What To Do With Those Egg Shakers

If you are starting a new job in a new classroom and suddenly find yourself with access to a bunch of egg shakers you don't know what to do with, or you have had them for a while and feel like you're not getting as much use out of them as you should, or just want some fun new ways to use them in your lessons, this post is for you! In this post you'll find tips for managing their use with students and teaching proper playing technique, plus tons of lesson ideas to use with every grade from Kindergarten up through 6th grade!

1. Management

I actually think egg shakers are one of the best instruments for practicing instrument procedures and expectations and use them for that purpose at the beginning of the year, because they will so easily make noise if they aren't kept very still. I reinforce the rule that "if you play before I say you'll make the instrument go away" and remind students that it's not my place to judge if it was intentional or accidental, so they have to be that careful not to let the egg shaker move when they are waiting to play! I like showing off my stealthy skills by showing them how I can take an egg shaker and put it in my lap without it making any sound and then tell students to do the same. They take it as a challenge and will move so slowly and carefully trying to keep it from making any sound!

2. Playing Technique

One of the reasons I think egg shakers are actually a pretty popular instrument for all of my students is because I tell them from the very first time they use them in Kindergarten that these are not the same as the "baby toys" they may have seen. Every year when I bring out the egg shakers for the first time I remind students not to "be babies" and demonstrate the difference between wrapping your hand around the whole shaker and shaking it in any direction vs holding it on your palm with your fingers and moving intentionally back and forth, like this:

I find it's really helpful not only to get students of all ages to treat the instrument as a legitimate instrument but also to help them be able to play bigger shakers with proper technique that produces a crisp sound when they get older by making them aware that the back AND the forth both make sounds and should be treated as separate notes.

3. Lesson Ideas

Kindergarten: I don't use egg shakers for things like playing rhythms or steady beat in Kindergarten very often because it is so difficult for them to play accurately, but I do introduce proper playing technique (as described above) by having them try to play along with the steady beat of a track with a moderate tempo. My favorite way to use them with this age group (as well as younger self-contained classes), though, is "I Know A Chicken" by Laurie Berkner. I have them echo the A section with the egg shakers on the floor and then pick it up and play it as described in the B section, as a great way to practice echo songs and also introduce the idea of same and different sections.

1st grade: This is when I do start having students play rhythms and steady beat with egg shakers to really work on getting the proper technique and as a way to increase the level of difficulty while we're reviewing rhythms from Kindergarten. I like using egg shakers to play rhythms along with a track or a play-along video because it's quiet enough that I don't have to turn the track way up for them to hear it while the whole class is playing along.

2nd-4th grade: I introduce half notes in 2nd grade, whole notes in 3rd, and dotted half notes in 4th grade, and egg shakers are one of a few small percussion instruments that they can use to play longer duration notes, which is also really fun because it's actually so much easier than trying to get the crisp, shorter notes on the egg shakers! So egg shakers are a frequent feature for rhythm notation practice in 2nd-4th grade.

5th-6th grade: I don't have many lessons in my oldest grades where the entire class is playing egg shakers (although I do still use them at the beginning of the year to review instrument procedures even with my oldest students!), but they are a common choice for composition projects where I am asking students to evoke a specific image or feeling with their music, or for adding foley/ sound effects to a movie, so they get used a lot in the 5th grade videogame composition project and 6th grade movie music unit.

Self-contained: Every self-contained class is vastly different because every student is different! But I do find egg shakers are a great instrument for self-contained classes of all types because they are universally appealing, easy for students with varying levels of motor skill to play, easy to clean if put in someone's mouth, difficult to damage (and not to expensive to replace if they are), and quiet enough not to bother most students with noise sensitivity. I've also found, because I can get them in so many different colors, that they are a great tool to give students choice and also get students to verbalize by telling me what color they want. I've had multiple experiences with students who are nonverbal and use communication (AAC) devices say their first word in my class when they form the sound to say "pink" or "blue" to request their favorite egg shaker.

I hope this gives you some fresh ideas for using egg shakers in your lessons with all grade levels! If you want to see how all of these strategies and lesson ideas are incorporated into a fully sequenced curriculum, with all the complete lesson plans and materials to teach them, you can find them in the Organized Chaos K-6 Curriculum. I am always surprised at how much my students of all ages love playing the egg shaker, and they are such a versatile and accessible teaching tool! 

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Baseball Themed Elementary Music Lesson Activities

Baseball season is still in full swing (see what I did there?!?) so this is a great time to throw some baseball references into your lesson plans! And bringing sports references into music class is always a great way to engage students who may otherwise not get excited about the material. Here are a few simple ways to keep teaching the important concepts and skills we never have enough time to teach while incorporating a baseball theme into the activities!

