3 Spring Songs for Self-Contained and Early Childhood Music

Spring is officially upon us and that means flowers, rain showers, and insects coming out to play! I have a few songs I've learned and adapted for my self-contained special education and early childhood students that have been very effective and engaging: here are 3 fantastic songs for spring and the lesson activities I use with them.

1. The Flower Song

I found this song by Nancy Stewart (see notation from original source here) a few years ago via this video by Krista Chencharick when I was looking for something to use in my sub plans to have my 1st graders practice sol mi and quarter and paired eighth note rhythms (which I highly recommend this for too, by the way). For my special education classes, I added my own motions to the song and first taught students to sing the song while doing the hand motions like this:

Once students learned the song, I turned on Krista's video and I had them echo the flower names on so mi and clapping, rather than reading it along with the recording, and it worked perfectly! The students all loved it and I had several nonverbal students verbalizing and even singing on pitch with the flower names, and the ones who didn't verbalize were able to do the entire song with motions and clap the rhythms. The first time we just did 2 of the flowers, and every time since we have added a couple more until they could do them all. 

2. A Little Seed Scarf Song

I've seen this song by Mabel Watts and Mary Lou Siegel shared by so many early childhood music educators, but I first saw the scarf routine I use from this video by Miss Katie. After doing a longer, more active scarf movement activity, this is a great song to slow down the pace and lead into the Flower Song above! I also use it as a way to get some individual time with each student and make it easier for students to put away scarves by going around to each student and singing it with/ for them while they do the motions, and when they open their hand at the end to make the flower I have them put their scarf in the box and go to their seat to get ready for the next activity. 

3. Busy Like a Bee

No early childhood music compilation of mine would be complete without a Stephanie Leavell song! I always thought this song was so cute but this year have not been able to do much gross motor activities, especially where students are moving around the room in scattered formation, because of the groups that I have. For other groups this would be a great song to use to practice moving in different ways and stopping on cue though! I use the recording from this video of Busy Like a Bee by Stephanie Leavell from Music for Kiddos and, instead of having them move around the room, I came up with motions to have them do from their seats, like this: 

Once they learn the moves and can do it with just their finger, I add egg shakers! I have them leave their shakers on the floor in front of them or in their laps for the verses, and then pick it up and fly the shaker around like a bee for the chorus.

These songs have been a huge hit with my classes this year and I hope you enjoy using them with your students as well! For more songs and lesson ideas to use throughout the year with self-contained and early childhood music classes, click here. I'd love to hear your favorite spring songs for early childhood music in the comments as well!

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Handling the Hand-Off

I don't know how we got here but for some reason there is A LOT of tension between the homeroom teacher camp and the subject specialist teacher camp around what is and is not appropriate to say or not say when a class is transitioning from, say, music class back to their homeroom. Managing transitions well can truly make or break your day, especially in elementary school, and we all know that there is a lot of work to be done towards getting different kinds of teachers to work together productively and respectfully. Here are my tips for making that hand-off back to the homeroom teacher go more smoothly, especially when things have gone awry during the lesson.

1. Do NOT ask the homeroom teachers to discipline in your place

I honestly have never met a music, art, PE, library, or any other teacher who thinks that they should not have to address misbehavior that happens in their class themselves, and that the homeroom teacher should be the sole disciplinarian, but there seem to be a lot of homeroom teachers who think that's what their colleagues are saying so, in case any of those people are out there giving us all a bad name, let's start here: if something happens in our class, it's our job to figure out how to handle it. Often we don't have enough time or reach to fully address everything within the constraints of our limited class time, and it may be most appropriate and effective to involve other adults- including, possibly, the homeroom teacher- in whatever the follow up is, but we definitely should not be expecting to tell the homeroom teacher what happened and have them figure out how to handle it. Not only is that unfair to the homeroom teacher but it sends the message to the students that you have no power or authority, and in most cases the consequence will be far less effective because the homeroom teacher wasn't there and won't fully know what happened.

2. DO communicate major issues, along with your plan

If it's just small issues, or issues that are chronic that the homeroom teacher is already aware of, I don't mention them unless there will be some follow up that will be happening later- that's just tattling. But if a student is visibly still upset, whether it's because something just happened or because it was a bigger problem, I let them homeroom teacher know what happened and how I handled/ will be handling it. That way if any students try to tattle on their friends about what happened the homeroom teacher knows they don't have to address it again- they can simply remind them of what is already being done and not have to rehash the whole issue. It also helps homeroom teachers know why a student may still be upset without having to ask them to re-explain the whole thing, and be aware of what's happening if a student gets called to the office later, or a parent asks them at pickup what happened. If I'm reporting on something, it usually sounds something like:

"Student A and B got into an argument in the hallway but we already talked through it, everyone apologized, it has been handled so nobody should need to keep talking about it but they might need some space from each other still."

