Teaching Rondo Form

After introducing the basic idea of form, same and contrasting sections, etc in the younger grades, I introduce specific forms from Western classical music in the upper grades, relating it to how it is used in modern music as well. I teach Rondo form in 5th grade, which is easy to relate to many contemporary musical genres and is a great way to have students respond to and create with 3 or more contrasting sections. Here is an overview of the lessons I use to teach Rondo form.

1. Identify Rondo

I introduce Rondo form by having students follow along with this simple cup routine to go with "Sleigh Ride". I always like to have students experience the form first, usually through some type of movement, and then have students recall what they did in what order to help them discover the order of the same and contrasting sections. Because the routine is so simple my 5th graders are able to quickly pick up the moves for each section and do it in one run-through so they get the idea without taking too much class time to rehearse anything, and because the song is familiar for many of them they can recall the order of the sections more easily afterwards. 

After doing the cup routine I have them tell me the order in which they did the different cup moves for each section, review how to label same and contrasting sections with alphabet letters, and identify the ABACABA form, and I introduce the term "Rondo". I explain at this point that Rondo form has the repeated A section interspersed with any combination of 2 or more contrasting sections. Once they have the basic idea of what a Rondo is, I show them another quick example, like this one.

2. Perform in Rondo

Once they have a basic understanding of what a Rondo is, I use this rhythm playalong video to have them practice actually performing a Rondo (I love this one for my 5th graders specifically because it includes the eighth/ sixteenth note combination rhythms they are learning as well!). I have them practice counting and clapping the rhythm patterns in each of the 3 sections, then I hand out 3 different instruments to each student (simple, small instruments that I have class sets of, like egg shakers, jingle bells, and rhythm sticks) and assign each instrument to one section. They set all the instruments down in front of them and I tell them they need to read the rhythms and also think ahead to know which instrument to play when! It keeps them thinking about Rondo form and helps them experience it more concretely. 

3. Create in Rondo: Class Composition

The next step with learning about any musical form is to create! I start in 2nd grade having students create contrasting sections for a given A section as an introduction to creating contrasting sections to arrange in a specific form, so I start with the same task here. I pick a short song and have them all learn it- I like to use something silly so the 5th graders aren't as self-conscious about singing, like my current favorite, the chorus from Jack Black's "Peaches" (which, bonus, ties in with the next composition project). Once they know the song, I have them work together to create 2 short, simple sections to use as the B and C for our Rondo. With the "Peaches" song for example, I have them list other Mario character names and we "rap" them on the beat for the B section, then they choose a few simple instruments and play the rhythm of one of the melodies from the Mario soundtrack for C. Once we have our 3 sections we review the order we need for a Rondo and perform it as a whole song.

4. Create in Rondo: Individual Composition

Once they understand how to create contrasting sections and arrange them in Rondo form, we jump into creating a Rondo from scratch. I actually use the video game composition project (get all the materials and directions for that project here) for this. Students come up with a concept for a game that has 3 scenes or levels, with one of them being the "home" or "main" scene that the player returns to and the other 2 being sort of "side quests". Then they create music that evokes the image of each of the 3 scenes, and put them together in Rondo form.

There are certainly a lot of other great lesson activities and examples I've used over the years to introduce Rondo form, but those are the lessons I'm currently using! If you want to see the detailed lesson plans along with all of the visuals and materials for the lessons, you can find them in the Organized Chaos 5th grade curriculum. What other lessons do you like to use to teach Rondo form? I'd love to hear your ideas in the comments!

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"Hip and Hop Don't Stop" Music Lesson Plan

After having this book sitting in my closet for a few years I finally used it in my Kindergarten music classes last month and I'm so happy I did! If you're looking for a fun way to practice fast and slow in elementary music, or update your "tortoise and the hare" lessons like I did, this is a super fun one that worked out beautifully and ended up being a great way to introduce rap with my youngest learners!

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The story, "Hip & Hop, Don't Stop" is about a rabbit who raps fast and a turtle who rap slow who recognize each other's talent and end up becoming friends, and verses rapped by each character are sprinkled throughout the story. To be honest I don't remember how I came across this book but when I found it I knew it would be a perfect way to replace my old lessons in a modern way while also incorporating hip-hop music and rapping in my Kindergarten lessons, which is something I've been looking for more ways to do intentionally and authentically for a few years.

