SEL Music Lesson "I Got a Letter This Morning"

I used a new lesson with my 3rd graders at the beginning of the year this year to help build and re-establish their relationships with each other, and it was a huge success! I highly recommend this for any time of year as a great way to introduce and practice whole notes, the "syncopa" rhythm pattern, and same and different phrases, but most importantly to build community in your classroom. This is a great lesson to tie in with social-emotional learning on spreading kindness and positivity, friendship, and giving compliments.

I dug up the song "I Got a Letter This Morning" from the recesses of my mind this summer when I was looking for a new song to use to introduce whole notes to my students at the beginning of the year. I used to use this song years ago but had not taught it in many years, and coming back to it I suddenly saw so much potential for ways to use this song in fun, community-building ways that would be perfect to kick off the year on the right foot!

If you aren't familiar, this video demonstrates the version that I learned and used in this lesson. Because it is a US American folk song there are many variations on the tune, but the basic idea is the same. If you watch the full video they show an example of how you can analyze and identify the rhythms with students in this song as well:

Here's the notation of the version I used:

I start off by having students sing the "oh yes" phrases as a response, while I sing the "I got a letter" phrases as the call, and sing it in call and response form (this is a great opportunity to review call and response!). Then we talked about how exciting it is when you get something in the mail. I typed the names of each student in the class on a sheet of paper, spread out with 6 names on each sheet, and cut the paper into 6 individual sheets before class and put them all in an envelope. Then I told them we are going to send happy mail to our friends! We talked through some examples of what would make someone smile to read, including thinking about things that person likes, or telling them something you like about them. We also discussed that even if you don't know the person that well (like the new students), it's easy to come up with something that will make them smile, whether that's a happy message like "I hope you have a great day", or even drawing them a fun picture. 

I wasn't sure how well the 3rd graders would get it, but they definitely did. I randomly handed a paper to each student and had them secretly draw or write something on the side without the name, then fold it up and put it in the envelope when they finished. I kept them in the envelope for the next lesson, which also gave me time to take a quick look and make sure they were all good. The notes were all so sweet! The ones who got a close friend drew pictures of their friend's favorite things like basketballs or computers, some of them wrote incredibly detailed notes listing all the great things about the person, and some drew lots of smiley faces and kitty cats and stars. 

The next lesson, I announced that it was time for everyone to get their mail, but they would have to sing for their card! We practiced singing the song as a call and response again, and then I told them to switch parts: the students sang "I got a letter", and I sang "oh yes". Then I explained the game: while they are all singing "oh yes", I pull a card out of the envelope, look at the name, and hand it to the person. The person that gets their letter is the only one who sings "oh yes". Then we continue singing until everyone has their letter. Everyone was thrilled with the card they got, and it gave me a chance to make sure everyone was actually singing the full 4-beat whole notes on "oh yes" as they each sang by themselves. The students took the notes home with them.

The other great thing about this game is it gets the students to sing the song over and over. By the time we finished the game they had sung it several times and had it in their ears, so it was easy to have them then think about the rhythm and discover that the notes at the end have 4 beats, and introduce the whole note! You could use the same process to introduce the "syncopa" pattern in the first part of the song as well if you want to use it to teach that rhythm, and you could also have students think about each phrase of the song and identify the same and different phrases.

This lesson was a huge hit and it was the perfect way to start the year. The homeroom teachers were so excited when I explained why they were all leaving class with a piece of paper, and the students were all excitedly showing each other their notes. I even had one student who was so concerned that I did not receive a note myself that she spent her entire recess the next day making me a beautiful note and proudly brought it to class the next lesson and announced that we all needed to sing the song one more time, then handed me the note.

If you're looking for more ways to get students practicing giving sincere and thoughtful compliments, I highly recommend using classroom jobs and including compliments as one of them- you can read more about how I do that in this post. And if you'd like to see my full year of lesson plans with 3rd grade, you can find those in this 3rd grade curriculum set. Have you ever used this song in your classroom? I'd love to hear how you used the song in the comments below. 

Read more "SEL Music Lesson "I Got a Letter This Morning""

Bebe Muke (Bebe Moké): Congolese Song for Elementary Music

In typical Elizabeth fashion, I was searching this past summer for a new song to use to teach one specific musical concept and ended up stumbling on a wonderful song from a country I didn't have represented in my curriculum yet that is accessible and engaging for elementary age students AND can be used to teach several different musical concepts besides the one I was looking for! Here are my lesson ideas for the song "Bebe Muke (Bebe Moké)" from the Democratic Republic of Congo.