"Student A was being so disrespectful today. I am going to be messaging their family and come up with a plan before their next music class because we are not doing this again."

3. DO ask for input if you're unsure

Some homeroom teachers, unfortunately, are less receptive to this than others, but if you're not sure how much a student is having the same difficulty in other classes and if so, how it is currently being addressed, or you don't know what type of consequence would be most effective for a particular student, I think you should be able to ask the homeroom teacher in a way that still communicates you are taking responsibility for the situation but just want their advice. Most of the time I will say something like:

"Student A was having a hard time today... I already spoke with them but I wanna talk to you later before I do anything else."

Not only does it communicate to the homeroom teacher that I am addressing the situation while giving them a heads up so when you come to them later to ask what they've been doing in class etc they know why, but it also sends the message to the student that you are working together as a team. The one question I will sometimes just ask right then in the transition instead of following up later is to ask the homeroom teacher how they most often communicate with home if I'm not sure who to contact/ the best way to make sure I get in touch. Everything else I save for a private conversation later.

4. To the homeroom teachers: stop assuming

I doubt any homeroom teachers will be reading this but just in case: please stop assuming we are expecting you to do our work when we talk to you about something that happened in our classes. I am willing to bet most of the time, your colleague is just trying to give you a heads up. Because we see students for such short slivers of time, and because we are so used to being excluded from behavior and academic support plan conversations, we know that having more information about how a student's day is going is helpful for informing how to respond to that student the rest of the day. If it were us, we would want to know. With everything that we are dealing with as teachers, we do not need more division between colleagues. We are all working hard, we all care about our students and what happens in our classroom, and we are on the same team!

Of course a major part of making the transitions go more smoothly is to have solid procedures in place that ensure students are calm and focused before sending them off. Here is my post explaining my routine for the end of class to get them lined up quietly and ready for the next thing, and here is my post on my strategies for the various aspects of management for elementary music.

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Nowruz (Persian New Year) Chaharshanbeh Suri Song

Did you know the Persian New Year, Nowruz, begins on March 21st? The celebrations began last week in Iran, Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan, and many other countries and are continuing this week. I recently learned a song about one of the Nowruz traditions in Iran called Chaharshanbeh Soori, or fire jumping, that has been perfect for exploring and identifying uncommon time signatures with my upper elementary students. I highly recommend this song and the lesson activities I used!

If you are unfamiliar with how Nowruz, the Persian New Year, is celebrated in Iran (many other countries celebrate in similar ways as well), the beginning of this video is an excellent description that you could share with elementary aged students to learn about the holiday:

One of the traditions that's not mentioned in this video, though, is Chaharshanbe Suri, which is the "Red Wednesday" fire festival celebrated the last Tuesday night before the new year. This read-aloud is a great way to introduce the tradition to kids in a relatable way if you have the time, and the video below gives a nice quick explanation of both the fire jumping and the spoon hitting traditions (which is very similar to trick or treating so elementary aged students always enjoy learning about it) of Chaharshanbe Suri: 

The song I want to share today comes from this video, which demonstrates the song and explains a game and music lesson activities to go with it:

I wrote out the notation of the melody with a transliteration (pronunciation) of the lyrics below. As always I recommend listening to the native speaker in the video above to learn the proper pronunciation of the lyrics rather than reading them from the English letters below alone!

The lyrics are:

اسفند دونه دونه،چهارشنبه سوری مونده         

آتش داریمیه خرمن،میپریم روش باهم            

سرخیِ تو از من، زردیِ من از تو.               

Which roughly translates to:

Esfand (the last month of the Persian calendar) is over, it's Chaharshanbeh Soori (Red Wednesday)

Let's jump over the fire together

My yellowness is yours, your redness is mine

The last line, which is sung twice at the end of the song, is the phrase that people say as they jump over the fire, meaning they are giving their pale, yellow, sickly skin of winter to the fire, and taking the red, healthy, rosy skin from the fire as spring begins. 

This song is a perfect addition to my lessons on time signatures with 4th and 5th graders because of the interesting 5/8 time! First I had the students doing the clap/ pat pattern with the recording (I clipped just the part where she sings the song in my slides), then I introduced the holiday and fire jumping tradition and taught them the last repeated line and had them try to sing along while still doing the clap- pat pattern through the whole song. In the video the woman suggests having students play percussion instruments with the song and take turns jumping over a pretend fire, so I did something similar: I had half of the students either play a pattern on the djembe, playing the low bass tone in the center of the drum on the downbeat pat and the higher tone on the edge of the drum on the claps, or play steady eighth notes on a shaker. The other half of the class lined up in front of the plushy campfire I happen to have from doing campfire songs at the end of the school year (really you could use a red scarf, or anything small as the "fire"). While we sang the song, the students in line tried to jump on the claps and land on the pats. First I had them jump together in time with the beat while staying in place, then once they got it I had them take turns actually jumping over the fire plushy one at a time. We had to slow the song down but once they got it, it went really well and they loved trying to keep the jumping going through the whole song! Then I had them trade parts and do it again.

