

This wonderful jazz piece is from the Charlie Brown Christmas movie and it instantly evokes the image of skating on a frozen lake outside in the softly falling snow. I use this song to practice ABA form, either by having students do some basic moves contrasting moves for each section on the beat, asking them to raise their hand when they hear the music change, or most often showing the contrasting sections with paper plate skating (see below).

Paper Plate Skating

If you haven't tried paper plate skating yet you are missing out! Have each student put a paper plate under each foot and they can "glide" around the room like they're skating! I have carpet in my room so it works great- you'll want to test it out first if you don't. I use this to teach 2 different concepts: with younger students I use the Vince Guaraldi Trio song above to show ABA form by gliding around the room in the A section, then staying in place and doing spins/ jumps in one spot in the B sections. For older students I use similar moves to practice legato and staccato: glide for legato, do a "ballet spin" (tip toe around in a circle in place) for staccato. If you have 4th/5th graders that you can convince to let loose and be silly, this is one of the best things you'll ever do- trust me.

Skater's Waltz by Émile Waldteufel

This is a great orchestral piece to use for teaching triple meter and to review the instruments of the orchestra. I'm always looking for songs with a strong triple meter feel and this one is a perfect tempo for students to move with the downbeat or even do a very basic waltz step to get used to the triple meter feel. I also like using the linked video recording specifically to have students visually and/or aurally identify instruments of the orchestra, which is something I do with 3rd and 4th grades this time of year. It has different spots in the music that feature different instruments and sections of the orchestra so it's a good piece to have students either try to identify instruments by sound or by watching the video. It could also be another good one to use those paper skates with too!

I hope this gives you some fresh ideas for connecting with the winter olympics in your music classes, or just incorporating a wintery theme that's fun for everyone! What other songs or music lessons do you teach with an ice skating theme? I'd love to hear more ideas in the comments! You can also find more winter themed elementary music lesson ideas in this blog post, and snow themed lesson ideas in this post!

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Making the "Other" Familiar

I believe one of the most important roles we play as music teachers is bringing the world to our students- giving them a language to connect with more people, and giving them experiences that make the "other" less foreign, more familiar. I think most music teachers agree, but many struggle with how to do so effectively, or feel overwhelmed by the enormity of the task. Here are some of my thoughts on how to make your classroom a place that fosters empathy through opportunities to connect with a broader range of perspectives.

First a little about me, because my background has definitely shaped my perspective on this. I grew up across 3 continents, mostly living outside my passport country until college, spent the better part of the first decade of my teaching career in international schools, and since then have taught as a white teacher in a primarily non-white, low-income population school in the US. I became a music teacher because of my experience moving to schools as a child where I did not speak the language, and finding a place where I could participate in the music room. 

Normalize, not exoticize.

I think the most important thing to keep in mind that will be the difference between sharing unfamiliar music in a way that is harmful vs helpful is to remember the goal is to normalize, not exoticize. Exploring new perspectives and ideas should be exciting, but we should present them as new to us, not new to the world, different from us, not unusual or different from the "standard". I've written an entire post on how to do this concretely here, especially as it relates to cultures around the world, but I think the most important aspect of this practice is to both use songs from a wide range of cultures, languages, and genres in your everyday lessons when the background of the song is not the main point of the lesson, and also spend time doing a deep dive into some specific genres, cultures, and perspectives to give students a deeper understanding of the context.

Watch your language,

Be careful with the word "we/ us". Who is "we"? And this may seem obvious but be very careful with the word "normal/ standard". What is "normal"? This is really at the heart of how students understand what is "other". No matter how positively it is presented, if a genre, culture, or people group are presented as "unusual" or "not us", it is by definition being "othered". Instead of presenting a new idea or perspective in a "we vs them" or "normal vs unusual" way, present it as additional information. Instead of "we use the violin but China uses the erhu", try "we learned about the violin last year, and today we're going to learn about another instrument called the erhu", for example.

Focus on transferable skills.

One of the biggest setbacks for teachers I talk to is feeling like to do it right, they need to make sure to include every culture, every perspective, equally. While broadening our materials by adding more different perspectives is definitely important, it's also important to remember that the skills students gain from interacting with a new perspective will transfer. The same way that teaching students to read and perform one song with quarter notes will allow them to learn more songs with quarter notes, the skills of cultural navigation and empathy will transfer to new perspectives and cultures they encounter outside your classroom. So focus on giving students the opportunity to interact with and understand new perspectives rather than making sure you include every perspective that exists.

Learn from the source.

Hopefully this goes without saying but you can't expect to learn about Japanese music from a Kodaly song collection compiled by a white American who "learned it from their levels instructor" (it makes me angry just typing that because I've heard it so often). Certainly those types of resources can serve as starting points, but before you present it to students it's important to trace it back to a native source. The same goes for anything on my website! I try, when it is not something from my own personal background, to include my native sources in the articles I share. I encourage you to go back to those and learn from those sources, not just directly from me- that is the point! If you see a song that is labeled as "from" a certain country but you can't find any source from that country referencing the song, there's a good chance it's not from there. Here are a few examples of commonly circulated songs that are actually American, not from the cultures many books and presenters claim they are from. Learning directly from a native source will also give you important context that you will most likely miss out on otherwise. I have been learning a lot about hip-hop since moving to the US, but it wasn't until I had the opportunity to speak with hip-hop artists themselves, and share with them the lesson ideas I was working on, that I gained an understanding of important context that I needed to include in my lessons. Even when people are sharing directly from culture bearers themselves, they are sharing the parts that they learned, not the entire picture. You need to always go back to the source.

There is certainly a lot more to be said on this topic but these are the most important points I think to keep in mind to move further down the path of creating an equitable, inclusive classroom that brings the world to our students. If you are looking for a place to learn more about how to do this effectively, and find materials, ideas, and resources from culture bearers to add to your teaching, I've created a page on my website called Music Education Equity Resources where you can search by country, language, genre, and more topics to find resources to use in your classroom. And if you want to see a (regularly updated) full curriculum that seeks to put these ideas into practice, I've published my K-6 general music curriculum here.

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"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.

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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.

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