First the song. It should be noted that if you search online for the song title you may find a "Wee Sing" version, listed as from Zaire (which the country has not been called since 1997). That version is very different from the African sources I have found so I do not recommend using that one- here are some recordings I recommend:

You'll notice the second recording is in a different meter than the other 2 and feels much more like a lullaby, while the others are more upbeat. Depending on what musical concepts you're wanting to teach I think you could present either version, although I prefer the upbeat one for the 3rd graders I am using the song with.

The lyrics are in Lingala. As with any song that has been passed down for a long time like this, there are several variations on the exact lyrics, but here is the most common version of the first verse that I found among Congolese sources I saw (sidenote: the animation in the first video above makes sense when you see the main thrust of the lyrics):

Original Lyrics (in Lingala)

Bebe moké nani abêti yo

Loba na ngai

Ngai na zongisa

Yomoko otutani na mur ya ndako

English Translation

Little baby, who hit you?

Tell me!

I'll tell you what happened:

You hit the wall of the house yourself.

Now let's talk about musical concepts that could be taught through this song: I am using it this year to review pentatonic solfege and same and different phrases, but (if you use the more upbeat version) this would also be a great song for triple meter.

Pentatonic Solfege

First and foremost I think this song is perfect for practicing pentatonic solfege, because the melody line at the end of every phrase is a descending pentatonic scale (la sol mi re do). I'm using the song this year as a way to review pentatonic solfege by having students aurally identify the solfege of that line after learning the song. After we've sung the song a few times, I have them all sing the pentatonic notes they've learned on solfege syllables with hand signs, and then I ask them to listen to each note in the melody and identify which solfege note it matches. Because the notes are in order it's easier for them to hear, so it's a great way to do a quick review and practice identifying notes aurally, but it would also be an easy way to have students practice notating or identifying the solfege from notation as well.

Same and Different Phrases

The other main reason I chose this song is because there are 2 identical melodic phrases followed by 1 that is clearly different from the first 2 because it has a different rhythm and it stays on the same repeated pitch in the beginning. It's easy for students to hear the phrases because they all end with the same descending scale. I always review same and different phrases in 3rd grade as we're preparing for recorders, because I want students to get in the habit of looking for repeated phrases when they are learning new recorder songs.

Triple Meter

I didn't set out to find a song to teach triple meter, but I'll definitely be touching on the meter with my students when we learn it because it has such a clear downbeat but with the syncopated rhythms, faster tempo, and upbeat feel, it has a different feeling from the typical lilting waltz-feeling triple meter songs I often use with my younger grades. I have students listen to the recording and try to identify the meter by tapping on the beat in groups of 2, 3, and 4 until they find the one that fits the music best. Once we've identified the meter, I reinforce it by having them pat their laps on the downbeat and clap on beats 2 and 3. This is also an easy way to encourage active listening when I'm first introducing the song, so it's easier for them to learn the non-English lyrics when we start practicing the singing.

I hope these ideas inspire more teachers to introduce this song to your students! For more lesson ideas like this to cover your entire year, you can get my curriculum here. Find more elementary music lesson ideas and teaching strategies for music around the world in these blog posts. Let me know in the comments if you have any questions!

Read more "Bebe Muke (Bebe Moké): Congolese Song for Elementary Music"

End of Class Routines in Elementary Music

Since my very first year of teaching, I have always had a set end of class routine for my elementary music lessons. But what I include in that routine has evolved over the years, and in the last few years my routine has changed again, so today I'm sharing my current routine for the end of class.

I am a firm believer in the benefits of class routines for elementary music. Because students don't spend a lot of time in our classes, it's even more important than most for us to establish routines to give students a sense of familiarity and predictability and make transitions and other common procedures go more quickly. Moving from one class to the next is probably the most challenging transition for elementary students and as music teachers we spend our entire day facilitating those! So I really think making the beginning and end of class work well for students is one of the most important parts of a productive elementary music class.