All the clapping, jumping, singing, and instrument playing in 5/8 really helped them internalize the pulse before I asked them to try to identify the time signature. Having the shaker playing eighth notes is definitely important for helping students figure out what the time signature is! It's the perfect way to get them to experience how the 5 eighth notes are often split into groups of 2 and 3.

You could certainly use this song for other concepts like same and different phrases, or do re mi fa solfege notes, and you could definitely add more pitched ostinati to create an ensemble piece with it as well, or even have students play the melody on xylophones or other barred instruments, but I think the clear pulse and simple melody, along with the fun movement game that even upper elementary students can get excited about, make this a perfect song to use to explore time signature/ meter, and it was an easy way to introduce students to a tradition from Iran that most had never heard of!

If you want to incorporate more simple songs from Iran in Farsi / Persian, this rain song is also perfect for spring (or really any time of year) and I used it primarily with my younger students. You can also find more songs from around the world and search by language or country/ region on this page, and see all my other lesson ideas for teaching meter (including tons more lessons to practice 5/4 time) in this post: 

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Arab American Musicians to Share with Students

April is Arab American Heritage Month and this year it feels more important than ever to recognize and celebrate the contributions of Arab American musicians! There are so many amazing people to highlight, but here are a few of my favorites to share with elementary students.

Paula Abdul

As I was thinking about this list I realized I don't highlight dancers and choreographers enough in my classroom- Paula Abdul is an Emmy and Grammy award winning singer and dancer, and many students still recognize her from her time as a judge on American Idol. She has Syrian Jewish heritage. This video shows her singing and dancing with a song that elementary students can enjoy and even has a shot of the original American Idol judges at the end:

Amir Elsaffar

Amir Elsaffar is an Iraqi-American composer, singer, and trumpet and santur player. He combines jazz, Western classical, and Iraqi Maqam styles in his music. The beginning of this video shows his song "Hemayoun" where he starts off playing the santur and then switches to trumpet:

DJ Khaled

Of all the people on this list, students are most likely to recognize DJ Khaled, a Palestinian-American DJ and producer. My favorite song to share with my students is this one from the "Wrinkle in Time" movie with Demi Lovato- it's a great song with a great message, and of course includes his signature phrase, "another one" at the beginning:

Kareem Roustom

Kareem Roustom is a Syrian-American-Canadian oud player, director, and Emmy-nominated composer. He has written film scores, arranged for pop singers like Tina Turner and Shakira, and worked with many well-known classical musicians including Daniel Barenboim and the Kronos Quartet. I had a hard time picking just one video to share that represents his work, so here are two! The first is one of his more widely-performed pieces called Dabke, performed by a youth orchestra:

And here he is performing on oud:

I hope this gives you some new people and music to share with your students during Arab American Heritage Month and of course, all year long! They aren't US American but if you are looking for more musicians with Arab heritage to share with your students, here is my list of Contemporary Palestinian Musicians with lots of fantastic examples my students love! 

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Iranian Rain Song: چک چک باران (Check Check Baran)

I love using different songs with similar themes to compare and contrast specific musical elements- I find using songs with lyrics that are about the same topic makes it easier to draw young students' attention to the musical aspects of the songs. One of my favorite themes to do this with, especially in the spring, is rain! I have found so many lovely rain songs from all over the world over the years, and today I have another to share with you from Iran that is so very versatile for so many musical concepts, you're sure to find a way to use it in your classroom!

This is a children's song from Iran called چک چک باران which means "Drip Drop Rain". The word for the "drip drop" sound of raindrops in the title is "check check", which is also repeated several times in the song. I found several videos of children in Iran singing the song (including this video of students performing the song in a school concert with recorders), playing it as a beginning piano song like this video, and even this video of a music teacher teaching how to play the melody on a glockenspiel, and when I asked one Iranian person they recognized the tune and said it was an old song- I wasn't able to get much specific background on its origins but clearly it is commonly known and used in schools in Iran as well.