To be honest I'm a little embarrassed I haven't written this post before now, considering what a central part of my upbringing baseball was- I am by no means a sports fan or a sporty person but my father played baseball in college and it is the one sport I have watched enough to feel like I know what I'm talking about most of the time. In fact baseball is probably the only sport I have consistently been incorporating into my lessons in some fashion since my first year of teaching. And it is always so fun to see the students' faces light up as they talk about their love of baseball!

1. Take Me Out to the Ballgame

Baseball or not, this is in fact my favorite song for introducing dotted half notes. It has a waltz feel without being waltz-y at all and has tons of dotted half notes students can identify as they are first introduced to the new note. I have them sway with the downbeat as they sing, then do a basic 3-beat clapping pattern with a partner, to get them feeling the triple meter, and then have them discover the 3-beat durations to introduce dotted half notes. You can find all the details about the lessons I do with this song in this post- if you pick one baseball activity to do, this is my top pick!

2. Play-Alongs

These days it feels like there's a play-along for everything! I honestly try to limit how often I use them but for sub plans, game days, or just to break up a difficult lesson they are great to have on hand. This video is a boomwhacker play-along for "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" (good to note it requires an F#) that would be great for older students, this video is a rhythm play along with just quarter notes and paired eighth notes that's slow enough for beginning readers, and this one is a steady beat body percussion play along that would be great for preschool or self-contained classes.

3. Baseball Review Game

Any time I'm reviewing something with students that can be a little mundane, whether it's note names or music vocabulary, instrument families, or any other information I want students to memorize, I try to turn it into a different kind of "game" to keep it interesting. One of my favorite formats for this is a baseball game: split the class into 2 teams, and each team takes turns "going up to bat" to answer a question/ name a note/ etc. A correct answer gets them 1 base, and the next person on the same team answers another question to try to get another base. If they get a question wrong the other team goes up to bat, and if they get 4 questions in a row correct they get a homeroom before the other team gets their turn at bat. It makes it feel more like baseball, especially with older students, if you have a student from the opposite team be the "pitcher" and read the question from a card (I often use the truth cards from my truth or dare deck for this). Put a picture of a baseball field on the board and use something to track each team's progress around the bases!

4. Baseball Organ Playing

For older students (5th grade and up), introducing students to baseball stadium organ players is a great jumping off point for a lot of topics and topics. I've used it as an example when we're talking about keyboard instruments, a surprising example of a music-related career, and as inspiration for composition projects to get students to think about how to use music to evoke different feelings. This video is a great example of how music can "move a crowd" that you can use to have students create a song that will get a crowd excited, but you can do similar projects to have students compose a "walk up song" for a player, a happy song for when your team gets a homerun, a sad song for when the opposite team scores, etc: 

I hope this gives you some ideas for incorporating baseball into your lessons! If you're looking for more ways to include sports references, here is my post on football themed lesson activities. I think the more we can find ways not just to reference student interests but also help connect things that people often treat as separate, or even opposing, worlds from music, the more we can help all students see themselves as musicians and feel connected to what they're learning in music class. 

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What To Do With Those Djembes

If you are starting a new job in a new classroom and suddenly find yourself with access to a set of djembes you don't know what to do with, or you have had the instruments for a while and feel like you're not getting as much use out of them as you should, this post is for you! In this post you'll find tips for storage, procedures for managing their use with students, and tons of lesson ideas to use with every grade from Kindergarten up through 6th grade!

First a quick note: in this post I'm going to be talking about these Toca Freestyle Colorsound Djembes, which I have in my classroom and have seen many other elementary music teachers using. Some tips and ideas are specific to those instruments but for the most part, apply to any similar djembes you may have in your classroom.

1. Storage

My general rule of thumb with instruments is to store them where students can easily get them and put them back themselves, and for djembes like this, some type of open shelving I think works best. Unlike some other types of drums, they don't stack on top of each other very well (believe me, I've tried), so they can end up taking up a lot of real estate! One small thing I discovered last year that allowed me to fit a lot more drums on the same shelf was to alternate between right side up and upside down so they don't take up as much room- this was a game changer for me!

2. Management

The main problem you're likely to encounter from a management perspective with djembes is students wanting to drum on them when they aren't supposed to. Obviously I have the same rule for the djembes as I do for every other instrument in my classroom: If you play before I say, you'll make the instrument go away. But beyond that I find with drums, students don't realize that touching the drumhead at all can cause the instrument to sound. I always remind students not to touch the white part when they are carrying them or waiting for their turn. Pointing out the color is much more concrete and specific and helps avoid a lot of problems!

