Lesson Warmups to Practice Instruments of the Orchestra

I've been using student-led warmups at the beginning of my elementary general music lessons for years now and I am a big fan! I've gotten a lot of questions about the warmups I do and how I do them, so today I'm sharing my favorite warmups to practice identifying the instruments of the orchestra and the instrument families.

I have shared tons of lesson warmup ideas over the years (I've linked the others at the end of this post if you're looking for more ideas) and somehow it never occurred to me until this year that I could use warmups to review instrument names and families. Identifying instruments is one of those things that I focus on in a short unit each year and students are very good at identifying the instruments by the end of each unit, but then I don't talk about it much the rest of the year and by the time it comes around again the following year it seems like I spend the first week just trying to catch them up on what they knew a year ago, so incorporating this into warmups is the perfect way to throw in some quick review every now and then the rest of the year so they don't forget what they've learned.

You can read more about why I do student-led warmups and how I manage the logistics of warmups in general in this post, but essentially I have a small group of 2-4 students who are assigned to lead the warmup / opening activity / do now at the beginning of class. The idea is to keep it quick, easy, and low-pressure so everyone can be successful right from the beginning of the lesson.

1. Name the instrument

Each leader chooses one instrument photo from the slide, and the other students have to name the instrument. I do this sometimes with representative instruments from each of the 4 families, or use a slide that has all of the main instruments from just one family for the leaders to choose from.

2. Name the family

Similar to “name the instrument”, each leader chooses one instrument photo and the other students has to name which family that instrument belongs to. When I’m first introducing instrument families in 2^nd grade, I will do something similar but instead of having all of the instruments scattered randomly around the page I’ll use a slide that shows the instruments grouped by family and have the leaders choose one family to point to for the class to identify.

3. Name the instrument sound

Have a few different audio examples of individual instruments playing a short excerpt called up on the computer (or any other audio playing device) and in order, then ask each leader to choose a number (so if you have 10 audio examples ask the leaders to pick a number between 1 and 10) and the class identifies the name of the instrument they hear.

4. Instrument charades

Each leader takes turns pretending to play an instrument, and the rest of the class has to guess what instrument they are pretending to play.

5. Describe the instrument

Each leader takes turns giving one hint at a time to describe an instrument without saying the name of the instrument or the instrument family, acting it out, or imitating the sound. After each hint one student tries to guess what instrument they are describing. If the guess is wrong the leader gives another hint and then they try again until they can correctly guess the instrument they are describing.

I have all of the visuals that I use for these, with the instrument photos, as well as all of my other lesson warmup activities for things like solfege, rhythm, steady beat, expressive vocabulary, and pitch letter names, in this set- it makes it so easy to just pull out the slides I want to use for that day's warmup without having to think or create anything from scratch. And you can read about all of my other lesson warmup activity ideas in this post. If you want to read more about how I teach instruments of the orchestra and how I sequence my instruction from Kindergarten through 6th grade, you can read all about what I do in this post.

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3 Songs in Spanish for Upper Elementary Music

I love using songs in Spanish in my elementary music lessons. I have a high percentage of Spanish-speaking students in my school, and the students who don't speak Spanish are still usually familiar enough with the language that it's easy for them to learn the lyrics and a fun way to learn some new vocabulary while practicing musical skills and concepts. Here are 3 Spanish language songs I use with my 5th and 6th grade classes year-round (not just during Hispanic Heritage Month!) to teach specific musical concepts.

1. El Mundo Es Mio

This is the only song by Bad Bunny I've found that's appropriate for elementary school, and it's worth using simply as a way to bring the music and artists many of the students are listening to into the classroom! But I love using it as a template for practicing flow and rap writing. These may not be skills you're used to seeing listed in an elementary music curriculum because most center skills and concepts from Western classical art music, but I believe they are very important to include in a well-rounded, inclusive, decolonized elementary music curriculum- you can read more about how I teach rap in elementary music in this post, and more about my thoughts on how to more authentically incorporate hip-hop into elementary music curriculum in this post.