I introduced the lessons by reading the story and telling students to do the "DJ move" (one hand on their ear, the other hand "spinning" in front) on the steady beat every time one of the characters raps. As I read the story, I exaggerated the tempo of each verse to make the difference very obvious. After the story I asked them to tell me which character was fast and which was slow. Then I played the first part of two different tracks I found online (I found these without spending a lot of time looking around, so I'm sure there are better examples!): this one for fast, and this one for slow, and I told them to do the DJ move again while they listened and identify the tempo. I wasn't sure if they would be able to tell them apart easily, to be honest, because the difference in speed is not as exaggerated (the fast one is around 100bpm and the slow one is around 83bpm), but they got it right away. 

The next lesson we reviewed the story, then I told them we were going to rap like Hip and Hop. I copied one of the verses they each rap towards the end of the story on the board, and we practiced rapping each one, getting it up to speed to rap with their respective tracks. It took a while for them to be able to do the raps with the tracks, and a few kids said "wow, I didn't know rapping was hard!" (which is a wonderful concept for students to experience at a young age!). But they were motivated and did not get frustrated at all, and they were so proud of themselves when they got it. After the rapping I had them spread out around the room and told them to "hop like a bunny" when they heard the fast track and "crawl like a turtle" when they hear the slow one, and I switched back and forth between the two. 

After those lessons we moved on to some other lessons on fast and slow (you can see some of my favorites for that in this blog post), but I'm planning to use this as a jumping off point to have students create with fast and slow tempi by writing a rap for Hop and a rap for Hip and practice performing it with the tracks. I'm thinking I will pick one simple topic that's relevant at the end of the school year, like summer break plans or what it's like to be in Kindergarten, and ask them to think about what they think each character would rap about that topic and come up with a short verse for each of them together. It will also be a great way to start building in the concept of rap writing and rapping earlier on (you can read more about the lessons I do with my older students with rap, within the context of hip-hop in general, in this post).

I have used the Aesop fable, "The Tortoise and the Hare", since my first year of teaching to practice fast and slow with my Kindergartners. I've used different variations over the years, but the basic idea is to have the students sing a bunny song fast while moving their hands like bunny ears on the beat every time I mention the hare, and sing a turtle song slowly while moving their hands like turtle feet every time I mention the tortoise. Besides being great for having them repeatedly practice singing and moving on the beat with the two contrasting tempi, and incorporating a familiar story, I also like being able to use the bunny ears and turtle feet as cues to have students play/ sing/ move fast or slow in subsequent lessons. But truth be told I have been ready for a change for years now- most of my students already know the story from preschool so it's not as exciting as the other stories I use in my lessons. So this has turned out to be the perfect replacement that keeps the things I loved about my old lessons while updating it to something more engaging that adds a new element to my curriculum as well.

Have you ever used this book in your lessons? You can see all of my lesson plans using books in this post. What other lessons do you use to teach fast and slow in Kindergarten music? I'd love to hear your ideas in the comments below!

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Benefits of Daytime Concerts

I switched to doing all of my school concerts and performances in the morning about a decade ago, and I don't think I will ever go back to evening concerts- at least not in my current school community. After some online comments on the topic of evening vs daytime concerts made the rounds on social media last week I thought it was time to share my reasoning here- if you are considering whether to make the switch, or hoping to convince your school principal or community that it's the right idea, I hope this post will help.

After singer and talk show host Kelly Clarkson said on a podcast recently that she didn't understand why her children's school held their concerts at 10am instead of in the evening because it conflicted with her work schedule, I posted a video response on Instagram (you can see that on IG here). In this post I want to expand on my reasoning more completely, since I can't say everything I want to say in a social media reel! So here is why daytime concerts work better for my school community than evening concerts.

Elementary-aged children can't all come to school at night

The most fundamental aspect everyone needs to understand about this question is that elementary school students cannot all come to school in the evenings. There are lots of reasons that vary from family to family, community to community, whether it's needing to take care of younger siblings, having no transportation, having a busy extracurricular schedule with soccer games and piano lessons that happen after school, etc. But no matter what night I pick, there will be students that can't come to school at night.