One of the reasons I love these Toca Freestyle Colorsound Djembes specifically is because they come in sets of 7 colors, and 6 of those colors are the exact colors I use to break each class into rows/ teams (read about my color teams here- I use them for everything). I love being able to tell students to use the drum that matches their color team, but even if you don't use color "teams" in your classroom, I highly recommend assigning students to a color with some type of system to avoid arguments over which color they get. 

3. Lesson Ideas

This is definitely not an exhaustive list of lessons I love to teach using djembes, but here are some of my favorite ways to use them in each grade:

Kindergarten: It wasn't until recently that I started using the djembes with Kindergarten because they usually sit in the floor and I found it was difficult for them to play while sitting on the floor without knocking the drum over. But a few years ago I figured out that if they sit "criss-cross" with the drum sitting on the floor between their legs, it works really well and of course the students think they are super cool to play! I mostly use them for playing steady beat with a track since they can be quite loud (even when they are resting on the floor)!

1st grade: Even though my 1st graders sit in chairs most of the time, I find most of them are too small to hold the djembe properly between their knees with their feet on the floor. I usually have 1st graders use the djembes to work on rhythm compositions in small groups. I give them a small dry erase board and a marker or use these DIY rhythm cards to write a 4-beat rhythm, then they practice playing it on the djembe and eventually perform for the group. The djembes are easy to manage while sitting in a circle on the floor so they work well for this activity.

2nd grade: I usually teach students how to properly hold djembes in 2nd grade but sitting up in their chairs, putting their feet on the floor, and holding the drum between their knees with the top of the drumhead level with the top of their legs. I use them most often for rhythm play-along videos because they are loud enough to hear over the track.

3rd grade: I like to show my 3rd graders how to "roll" on the djembes to play long notes, especially the whole notes they learn for the first time in 3rd grade. 

4th-6th grade: The smaller djembes I have start to get a little small for some students' hands in the upper elementary grades so I will often use tubanos instead of djembes with this age group, but for a quick rhythm reading or composition activity the djembes are much easier to pull out and put away quickly. I also used the djembes to supplement instruments for drum circle activities when I didn't have very many larger tubanos to use, and then I would just have students put down their instruments in front of their chairs and rotate every few minutes so they could take turns playing the different types of drums. You can read about my favorite drum circle activities in this post.

I hope this gives you some ideas to start using your djembes more in your lessons! If you want the fully detailed lesson plans and materials for everything I do with djembes and more, you can find them in my curriculum. They are such a great instrument to have for rhythm, composition, steady beat, and more and my students always think they are way cooler than hand drums!

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What To Do With Those Boomwhackers

If you are starting a new job in a new classroom and suddenly find yourself with access to a bunch of boomwhackers you don't know what to do with, or you have had the instruments for a while and feel like you're not getting as much use out of them as you should, this post is for you! In this post you'll find tips for storing boomwhackers, procedures for managing their use with students, and tons of lesson ideas and center activities to use with a broad range of grade levels!

1. Storage

I've written an entire post with all the details on how I do this, which I'll link below, but I highly recommend keeping your boomwhackers stored in a way that students can easily access, but also allows students to use the different sizes and colors as a visual aid for understanding and discriminating high and low pitch and reinforcing specific solfege and letter note names. Besides being less fragile and easy for young students to play and hold, the main advantage of these instruments is the way they are color coded and have both the solfege and letter names written on them, so I think it's important to use them to your advantage! Here is the post with all the details on how I store mine:

2. Management

These instruments can very quickly turn into light sabers, missile launchers, walking sticks, etc, and sometimes I lean into that! But most of the time I do want to maintain a little more semblance of order. I always remind students of the same rule I have for every instrument before they get their hands on them: "if you play before I say you'll make the instrument go away". I point out that if they mindlessly tap it on their leg or swing it around it will very likely play and then go away. I have students carry it to their seats and hold it while waiting with two hands. When they are playing, I usually give them the option to either tap it on their other hand, tap it on the floor, or (especially if they are sitting in chairs) tap it on their knee. Otherwise you will very quickly find students bopping themselves on the head!