If you aren't familiar, here is the song "El Mundo Es Mio". It has a very simple refrain that students can pick up immediately that translates to "the world is mine, the world is yours", and the rest of the lyrics basically are about believing in yourself/ don't listen to the haters. After introducing the song and learning the refrain, I have students each write an 8-beat rap about something they are proud of about themselves. I use this lesson after they have already been practicing flow for a bit, so I play the backing track for the song while they think and tell them to make sure their lyrics fit with the track. Then I have a few students rap their lines in a row and then have the whole class sing the refrain, then back to a few more students rapping their lines followed by the refrain until we go through the whole class. Because it's a slower beat students have an easier time fitting their lyrics with the track in a way that sounds good, and it's a great way to build classroom community because students naturally start hyping each other up during the whole activity. You can see more ways I used the song in my lessons to teach other musical concepts with different grade levels after his superbowl half time performance in this blog post.

2. Tutuca

I just discovered this Argentinian concentration game/ hand clapping song this year and I love using it to practice improvisation! Here's a demonstration of the game- basically each student takes turns saying a 4-beat phrase using a combination of 4 Argentinian snack names, and the class repeats it back with motions that are assigned to each snack name. All of this needs to be done on the steady beat. I used the game this year as a way to get students used to improvising 4-beat phrases by teaching them the game but modifying it slightly so they are not allowed to pause before they say their pattern (as they sometimes do in the demonstration video). We start very slow and have the class echo back the patterns without the motions- just the words- and then once they get used to it start speeding up and then add in the motions. You can read more about the game and other lesson ideas using it in this blog post.

3. Al Citron (aka Acitrón)

This is the most commonly-used song in elementary music circles on my list and it's perfect for introducing and practicing dotted quarter- single eighth rhythms. It's a Mexican passing game that is pretty simple for students to learn (read my tips for teaching passing games in this post) and gets my older students to experience and practice maintaining a steady beat while singing the song with the target rhythm in it, which is no small feat at this age! I have students learn the passing game first while I sing the song, and then once they've gotten the hang of the passing I have them add the singing. After getting the passing game going with the singing added in I have students identify where the notes fall with the beats in the first line of the song to discover the 1.5 beat dotted quarter note. You can read more about how I use the song in my lessons, as well as other activities I use to practice the dotted quarter note rhythm, in this blog post.

I hope this gives you some new ideas to incorporate more Spanish language into your upper elementary music lessons! There are plenty more that I've done but these are definitely my favorites to come back to every year. If you want to see all of the lesson ideas, choir songs, and performance ideas using Spanish (and many other languages) I've shared over the years, you can see them all listed by language here.

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3 Songs in Spanish for Kindergarten Music Lessons

I love using songs in Spanish in my elementary music lessons. I have a high percentage of Spanish-speaking students in my school, and the students who don't speak Spanish are still usually familiar enough with the language that it's easy for them to learn the lyrics and a fun way to learn some new vocabulary while practicing musical skills and concepts. Here are 3 Spanish language songs I use with my Kindergarten classes year-round (not just during Hispanic Heritage Month!) to teach specific musical concepts.

1. Ambos a Dos 

I use this song to practice identifying call and response songs. After they've learned echo songs and call and response songs and the definition of each, I have them listen to a recording of the song and hold up one finger when they hear one person singing alone, and hold up all their fingers when they hear a group singing. Then I ask them to figure out if the song is echo or call and response and have them listen and show their fingers again to pay attention to whether the 2 parts are the same or different, and they identify it as call and response. I show them how to walk and kick in a line to play the accompanying game and I move with the solo part while they move with the group part along with the recording. By the time they've done all of that they've heard the recording enough times to easily learn the first verse, so we sing it in call and response form by having the students sing the call (because the words are easier) and I sing the response. You can see links to the recordings I use, the video of the game, and more information on the song in this blog post.

2. De Colores

When I first did this lesson a few years ago with Kindergarten it was mostly just a quick bonus activity to incorporate a bit more Spanish language into my Hispanic Heritage Month lessons with Kindergarten without much curricular purpose, but I have come back to it every year since as a way to incorporate experience with triple meter and introduce the concept of echoing, and I could never have predicted how enchanted all of my students are with this little activity! It's also a great way to give my youngest students some familiarity with a very well-known song in many Spanish speaking countries- most years there is at least one Spanish speaking student who recognizes the song from learning it at home and is so excited to hear it at school. I show students this video (starting when the song begins) and tell students to sway with the music, then echo when they hear the color names. They are always so excited when they hear it switch to Spanish halfway through! I review the Spanish words for the colors after they do it the first time, then I hand out scarves to each student so we have all 6 of the mentioned colors, and I tell them to do it again but this time when we echo the name of their scarf color they should wave it in the air, and sway their scarf back and forth in the first part as well.