There are certainly ways to help combat this issue, and my first few years of teaching I, with the help of my school principal, did them all: communicate the date and time months in advance, provide childcare and food for students after school, make sure students and their families understand the importance of attending, etc. But there never was, and never will be, a way to ensure every student can be there outside of school hours. 

Concerts are important educational opportunities

The second thing to fundamentally understand is that the reason we have concerts in the first place is for students to have the opportunity to practice, and learn how to, perform. It's part of the music curriculum that I teach, and it's embedded in the national standards for music education. If I want to ensure equal access for all of my students to all of the educational opportunities I am providing, I can't do my concerts outside of school hours. 

Most performances depend on all members

Besides the individual students who miss out on the experience of performing if they can't be there for the concert, their absence negatively effects the rest of the students' performance experience as well. The type of concerts we're talking about here is ensemble performance- choir, band, orchestra, etc- where students are performing together in a group. Missing voices and instruments means even the students who are there will not be able to perform their best, and their experience will not be as positive.

Most kids perform better in the morning

Maybe a less obvious switch I made was from afternoon to morning concerts. I used to do dress rehearsals and sound checks in the morning and have the concert in the afternoon, and it was always frustrating to see them so often do better in the rehearsal than they did in the performance because they were tired later in the day. You also have the added hassle of either trying to keep their concert clothes clean and their hairdos intact all through classes, recess, and lunch, or needing to change clothes in the middle of the day at school. And anything that happens in the morning can throw students off their game, whether they're frustrated by a difficult math test, or hurt because a classmate didn't want to play with them at recess. It's hard enough for adults to set all of that aside and put on a great performance, but it's even more challenging for children. Doing the concerts in the morning ensures more students are fresh, alert, happy, and calm, and they don't have to stress about keeping their clothes clean all day.

Teachers perform better in the morning too

Just like the students, I am definitely much fresher in the morning! As the conductor of the music and coordinator of all the logistics, I have to be at my best to make sure I can make the concert a positive experience for my students. When I used to do evening concerts it was so much more difficult for me to perform at my best because I was so exhausted from a full day of teaching on top of preparing for the concert.

Not every working parent works during the day

The other factor that convinced me that evening concerts were not worth the trouble was finding out how many of my students' families work in the evenings. Of course it's important for my students to be able to have their families and loved ones there to support them! But I did not find that more families came when I had concerts in the evenings- I actually have a bigger parent audience now that I do my concerts during the day. Family members all work at different times of day, and I find the ones with daytime work hours seem to have an easier time getting time off, or adjusting their work schedule, to be able attend than the ones with evening work hours.

Students and teachers can attend

I know it's a bummer for family members who can't come to their child's school concerts, and it's sad for the students who can't have their family there. I've definitely had to console students who were discouraged seeing their classmates' families cheering them on while they had nobody there from their family. But that will happen even if the concert is in the evening, and when it's during the day time the rest of the school is there to cheer on all of the students, so I know every student has someone they know that can cheer for them, whether it's their other teachers, their classmates, or siblings in other grades. The audience is so much bigger at daytime concerts not only because more families come but because the rest of the school is there to watch as well! And as an extra benefit, the students who are not performing have the added educational opportunity to hear the music, attend a concert, and practice being an audience member. 

In my mind, there is no contest: for elementary school concerts, daytime wins. 

To see all of my posts on concerts, click here. For my posts on teaching elementary choir, click here. Have thoughts or questions to share? Please leave a comment below!

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3 Ways to Teach Fast and Slow

One of the main focuses in Kindergarten and preschool music is musical contrasts, including fast and slow. I have done so many fun lesson activities over the years to introduce and practice fast and slow, but here are some of my current favorites to use with Kindergarten!

1. Little Red Caboose

I'm pretty sure I've been using this since my first year of teaching but it's still one of my favorites! I teach students the song by having them move their arms like the train wheels on the beat while they listen to me sing, then sing along with me. Once they can sing it while moving their arms on the beat we form a "train" and walk on the beat while still singing and moving our arms, and then we gradually speed up until we are practically running around the room! 