3. Lesson and Center Ideas

I've written an entire post on my favorite lesson and center activity ideas using boomwhackers, which I'll link below. I truly use these with every age and, contrary to what I expected when I first started teaching, I actually find I use them more with the older grades than the younger ones! They are also great for center activities because I don't have to worry too much about monitoring students using them independently, and we can use them to do a lot of activities with pitch in a simple way that's easy for them to do on their own. Here are all my favorite lesson and center activity ideas:

I hope this gives you some ideas to start using your boomwhackers more in your lessons! If you want the fully detailed lesson plans and materials for everything I do with boomwhackers and more, you can find them in my curriculum. They are really an amazingly versatile instrument for teaching such a wide range of skills and concepts and they are so much fun for all ages!

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2025-2026 Music Teacher Planner

It's that time again! It took me a while to get this post up but my planner is set up and ready to go for the new school year! 

I got a new hard cover for the front, and of course printed out a new planner cover for the inside, but most of the pages are the same as last year. If you want to get the planner pages I'm using, you can find them all in this set, and you can see all the different lesson planning formats available right here. Here's a quick tour of what it all looks like put together and ready for a new year:

Seeing my planner full of blank pages ready to be filled always feels like a fresh start. If you have any questions about the items I used or how I use my planner, leave a comment below!

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Elementary Music Classroom 2025-2026

It's that time of year again: we're getting my elementary music classroom ready for a new school year! This is my 13th time setting up my classroom in this space, and I had a few "a-ha moments" about the way I've decorated and set up my classroom works for me that I want to share, plus a few tweaks that are relatively small changes but I'm happy about! So here's my elementary music classroom for the 2025-2026 school year.

First here's a quick video tour around the room to get our bearings:

One of the small tweaks I made was switching out the blue circle spots for a lighter blue that matches the line I have marked for the blue row chairs. This was sortof a happy coincidence more than anything- a few of my blue circle spots from last year were getting too worn out and I had some light blue ones from a set I had bought to replace another color a few years ago, and I realized the lighter blue matched the tape after the fact! This is obviously not a big deal for me but I can practically guarantee this is the  thing my students are going to notice first when they walk in my room :)

The other two tweaks are things I've been thinking about for a while and I'm glad to be in a place where I had the time and energy to do them: adjust my Kindergarten learning target spot (again) and update my teacher toolbox drawers. I got the teacher toolbox (something like this one, but I think I got mine at Home Depot) YEARS ago before I had any sort of set color scheme in my classroom, so I had just used a random set of scrapbook paper I thought was cute to decorate the drawers, and it just stayed that way all these years. I finally got some plain colored paper to put in the drawers instead, and now the toolbox finally looks like it belongs in the room! 

Here's my blog post from when I first made the toolbox if you're thinking of making one yourself- it's truly just little pieces of paper stuck inside the front of the drawer but if it lasted me a decade it must be good enough! :)

After doing a lot of work to make posted learning intentions something that actually works for me and my students over the last year and a half or so, I realized that the spot I had set up for posting the visual learning intentions for Kindergarten was way bigger than I needed it to be... which would be fine except I always felt like it was too much pink in one spot and looked a little out of place. Now I just have the same background that I use to write the 1st-6th grade learning intentions so the pink is no bigger than the other colors. I am all about streamlining visuals to keep the room from getting overstimulating!

You can read more about how I use pictures to create visual learning intentions that my pre-readers and language learners can actually benefit from in this blog post.

After doing those few small tweaks and setting up the rest of the room, it ended up taking me about 3.5 hours total to get my room ready for students. Going through the classroom setup process this year made me realize a few things that I thought were worth sharing, especially for newer teachers just starting out in a new classroom and trying to figure out how to get their rooms ready:

use a color scheme as your "decor theme"

Seeing how much my room instantly went from drab to fab just by setting out my ukuleles, boomwhackers, djembes, writing supplies, chair lines, and circle spots gave me fresh affirmation that using the common colors of the instruments and supplies I already have in my room as the "theme" for the rest of my classroom has been a game-changer for me. Using a color scheme instead of specific patterns or aesthetics etc already makes things easier (and makes them more universally appealing to a broader range of students), but I think using the colors of common elementary music classroom instruments is the boss move more elementary music teachers should be using. So many classroom instruments, from boomwhackers to handbells and everything in between, now come in similar colors to help students associate colors with pitches that it makes sense to use those colors. 

If you want to use any of the same posters I have to coordinate with the instrument colors, you can find the full set here.

classroom setup is an evolutionary process

I'm sure it has been said before but getting to the place I am now where I feel comfortable with where everything is and how everything is organized has been a process that has gradually evolved, with lots of trial and error, over the course of over a decade. If you are in your first year in a new classroom it's important to remind yourself of the old saying, "don't let perfect be the enemy of good". Rome wasn't built in a day.

classroom setup can eventually become an easy task

This is related to the last point but I was so pleased with how quickly I was able to set up my classroom this year, and it hit me that there does come a point when classroom setup is no longer the huge ordeal that it often is when you're first starting in a new classroom. Dealing with the pandemic probably made it take longer for me to get to that place since I had to rethink everything during those years, but this is the longest I've ever been in one classroom and it's nice to feel like things are where they should be.