Some students will naturally start singing along the second time through as well because the words are on the screen in the video, but I don't spend any time teaching the song because the main purpose of the lesson activity is experiencing the triple meter feel with the swaying and introducing the term and practicing the skill of echoing with the color names.

3. Caminando Va

I love this song so much. You can head to this blog post for all of the recordings and lesson ideas I've done with different grade levels using this song, but for Kindergarten I use it to practice performing and identifying quarter and paired eighth notes. I teach them a fingerplay that includes clapping with the phrase "el caracolito" with 2 paired eighth notes followed by 2 quarter notes (see the full demonstration of the fingerplay with the clapping starting at minute 3 of this video), first by having them just follow my hands while I sing, then teaching them the singing as well. Once they've learned it, I break down the phrase we clapped one beat at a time and have them identify how many claps they did for each beat and notate it with paired eighth and quarter notes using rhythm cards like these DIY ones I made (and use all the time with multiple grades!). Because it's such a simple phrase it is a great introduction to rhythm dictation and an easy way for students to aurally identify rhythms after they've just been introduced. 

Once we've done that, I always finish by playing them the full recording by Marta Gomez that includes the fingerplay song at the beginning and then launches into a full-length song. We sing along with the opening fingerplay and then I tell them to grab a scarf and dance "like a snail enjoying the sunshine". The looks on their faces are priceless!

I hope this gives you some new ideas to incorporate more Spanish language into your Kindergarten music lessons! There are plenty more that I've done but these are definitely my favorites to come back to every year. If you want to see all of the lesson ideas, choir songs, and performance ideas using Spanish (and many other languages) I've shared over the years, you can see them all listed by language here.

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Pre-Composition Writing Practice

I don't know if this will feel revolutionary to anyone but me, but this year I tried something new that has made a tremendous difference for my students: before my students did their first composition activity in class where they were actually writing music notes with a pencil on paper, I had them practice just writing the notes the class period beforehand. I have noticed a huge improvement in my students' ability to get right into the task of composition in the grade levels that I've done this with so far!

Handwriting compositions is a very complicated task for a lot of reasons, and one of them that has become increasingly difficult because of changes in technology is that students are more used to seeing computer generated notation than they are handwritten notation. When they try to write notes, they will try to copy the way the computer shows it rather than the way it would normally look handwritten in pencil, adding extra thickness to different parts of the quarter rest for example. I've always taken time to point this out and demonstrate how to handwrite each one before they start writing, but they still didn't seem to get it.

I think the problem was it was too much information to process at once: I was asking them not just to think about how to write each note but also think about what they want their composition to sound like, and keep track of the specific elements they're practicing (how many beats they need in each measure, making sure they use at least one whole note, incorporating pentatonic solfege, etc). With everything else they were trying to think about at the same time, how to handwrite the notes became a low priority.

So this year I took some time to have students focus exclusively on just handwriting the different notes and rests that they had learned and would be using in composition. It was very simple and took 5-10 minutes with each class: I cut some regular computer paper in half, and gave each student a half sheet and pencil. I turned off slides so they were not looking at computer generated versions of the notation, and demonstrated how to draw each note or rest, one at a time, and told them to draw it on their own papers after each one.

By focusing on just the writing I was able to go around and fix those common mistakes like putting the stems on the outside of the noteheads for paired eighth notes, or weird squigglies for quarter rests, without having to think about anything else besides how to draw them. And the students actually really loved it, which I wasn't expecting! The 1st-3rd graders especially got so excited when I told them they could take their papers home, and asked if they could add more music notes at home- of course! They were thrilled with the idea that they could practice writing more music notes, which was an even bigger win for me!

It was incredibly simple to prep, took less time than I expected, and was more engaging and more effective than I expected as well- the next class period when I handed out composition worksheets students were able to focus on the considerations for the composition, like which types of notes to use and how many beats they need, rather than the mechanics of writing, so their composition process was much quicker as well!

Have you ever had students practice just handwriting notes? I've done this with treble and bass clefs before, but never done it deliberately with all the different notes they need as a precursor to a composition task, and I'm so glad I did it! As handwriting becomes more and more of a "lost art" it's so important for us to take the time to make sure students are able to do it well in our elementary music classes. If you want to see the composition worksheets I use that make it easy for students to focus on the elements they're studying, you can see my music composition worksheet set here.

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