2. Fast and Slow Identification

I make the connection with the story of the tortoise and the hare, and then use tracks that switch back and forth abruptly between fast and slow to have students identify which one they hear by moving "turtle hands" on the beat if it's slow, and "bunny ears" on the beat if it's fast. You can obviously use any music that switches back and forth between the two speeds, but I have successfully used this one, this longer one, and of course Hungarian Dance No. 5 is a classic.

3. Encanto soundtrack

The obsession with Encanto has certainly died down a bit since the initial craze but I find my younger students especially still love any reference to the film, and it's fun to use the soundtrack by Gremaine Franco, not just the songs everyone knows by Lin Manuel Miranda, as examples in lessons! I use this after students are comfortable with the concept of fast and slow, because the beat is not as simple for them to hear in these tracks, but I use Meet La Familia (slow) and El Camino de Mirabel (fast). First I have them listen to the first part of each track while patting the beat they hear to decide which is fast and which is slow. Then I hand out a few different types of small hand percussion instruments and have students play along. 

*BONUS: Moana play-along

This one is a challenge for Kindergarten but it's a fun one to use at the end of the year to review both fast and slow and reading quarter notes, quarter rests, and eighth notes with an easy activity that is engaging for students and low prep for me :) 

Of course we practice fast and slow all throughout the year with tons of other lesson activities but these are some of my favorites that really focus on the concept and help solidify it for students! If you want to see some of my other teaching strategies for tempo, including for older students, check out this post:

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"Joy" Theme Elementary Choral Program

If there's one thing students and teachers could use more of right now, joy is definitely at the top of the list. I am so excited about my spring elementary choral program this year, and it has made our weekly chorus rehearsals even more of a highlight of the week because it brings (literal) joy to the day! If you're looking for a fun elementary choir program, or even just a song to add to yours, that includes simple part singing and a range of genres and opportunities for musicality, I highly recommend these pieces!

For context, I have one elementary chorus that meets once a week during the school day as a pullout class with 5th and 6th graders. I have around 65 students in the group in the group this year, and they are such a great group! Ever since finding one of the songs about joy last summer I've been hoping to do a joy-themed program, and I am so excited with the way it has turned out.

Here are the songs I chose:

Joy Revolution I love that the two singer-songwriters who created and performed this song are women of color, the range is perfect, and it's an easy song to do in 2-part parallel harmony and include some featured soloists.

Joy This song was the original inspiration for this program- the first time I saw the linked arrangement with The Choir Room, I got chills! It is the perfect way to give younger students the opportunity to sing a gospel-style song without specific religious references, and it has opportunities for parallel harmony and a 3-part layered ostinato section that is so cool. It is definitely my students' favorite too!

I've Got Joy I stumbled on this song while scouring the internet for one more joy-themed song to complete my program and was thrilled to stumble on this one by Otto Gross and co! This is another great one for teaching part-singing and it's the only one on this list with an actual written octavo.

The great thing about this theme is it was super easy to tie in the orchestra and band- everyone has an easy arrangement of "Ode to Joy" they can pull together! So this will be the first time we have every ensemble performing something related to the concert theme.

I used to say I'm not a concert theme person but after doing 4 themed concerts in the last few years I don't think I can say that anymore! I still think that the priority for me is finding good songs the students will love that incorporate the choral and vocal skills I want to teach them with a variety of genres, styles, tonalities, and languages is the highest priority for selecting elementary choir concert pieces, but when a theme naturally emerges in the process that is a cool bonus! 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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Preparing for a Student Teacher

I just finished hosting a student teacher, and it was such a great experience for both of us! When you're getting ready to host a student teacher, it's so helpful to have some basic information prepared to share with them to help them get started on the right foot. Today I'm sharing what I gave my student teacher before their first day and what I did to help them feel prepared.

1. Things to print/ save

I actually gave my student teacher digital and hard copies of all of the things on this list, because you never know if they will end up working better having a piece of paper to look at, or being able to look it up on their computer. Mine ended up using both pretty frequently, so I was glad to have them both set up- I made a folder in google drive called "student teacher" to house all of the documents and files related to their placement, and put a folder in there called "reference materials" and "curriculum materials".