I hope this helps give you some encouragement, inspiration, or at least solidarity if you're setting up your classroom as well! If you want to read more about the different things in my room, or how I think about classroom setup, here are some relevant blog posts below. And of course leave me questions in the comments below or send me an email, I'd love to chat!

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What To Do With Those Xylophones

If you are starting a new job in a new classroom and suddenly find yourself with access to a bunch of barred instruments you don't know what to do with, or you have had the instruments for a while and feel like you're not getting as much use out of them as you should, this post is for you! In this post you'll find tips for storing xylophones, procedures for managing their use with students, and tons of lesson ideas to use with every grade from Kindergarten up through 6th grade!

1. Storage and management

This isn't always possible depending on the classroom space, but I think ideally it's best to have all instruments, including xylophones and other barred instruments, easily accessible. If you have to pull them out of a closet to use them you're going to be far less motivated to use them in a lesson. To make them easily accessible, I recommend either:

1) setting aside some classroom space to have the instruments permanently out and ready to play, or

2) having the instruments on open shelving where they can quickly be taken out by you and/or students.

I had one classroom where having them out permanently made sense, but in every other room I've taught in I have had them on open shelves. If you are having your students carry barred instruments, just make sure to show students how to carry them properly so the bars aren't constantly falling off/ pegs being bent by holding them on the sides of the box and carrying them away from their bodies without leaning them on their chest.

Regardless of how you store them, it's important to establish- besides the general procedures for instruments like "don't play until the teacher says"- that everyone needs to walk around the instruments, rather than stepping over them, when they are moving to and from playing them. If you have xylophones on rolling stands then this won't be an issue, but when they are on the floor it's very tempting to want to step over them. I always demonstrate that, no matter how careful they are, if something/someone bumps them while they are stepping over an instrument it could be a big problem!

2. Introducing and Reinforcing Proper Technique

I've written an entire post on introducing proper playing technique already so I will link that below, but it's important to introduce proper playing technique from the very beginning and continue to reinforce those techniques every time they play. Here is my detailed lesson plan for introducing xylophone playing technique. Once I have established the proper playing technique in the beginning, I reinforce every time they play by reminding them of what they learned, saying "pinch, fingers, bicycle" every time they go to the xylophones, and reminding them to play "in the street, not the sidewalks" to remember to play in the center of the bars.

3. Lesson Ideas

I use xylophones and other barred instruments a LOT in my classroom so obviously this is not an exhaustive list, but here are a few of the main ways I use them in my lessons with each grade K-6.

Kindergarten: instrument introduction, mallet technique (here is the lesson plan for introducing xylophones, and here are a few of my favorite lesson plans to practice different mallet techniques: Mr. Quiet and Mr. Loud (adapted from this lesson originally called Mr. Brown and Mr. Black), and Froggy Gets Dressed)

1st grade: up and down, high and low (here is my favorite lesson to practice these concepts with this age with Mortimer)

2nd grade: ostinati, half notes, letter names (I use the song Duerme Mi Tesoro to have students play half note ostinati on metallophones, and introduce playing ostinati on specific letter name notes with We Are Dancing)

3rd grade: reading treble clef, recorder song prep, pentatonic improv (I have students practice reading the songs they will be learning on recorders in treble clef, like Hot Cross Buns, first on xylophones, and use this lesson plan with the song Zudio to have students practice pentatonic improvising)

4th grade: sixteenth notes, independent reading, ensemble skills (here is the lesson plan I use to have students play sixteenth notes with the song Diggidiggidong, and I also have students independently decode their own part from notation in a barred instrument ensemble piece- I use Pachelbel's Canon in D but in the key of C)

5th grade: advanced technique (I use these lesson plans on the music of Mozambique to have students play timbila music)

6th grade: chord tones, swung vs straight (I use these lesson plans to teach students about chords, and have them improvise straight and swung rhythms on xylophones as part of a unit on jazz)

I hope this gives you some ideas to start using your xylophones more in your lessons! If you want the fully detailed lesson plans and materials for everything I do with xylophones, you can find them in my curriculum. They are really an amazingly versatile instrument for teaching such a wide range of skills and concepts and they work well with every age!