1. Learning reflection

Like many districts, mine started requiring all teachers to post learning intentions and success criteria for each lesson a few years ago. You can read all the details of how I do that so it's actually helpful for kids (really) in this post, but the first part of my end of class routine is to revisit the success criteria and learning objective that I've written on the whiteboard and ask students to reflect on whether they succeeded in learning what we set out to learn that day. This is not nearly as deep as it sounds- here's what this looked like in my 3rd grade class the other day:

me (moving over to stand by the success criteria we wrote on the board): "OK we said at the beginning of class that we were going to learn a new rhythm and be able to read and play it today. Did we find a new rhythm?"

students: "yeah!"

me: "What was the new rhythm we learned? What was it called?"

students raise their hands: "a whole note"

me: "How many beats does a whole note get?"

students: "4!"

me: "And how do we say it?"

students: "du-u-u-u!"

me: "Great and we also said we were going to read and play it to show we learned it. Did you read and play whole notes with egg shakers today?"

students: "yeah!"

me (while erasing the success criteria to prepare for the next class): "Awesome, we met our goal!" 

I've always included a reflection on what we learned at the end of class, but I've now just reframed that conversation slightly to incorporate the success criteria we are building together throughout the lesson and bring it back to that before they leave. It not only helps reinforce their learning but helps them feel successful.

2. Line up

I use silent hand signals to cue students to stand up and turn to face the direction they need to go to line up. This post explains all of the hand signals I use in more detail (highly recommend), but all I do at the end of class is hold up one finger for them to stand, then point that finger in the direction they should turn so that the color team that currently has the job of line leader can lead the class over to the tape I have on the floor marking where to stand facing the door ready to leave. After the line leader team, each row follows in order similar to the way students would get off of choral risers on stage (makes it very easy when we're preparing for a concert!). You can read about the color teams I have for my assigned seating, and the jobs assign and rotate through each team, including line leader, in this post.

3. Compliments

Another one of the team jobs is to give a specific compliment to one person that's not on their team (see the post. As soon as students start getting in line, I remind the compliment team to give a compliment- they are the only ones who should be speaking or going anywhere besides standing on the line tape. While they are giving their compliments, I am taking down any extra letters the class earned in my whole class management system (read about that here) and writing a happy note to one student (get those here). As soon as the compliment students are done and back in line, I announce the happy note winner (along with a specific compliment for something they did that day), and move the class's magnet

up the piano for the number of keys they earned in the whole class management system referenced above.

4. Prepare for the hallway

The last step takes 2 seconds but it's very important: I say "minions assemble!" and the students get silent, face the door if they weren't already, put their hands down at their sides. That is my signal to remind students to prepare for the hallway- I have minions all over my classroom (see the 2024 tour here) and the tape on the floor where students line up has minions all over it for this reason!

And that's it! It's nothing complex but going through the same procedure every time helps students mentally prepare for the transition, and makes the end of class much calmer and more controlled. If you want to know more about my routines for the beginning of class, and other routines and procedures I put in place to make my classes run more smoothly, be sure to check this post.

Read more "End of Class Routines in Elementary Music"

Elementary Music Classroom Management

Classroom management has always been a challenge, with very few comprehensive resources or training that is specifically for elementary music teachers. Part of the problem is there isn't one single strategy that will magically make everything run smoothly- there are so many facets to building and maintaining a positive, productive elementary music classroom that celebrates and meets the needs of all the hundreds of students that come through its doors each week. This post is intended to serve as a resource hub for all of those many facets that affect classroom management, so you can find strategies that will best meet the needs of your students.

Let's start with what everyone thinks of first when they think classroom or behavior management: a concrete system of tracking, motivating, and holding classes as a whole accountable for their behavior in class.

Concrete systems for responding to both positive and negative individual student behaviors are also important:

Having procedures and predictability is one of the most important strategies for fostering positive and productive classrooms, especially when students aren't there every day and have less time to feel settled!

Another key element of procedures and predictability is assigned seating, including assigning students to a "team" that serves as a way to give students classroom jobs, build in procedures for handing out and collecting supplies, and give students more ownership in the classroom:

Now that we've got some concrete systems in place, it's important to make sure we have the right framework / mindset for interacting with students in positive and productive ways, and encouraging students to do the same:

Now let's talk about specific strategies for specific situations that we commonly encounter as music teachers, whether for individual students or classes as a whole:

That is a lot of information but it also just barely begins to scratch the surface! You can browse all of my posts on management by clicking here. If you have any questions or topics you'd like to see addressed in a future post, please leave a comment to let me know!

Read more "Elementary Music Classroom Management "