The reference materials included:

-building calendar that lists all of the events/ field trips/ drills/ etc happening within the school during their placement

-district calendar with all of the early dismissal/ holidays and the letter days for our rotational schedule

-my class schedule

-seating charts/ class lists for each class

-staff meeting schedule

The curriculum materials included:

-yearly outline of what is covered in each month of the school year for each grade

-scope and sequence documents

-lesson plans and materials for the months of their placement

-sheet music for chorus classes

-materials I use for lesson warmups 

2. Things to discuss

Because my student teacher started right after December break, we were able to meet over break before their placement to talk, which was really helpful. If you can make it work with your schedules, I highly recommend meeting with the student teacher before their placement starts so you can give them the documents you've prepared and have a chance to talk beforehand and get to know them a little bit!

Of course there will be different specific things to discuss with each person, but I think the most important things to go over with student teachers before they start include:

-explanation of the documents I shared with them

-brief overview of my management systems/ how I run my classes

-basic idea of when I tend to arrive and leave from work each day

-general idea of how teachers in my building tend to dress

-when, how, and where duties work

-where and how I eat lunch

-where to park when they get to school

Some of these may seem trivial but they are all things that will help a student teacher be more comfortable and confident coming into school the first day. Of course it's also important to ask them what questions they might have and give them time to talk through anything else they're wondering about!

3. Things to show

I was lucky enough this time to be able to meet my student teacher in the school building over break when nobody else was around so I could show them around the school a little bit when things were quiet. I highly recommend doing this if you can! 

Besides a general tour of the building, here are some specific things I think are important to show them:

-my classroom and a basic idea of where things are in the room/ what things are used for

-my teacher desk area, and where their teacher desk area will be

-my closet/ storage and where I keep my purse during the school day

-the closest teacher bathroom

-how the classroom phone works

-where the emergency exits are when we have a drill

-the staff lounge/ fridge and microwave for lunch

I definitely don't expect anyone to absorb all this information in one sitting, but I think it's helpful to go over all of this before their placement starts so they have some time to process everything, and when they come in the first day they aren't starting completely from scratch. If you've hosted a student teacher before, I'd love to hear what you shared with them in the beginning to help them get started on the right foot! I'm hoping to share more about my experiences hosting a student teacher in the future, so if you have any questions please leave them in the comments as well.

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More Female Musicians for Women's History Month and Beyond

I honestly have never been intentional about doing anything to specifically recognize Women's History Month in my classroom because it falls at the same time as Music In Our Schools Month, but I have been making a conscious effort for years to make sure female musicians of all types are represented in the examples I share. Three years ago I shared my first list of female musicians, and today I'm sharing more of my favorites to highlight with elementary and middle school students!

1. Gunhild Carling

She is a multi-instrumentalist, singer, and performer- this video is how I first discovered her!

2. Pinar Toprak

She is one of the top video game music composers today as well as a well-known film score composer, most famously writing for Captain Marvel and Fortnite.

3. TOKiMONSTA

She is a well-known record producer and DJ who makes all her own songs.

4. Lido Pimienta

She is a Colombian Canadian singer-songwriter who blends many different musical genres into her music.

5. Nandi Bushell

She is a young multi-instrumentalist, singer, and songwriter most well-known as a drummer.

Of course there are hundreds of other amazing female artists that would be excellent examples to feature- if you have more favorites please leave them in the comments! Besides just featuring female musicians, there is a lot we can do to respect, reflect, and respond to the needs of our female students- you can read my previous post with more thoughts on that here. For more female musicians I love to feature, here is my previous post on female musicians.

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Musicians to Feature in Elementary Music

One of the easiest ways to help our elementary music students see themselves as musicians is to show them examples of musicians of all different types that they can identify with. Over the years I have collected a growing list of musicians with an ever-expanding breadth of intersectional identities and areas of music, including kid-friendly videos showcasing their musicianship, that I have shared with my students in my elementary music classes. This post is a collection of those lists.

I don't do any sort of music history unit or anything like that, but I find these short videos are the perfect thing to have on hand to insert in my lessons as examples of a concept we're studying, a quick reward for a behavior incentive, or to connect to a heritage month. I hope you find some new musicians to share with your students to improve the representation of different identities in your classroom!