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3 More Tips for Using Google Slides in Elementary Music

I fell in love with Google Slides during distance learning and I now use them in almost every single lesson I teach as an elementary general music teacher. I shared some of my favorite tips for using Slides effectively back in 2020, which I still use all the time today, and in this post I want to share 3 more tips that I also use all the time! These will make your lessons run so much more smoothly, I promise!

1. Change Playback Speed 

If you don't already know how to embed videos in your Slides, check out my previous post on Google Slides for that- this is probably my most-used feature because I can choose specific clips from videos so I can set it to start at the exact part I want to show students, and it automatically removes ads. But did you also know you can change the playback speed of embedded YouTube videos right within the slide? Push play, click on the gear icon, select playback speed, and adjust it however you want! I will start slower when I'm having students do a particularly challenging play-along video (or if we start and I realize they aren't quite ready for that speed yet), or speed it up to add challenge if I have extra time. 

2. Mute a Video's Audio

This is another cool feature of embedded videos you may not have realized exists: you can mute the video so it plays without sound. It's funny how often this feature comes in handy because my job is literally about the sound, but I use it a lot when I want students to add their own music, sound effects, etc to a video, or if I want them to be able to watch a demonstration of a game or playing technique on loop while they practice independently. After you embed the video, click on the embedded video to select it, then open the format options (if it doesn't open automatically). Click "video playback" and you should see an option to "mute audio"- select that option to play it without sound. 

3. Link to Other Slides

Did you know you can link anything in the slide to another slide, not just a website? I use this a lot when I'm showing a bunch of different instruments within a family or from a specific culture, for example, when students are playing a game like Rhythm Battle where they go as far as they can and then go back to the beginning to start over, or when I want students to choose an answer or choose an activity. If I want to be able to quickly go back to the first slide of an activity or a "menu" slide that shows different options, I insert an arrow shape (click insert- shape- arrows) and link the arrow to the first/ menu slide (click on the arrow or whatever shape, click "insert link", then type "slide (insert slide #)"). To have several options of where you go next, like a "menu" slide where students choose from different songs/ activities they want to do, or a slide that shows several instruments that you are going to go through and show students videos of, or a slide that has a correct and incorrect answer that students choose from, I do the same thing but link individual images (of the instruments, or icons representing the options/ answers) to the corresponding slides. Then I usually add an arrow with a link back to the menu, or if it's a quiz game type thing, add an arrow with a link to the next question.

I hope you'll try out these features in your own lessons- I know they have made a huge difference for me! If you haven't already, don't forget to check out my previous post with 3 more tips for Google Slides, including using them to do "drag and drop" activities, embedding videos, and embedding audio!

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What To Do With THAT Class: argumentative

The helpless feeling you get when nothing you do seems to work with that one class can be absolutely horrible. Over the years I've had classes that leave me in tears, fill me with dread, make me want to take a sick day, or just leave me feeling like I have no idea what I'm doing. It's disconcerting at best, and can leave you completely miserable if you let it get the best of you. A few years ago I started a series sharing some strategies that have helped me improve my ability to work with some challenging classes with various difficulties- now I have another to add to the series! Today I'm focusing on classes that are constantly arguing, with each other and with you.

When I first started this series years ago I shared my advice to keep those challenging groups from making you miserable- if you haven't already, I encourage you to read that post by clicking here. Hopefully the solutions I'm sharing today will help you improve your relationship with your tough class, but that process is going to take time and you need to make sure you keep the situation manageable (for you and your students) in the meantime.

One of the points I shared in that post is to be prepared with a plan B, C, D, and E. There's a good chance the first strategy you try won't work! Remember that this is a process, and a very important one at that. Don't give up.

Argumentative

Sometimes you just get a mix of students in a class that really just does not get along, or has a lot of students in it that can very easily be set off by small annoyances. At any moment in the lesson, it can instantly go from completely calm to a full-on screaming match, seemingly out of nowhere. When you have short class periods like we do for music, this can be especially difficult because there's not enough time to really help mediate and talk through every disagreement to fully resolve it and still have time to actually teach the lesson!

tip #1: keep it moving Sometimes distraction can be enough to "power through" and keep everyone engaged and productive without even giving them a chance to get a word in! Making sure there is some type of activity that you can start immediately as students are entering (I use these student-led warmups) and having your entire lesson completely memorized so you can seamlessly transition between activities with no down time (and I mean not even a second to pause and think) can help prevent arguments from even starting.

tip #2: avoid conversation To go along with the last point, having students be engaged in active participation and giving them as little time when they are supposed to be sitting and listening to you (or another student) as possible can help prevent a lot of arguments. Limiting verbal directions/ instruction can also help a lot with avoiding the feeling of a power struggle (which can lead students to start arguing with the teacher). Model and have them copy, point to a word on the board and jump in, start with a familiar activity you've already practiced and go from there, or use silent gestures to get students doing what they need to do.

If you want a specific example of a lesson that works this way, here is one of my new favorites for upper elementary called the Team Rhythm Challenge.

tip #3: opportunity for expression A lot of times the easiest way to help students move forward when they get upset about something is for them to have a chance to tell you what happened/ what they're thinking. But if you have this type of argumentative group, letting them speak in front of everyone else will probably result in the whole lesson dissolving into an argument. Instead I have blank notecards and sticky note pads with pencils in a few different strategic places around the classroom, where they can be away from the rest of the class, that I show them to use to write down what's bothering them and give to me silently. I try to quickly skim it when they hand me a paper and follow up, either immediately if needed or I tell them I'll talk to them later and put it in my pocket. In that case I either talk to them at the end of class when everyone is lining up or, more likely with an argumentative class I'm trying to keep on task, I'll go find them in their homeroom later to talk to them. 

tip #4: catch the good This can be really helpful for a lot of different difficult class dynamics but catching them being successful and giving them positive reinforcement for that can help them want to continue working together to do well. Again, the warmups I do at the beginning of class can be a great opportunity to get them doing something simple enough that they can do successfully and I can immediately reinforce. Having something visual to recognize things the whole class does well like my letter system (see this post) is important here so you can give that positive reinforcement without having to stop and talk, which we already know we're trying to avoid.

tip #5: practice listening to each other It may take some time to get to a place where you can do this successfully, but the first step to helping students learn to interact with each other more positively is to learn how to listen to each other, and circle discussions are perfect for that. With groups that are really argumentative, I use a lot of quick, easy questions as prompts- nothing that would get too serious- to practice only speaking when it's your turn. See my discussion of community-building circles in this post for more details on how I do these.

tip #6: use catch phrases The "we listen and we don't judge" trend came in super handy for me this past school year with the couple of really argumentative classes I had. Having a catch phrase like that that you can repeat as a reminder for students not to get caught up in an argument can be really helpful. I found that, especially with one that students had already heard on social media, after I used it a few times they started saying it to themselves and to each other whenever someone would get upset at someone over a minor annoyance, and it became a strategy for self-regulation!

I hope these suggestions help you find a positive way forward together! They may not ever be the easiest class to teach, but if you continue to make it a priority to improve the class for everyone involved, you're bound to see positive changes over time!

If you have any suggestions of your own or questions you'd like to ask about this topic, please leave them in the comments below. I highly recommend taking a look at all of my previous posts in this series here for more tips on working with other types of difficult classes right here. And if you'd like to read more about how I handle "behavior management" as a whole, here are all my top posts on the topic.

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Songs and Dances from Around the World for Every Grade

Over the last few weeks I've been sharing the songs and dances my K-6 elementary students have performed in our annual International Music Festival, and today I'm compiling them all for easy reference! If you're looking for something to add to your concert, informance, or your general music classes, I highly recommend all of these!

In each of these lists I've noted the specific grade level I use each piece with as well as a brief description of what students do/ how I arrange the song, but obviously these can be adapted for different grade levels, equipment/ instruments, etc so I highly recommend looking through all of them to see what might fit your needs.

Kindergarten / 1st grade: Native American, Bolivia, Colombia, and Syria

 2nd / 3rd grade: Maori New Zealand, India, and Philippines

4th / 5th / 6th grade: Japan, Korea, Mozambique, and Brazil

I hope you find some new songs and dances to teach your students! If you're unsure about how to teach music from unfamiliar cultures, or want to see more of my lesson plans with music from around the world, check out all my posts on the topic here. If you have any questions or other songs you'd add to the list, leave a comment below! I love hearing from you!

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Team Rhythm Challenge

I am so excited to be able to share this new lesson plan that I came up with for the end of the school year with my most challenging 4th and 5th grade classes that I knew were not going to want to listen to ANYTHING I had to say or want to do anything that felt like "work", but also would dissolve into chaos if we were just playing freeze dance or something the whole period. I already have so many ideas for ways to adapt this game for band, orchestra, or choir classes in middle or even high school, and it's a great way to review rhythm notation and music vocabulary for whatever they're working on! Introducing: the Team Rhythm Challenge!

I knew I needed to come up with a lesson that would be engaging, require as few directions from me as possible, have some level of friendly, low-stakes competition, and also get the kids to work together in teams. What I came up with was the idea of the Team Rhythm Challenge, and it kept even my most difficult classes engaged the entire lesson on their very last day of music class before summer (so I think that's saying something).