I was actually pleasantly surprised to realize how many awesome musicians I've found over the years. I've honestly expanded my own personal music listening through the process of looking for musicians to share with my students. Even so, I know I have barely begun to scratch the surface- there are so many more fantastic musicians representing so many more identities that I haven't covered in this list! I would love for you to help me expand the list for all of us by sharing your favorites in the comments below. 

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Recorder Videos to Share with Students

I don't normally show a lot of videos in class but I actually have a bit of a collection of fun videos showcasing the recorder so I can keep students motivated and excited about the recorder, and show them how much they really can do with it! Today I'm sharing some of my favorites.

I throw in a video here and there at the beginning of class as students are walking in and getting their recorders out to get ready for the lesson. I like showing students a broad range of videos so that, hopefully, they see how versatile the instrument really is. I know there is so much messaging in society of how boring the recorder is, so I do my best to combat that perspective whenever I can :) 

Of course there are so many more great ones but this post is already getting too long! Have another favorite recorder video that your elementary students love? Share in the comments so we can add them to our playlists! If you want to see all of my posts about recorders, with everything from troubleshooting beginner recorder problems to lesson ideas, organization, and so much more, click here.

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MIOSM® Activities 2025

I've been sharing my favorite ways to recognize Music In Our Schools Month® (MIOSM®) for over a decade now, and each year I do things a little differently. In today's post I'm sharing the full list of everything I have planned for MIOSM® 2025 in my school- everything from in-class activities to school-wide March Madness song brackets and more. I can't wait!

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

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

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

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

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

This is the newest addition to my MIOSM music class activities lineup and my older students actually take this very seriously! The basic idea of Melody Match is to see how many note letter names the class can identify in one minute. Depending on the grade it might be just treble clef on the staff, adding ledger lines, or treble and bass clef- this could even be done with solfege. A note comes up on the screen and I call on 1 student to name the note. They get one chance- if they're right the class gets a point and I pull up a new note, if they're wrong I go to the next student and continue until they get it right (or the timer ends). The total number of notes they identify correctly in one minute is their class score for that day, and they try to improve their score each time they have music class during the month of March (you could also do this like the way I run Rhythm Battle, and make it a competition between classes within each grade to see which class can get the highest total score).

School-wide March Madness Song Bracket

I started doing a March Madness- style bracket with songs tied to the national theme for that year's MIOSM a few years ago and it has been a huge hit in my building! I go into detail about how I set everything up and run it in this post, but basically each class votes every day in their homeroom, and the song that gets the most classes' votes goes on to the next round. We play the winning song from the day before in the lobby where all the students enter in the morning and announce it on the morning announcements each day as well. I am super excited about this year's bracket- I am doing songs that are a fusion of 2 or more musical genres (to tie in with this year's theme of "United through Music")! You can find the full list of songs for this year's bracket, plus a free template to set up voting in google slides, in this post.

This year I am also planning to get the staff involved by giving them the list of songs in advance and having them predict which song will be the winner. Whoever guesses the winning song correctly gets a prize! 

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

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Black Children's Musicians

In honor of Black History Month, in this post I'm compiling some of my favorite children's musicians who are Black. These artists have so much great music that's perfect for the preschool - Kindergarten age group and many of them have amazing educational videos on their channels that are great for the classroom as well!

Divinity Roxx

Aaron Nigel Smith

Miss Jessica

Fyütch

Shine and the Moonbeams

I hope you found a few new artists to use in your early childhood music classes- they all have so much great music and content that are perfect for the littles, and they represent a lot of different genres that are often missing from children's music as well. Have some more favorite Black children's musicians? Leave a comment below so we can all add them to our playlists too! 

If you're looking for other current musicians outside of the children's music genre to share with your students and use in your music lessons, here are several more lists I've compiled in previous years (these lists are not limited to just Black musicians, but many of them are):

  

 

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All of the Snowflakes: winter composition lesson

Today I've got a super fun lesson I've been using for years with 2nd grade to guide students through the task of creating a B section for an existing A section to compose in ABA form. Every year I do this there is tons of laughter, exuberant singing, and aha moments, and it has a snowy theme that is perfect for this time of year!