Setup

Before class, I set out a music stand at the end of each row of seats. My students sit in 6 rows that I label as "color teams" (read more about all the ways I use them in this post) so each team got one music stand at the end of the row. I rarely use music stands in my general music classes- they're mostly in the room for the band and orchestra to use- so this immediately piqued their interest when they walked in and saw something new. I also had a scoreboard at the front of the room to keep track of points, so they knew something was about to go down!

Process

The primary goal was for me to give as few verbal directions as possible, so that I wouldn't have to bother getting their attention. I put the basic directions on the board, told them at the beginning that they will win the most points for their team if they paid attention, then breezed through the game without stopping to wait for anyone. They figured out pretty quickly that they would lose if they weren't paying attention, so they did!

The basic idea of the game is that each team has a rhythm that they have to count, then count and clap, then count and clap with a dynamic marking, then play with the same dynamics on an instrument, then play as an ostinato with a track. They get 1 minute to practice with their team before each level, and they can earn 1 point for doing it correctly. The team with the most points at the end wins the challenge. Here's a sped-up re-enactment of how I ran it to avoid verbal directions as much as possible and keep things moving quickly: 

There are so many ways to adapt this game and customize it for whatever vocabulary and notation students are reviewing! I will definitely be keeping this for right before breaks with my older students. If you want the full details on all the different ways to play the game, plus all the slides and print-outs I used, you can get those here. 

What are your most successful lessons for the end of the school year with upper elementary/ middle school classes? It can be tricky to find something that they will get excited about but this one was a huge success! If you have any ideas or questions please leave a comment below.

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World Music Performance Pieces: upper elementary

I've been doing a school-wide International Music Festival, where every grade level performs music and dance from a different country, for a few years now, and it is probably my favorite performance event I've ever done but it is a lot to put together! Although for the most part each grade studies the same culture each year to fit in with the skills and concepts they are learning in general music, each year I change at least some of the pieces so it's never the exact same program. Here are the performance pieces I have used over the years with my upper elementary grades- each of these would work well as part of any concert, informance, or program on their own, or you can use this list to put together your own International Music Festival!

I'm listing the pieces by culture/ country below, with the grade level I used them with in parentheses. Obviously many of these could be done with different grades as well, not just the ones I use them with!

Japan (4th grade)

• Akatonbo (students sing the song, first together and then in a round, while playing different triple meter ostinato patterns on various instruments- I use things like finger cymbals, tone blocks, hand drums, and metallophones- along with other color instruments in between sections- I use ocean drums, wind chimes, etc)
• Sakura (students sing the song while some play different ostinato patterns on percussion and barred instruments and some play harmony on recorder- link includes arrangement)
• Tokyo Ondo (students stand in a circle (or two concentric circles if the group is large) and do the Tokyo Ondo dance with this track)

Korea (4th grade)

• Arirang (students sing the song, first together and then in a round, while playing different triple meter ostinato patterns on various instruments- I use things like finger cymbals, tone blocks, hand drums, and metallophones- along with other color instruments in between sections- I use ocean drums, wind chimes, etc)
• Buchaechum (students each hold 2 fans and do some basic moves with the linked recording)
• Janggu (students play the introduction and basic janggu drum rhythm pattern with the linked recording, using a mallet and rhythm stick on boxes)

Mozambique (5th grade)

• Timbila (students gradually layer in repeated lines similar to the linked recording on bass, alto, and soprano xylophones)
• Bombela (students sit in a circle and pass beanbags on the beat while singing, each verse the passing pattern gets gradually more difficult)

Brazil (6th grade)

• Batucada (students stand in rows by instrument and step in place on the beat while playing some characteristic ostinato patterns on guiro, tamborine, tube shaker, tubano drums with the carrying strap, and agogo bells)
• Escatumbararibe (students sit in a circle and do the cup passing game demonstrated in the linked video while singing the song)
• Tambores (students stand in rows facing a partner and sing while doing the clapping game demonstrated in the linked recording, with 3 different versions gradually increasing in difficulty)

If you have other songs or musical performances you've done representing these cultures, or other ways you've used these songs, I'd love to hear your ideas in the comments below! I've split up my lists of performance pieces I use in my K-6 International Music Festival into grade spans- here are the pieces I use with K-1/ early childhood, and here are the pieces I use with 2nd and 3rd grades. And if you are thinking about putting together a similar program, you can find all the information on what I do and how I do it, from logistics to teaching to stage setup, in this post:

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