The song is actually called "If All of the Raindrops", but I've only ever used the 2nd verse that replaces raindrops with snowflakes to use in winter (but hey, you could take this same lesson plan and use it with verse 1 in the springtime or even make it summer-themed with the 3rd verse about sunbeams!). Here's a recording of the song (the 2nd verse starts around 28 seconds in), and here are the lyrics to the 2nd verse that I use:

If all of the snowflakes were chocolate bars and milkshakes

Oh what a snow that would be

I'd stand outside with my mouth open wide

Singing, "ah ah ah ah, ah ah ah ah ah"

If all of the snowflakes were chocolate bars and milkshakes

Oh what a snow that would be

First of all the song itself is hilarious, especially if you really ham up the "ah ah" part like I do, and it immediately sparks students' imaginations thinking about chocolate bars and milkshakes falling from the sky and into their mouths. As with most songs I teach in K-2, I add motions to the song. Besides adding a kinesthetic element, it replaces conducting as a great way to keep young singers together when we're singing, which is important when you're switching back and forth between the song and the (yet to be created) B section, plus it's an easy way to have students listen to you sing first before jumping in to sing.

First I have them follow my motions while I sing the song, then they echo after me line by line to learn the whole verse. After they hear the song the first time, I make a point to pause and discuss the lyrics and discuss how awesome it would be to have sweet treats fall from the sky.

Once they've learned the song, I pull out the whiteboard and ask students to think about what else- besides chocolate bars and milkshakes- they would be happy to have fall from the sky and catch in their mouths. I write down their responses and make a long list. As we're making the list, I think about the number of beats it will take to say each item ("ice cream" can be 2 eighth notes taking up 1 beat, but "chocolate chip cookies" would be 2 beats), and I cut off the list when we get to 24 beats. Making the list is always the best part- there is always at least one student that comes up with a strange answer that makes everyone laugh!

Once the list is done, I model chanting the whole list and then have students practice chanting it with me on the beat by echoing after me, 4-8 beats at a time. Now that chant becomes the B section for our snowflake song! I use this lesson after students have already learned about ABA form, so they instantly make the connection. This is a quick and easy way to have students go through the process of creating a contrasting section as a whole class, and I follow the lesson up with a task where they compose a B section for another song on their own.

I hope you'll try this lesson out with your students- it is such a great way to introduce the task of composing contrasting sections and review ABA form, and most of all it is so much fun! If you want all the materials for this lesson plan, plus all of the lessons before and after it that scaffold all these different concepts, you can get those in my 2nd grade curriculum set here.

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Football Themed Elementary Music Lesson Activities

The Super Bowl is almost here and that means for many of our students, they have American football on the brain! Here are a few easy ways to tie in the theme of football in those days leading up to, or right after, the Super Bowl (or really any time during football season)!

Rhythm Play-alongs

There are some really fun rhythm play-along videos with a football theme that are a quick and easy way to review whatever note values students are working on. Ready GO Music has several with different rhythm combinations for different grade levels that I love, including everything from dotted quarter/ single eighths which I use with 6th grade, all the way to just quarter notes, which is a great lead-in to rhythm notation reading for Kindergarten this time of year.

Note Identification

I have used these videos from Music Maestra as part of sub plans several times to have my students practice identifying treble clef letter names, bass clef letter names, or just identifying line and space notes. There's even one that mixes treble and bass clef letter names which is a great challenge for my older students!

Halftime Show/ National Anthem/ Lift Every Voice/ America the Beautiful

Obviously there are a lot of ways directions you could go with this but the basic idea is to compare performances from various Super Bowls and have students vote on their favorites, explaining the reasons for their choices with musical elements of the performance. You could also focus on specific musical characteristics, whether it's dynamics, genre, tempo, timbres, or something else, and have students identify that element in each performance of the same song that they hear. 

Music Notation/ Vocabulary Review Game

This is another general idea that can be applied to pretty much anything you want to review. It could be rhythm note values, note letter names, instrument sounds/ names/ families, dynamics/ tempo vocabulary, or whatever else you're working on. All you need is an image of a football field (look it up online and either project it, print it out, or draw a basic on on the board) and some questions/ tasks for each team to complete. Split the class into 2 teams, assign each team to one side of the field, and tell them that they get 5 yards for each correct answer/ completed task. You'll need some way to mark their progress across the field, whether that's writing with dry erase, magnets, or some other object you can move across the "field".

You can make it a little more complicated by having "downs" like in football rules, where if they get a question wrong it goes to the 2nd/3rd/4th down before the other team gets a turn, or just keep it simple and have each team take turns to see if they get 5 yards or not.

Jingles

I haven't done this in a few years but writing a jingle is such a fun composition activity for older students, and one of the main attractions of the Super Bowl for a lot of people is the ads! They choose a product, write a few lines promoting it, and then add a catchy melody. You could tie it into a unit on instruments of the orchestra by having them write jingles about specific instruments, or tie it into a unit on genres by having them advertise a genre, or write their jingles in a specific genre.

Super Bowl Food Rhythm Composition

This is another easy one to use with any age: notate different super bowl foods as rhythms and have students use them to compose, or just practice reading (and maybe playing on instruments) the notated rhythms. Obviously there are tons of options and you can adjust how you say certain words to fit with the rhythms students are working on in different grade levels, but here are a few examples to get you started:

I hope this gives you some fun ideas you can use in your lessons to bring the Super Bowl into your music classroom! Of course there are plenty more ways to incorporate the football theme- I'd love to hear ideas you've tried in the comments!

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Who Has Seen the Wind?

There are some songs I use in my elementary music lessons that can be used for so many different music concepts that I end up using them in multiple lessons with multiple grade levels, and "Who Has Seen the Wind" is one of them! I can't say I use it in every grade every year- I think my older students' eyes would roll higher than the sky if I did that to them- but I have used it in different grades over the years so many different ways and it has honestly been equally effective every time, so today I'm compiling all of the ways I've used this song in one place.

If you aren't familiar with the song, it is based on a poem by Christina Rossetti. I'm not sure who wrote the melody but I found the hauntingly simple song originally from The Yellow Brick Road- listen to her recording here and see some of her other great lesson ideas and resources for the song in her blog post here.

Early Childhood

I have used the song most often with Kindergarten. I add some simple hand motions to the first verse and teach them the song, then have them play along with the steady beat on egg shakers, then use it as a way to introduce xylophone playing by having them play on the steady beat on D and A. To make it even more magical I have some students play other instruments with windy sounding timbres, like ocean drums, wind chimes, rain sticks, ratchets, and finger cymbals, and have students rotate through the parts. 

One new addition to that lesson plan this year was the song, "Blowing In the Wind" by Stephanie Leavell from Music for Kiddos. It goes perfectly with the song and is a great movement activity after having young students sitting still and concentrating on playing instruments and singing at the same time! 

2nd Grade

I introduce half notes in 2nd grade and this song is an easy one to teach quickly and have students aurally identify the half notes in the melody at the end of each phrase. I also have students practice performing half notes on instruments by showing them how to play sustained notes on metallophones and having them play a half note bordun on D and A with the song.

3rd Grade

The melody of this song uses low E, G, A, and B, with the notes going up and down the scale, so it's perfect for recorders when students are working on those notes! I always start with G, then low E, and add A and B, and this one has been a great option for when we first put those 4 notes together because the melody doesn't skip around. You can read details about how and why I start on G/E in this blog post.

Upper Elementary

Believe it or not I just used this song with 5th grade last week! I like to pull out some of these short and simple songs that I typically use more with younger students as a quick way to review or introduce a specific musical element or concept in a succinct, clear way. In this case I use it as an example of minor tonality- I have students identify the tonality after singing it, then I use it to discuss how tonality can impact the message or mood of the music, and we talk about why the composer might have chosen minor to go with the poem's words. Then I use it as a way to get students thinking about other expressive elements that help communicate the mood or message of the song by experimenting with different dynamics, tempi, and articulations and picking the ones they think best fit the song.

If you haven't used this song in your elementary music lessons yet, I hope you'll try it out! It's such a simple song but works so well in every grade I've used it. Have more ideas for using this song as a teaching tool? I'd love to hear more lesson ideas in the comments below!

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