Here are the lyrics in their original Persian (Farsi), the roman letter transliteration (pronunciation- please listen and mimic the actual pronunciation rather than just trying to read this transliteration, it's just there as a guide!), and the English translation:

چک چک باران از توو آسمان      check checke baran az tu aseman           Raindrops check check from the sky
می باره نم نم روی درختان          mi bareh kam kam ruye derahktan         It's drizzling on the trees
چک چک باران از توو آسمان      check checke baran az tu aseman           Raindrops check check from the sky
می باره نم نم روی درختان          mi bareh kam kam ruye derahktan         It's drizzling on the trees

قطره های آب تازه و شاداب        ghatrehaye ab tazeh oh shadab                Fresh and refreshing drops of water
رنگین کمان شد تو نور آفتاب      rangin kaman shod tu nure aftab              It became a rainbow in the sunlight
چک چک باران از توو آسمان    check checke baran az tu aseman             Raindrops check check from the sky
می باره نم نم روی درختان        mi bareh kam kam ruye derahktan           It's drizzling on the trees

And here is a notation of the melody (I've notated it with quarter notes and paired eighth notes, but you can see how it can be notated with quarter notes and half notes in the music teacher's glockenspiel tutorial video linked above):

There are quite a few concepts that students could learn and practice with this song, including AABA form/ phrase structure, duple/ simple meter, low sol, rhythm, instrumental ensembles/ orffestrations, or even recorder playing. 

The AABA phrase structure is a great way to have students practicing same and different identify the repeating and contrasting phrases, and relate that to AABA form, or just to identify musical phrases. I have students do this by drawing a long arced line in the air, starting a new line for each phrase, and then ask them to tell me which phrases were the same and which were different. Listening to the song to identify the phrases also gives them the opportunity to hear the song a few times before I have them practice singing it, which makes it easier for them to learn as well.

This would also be a great song to pair with the Japanese rain song "Amefuri" (see my blog post on that song here) to learn about simple vs compound meter. This Iranian song is very clearly in simple, duple meter, while the Japanese song is in compound meter. My favorite way to have students learn and experience the difference is to have them march around the room with the simple meter and skip with the compound meter. Even my youngest students can feel the difference immediately! I don't get into the weeds with compound vs simple meter too much beyond explaining to my older students (3rd grade and up) that the "skippy" song splits the beat in 3 (we practice counting 123 123 with the song to hear it) and the "marchy" song splits the beat in 2 (this one is easy to feel because of the paired eighth notes). 

This is also a great song for practicing reading, notating, identifying, and singing low sol, because the first repeated phrase begins with a clear low sol going to do. When I am introducing low sol with songs like this I actually start with the last measure of the first phrase and work backwards one measure at a time to establish where do is first and then get students to figure out that the sol note is lower, and have them count down (visually and aurally) from do to figure out that it's sol. 

Depending on how you notate the melody (see the eighth note version above and the half note version- just notated at "half speed"- in the glockenspiel video linked in the first paragraph), this song is a perfect for practicing reading, notating, identifying, and singing quarter notes and either paired eighth notes or half notes. Because the rhythm pattern repeats in each measure, it's an easy way for students to aurally identify the rhythms. I have students first learn the song, then pat the beat while singing it, then clap with the rhythm of the words while singing again, then clap the rhythm without singing. Once they can do that, I give them rhythm cards (here is how I made mine) and have them notate the rhythm with the cards together in small groups.

This is also a great song to add some simple pitched and unpitched percussion accompaniment because it really just sticks with the tonic and dominant chords the entire song! Any simple ostinati using D and G would fit together well with the melody, and it lends itself nicely to adding a simple groove with some drums and a few other simple classroom instruments (as they've done in the recording in the video above). Even students as young as 2nd grade can put together a simple instrumental accompaniment to play while they sing the melody!

I'm planning to use the song with my 3rd graders for recorder. Instead of using "Old MacDonald" to teach low D, I'm going to use the first section of the song to introduce low D. So much more exciting than a nursery rhyme! I might even bring it back later when they are learning high C and D and put the whole song together... we'll see! But the melody is simple enough that it's perfect for introducing those new notes and practicing reading and playing them on recorder.

I hope this gives you some ideas to use this song in your classroom with your students! It's such an easy way to introduce students to a song from Iran and get them singing in Persian/ Farsi, and it's a great melody to use for so many fundamental concepts. I am so excited to be adding this to my collection of rain songs from around the world this spring- you can see all of the rain songs I've shared, including all the lesson plans to go with them, in this post:

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Black Female Composers to Share with Students

As Black History Month comes to a close and Women's History Month begins, today I'm sharing some of my favorite Black female composers from a variety of genres and time periods that I'm excited to share with my elementary students. 

I realized a few years ago that the majority of the female musicians I was sharing with my students were singers. There are so many fantastic singers to share but I certainly don't want my students to internalize the idea that girls can only be singers in music! As I have started to search more intentionally I have been thrilled to rediscover some composers I had forgotten about as well as learn about many amazing female composers who are completely new to me. 

Florence Price (1887-1953)

I'm sure many music teachers will, like me, recall learning about Florence Price in college. She was, to quote Wikipedia, "the first African-American woman to be recognized as a symphonic composer, and the first to have a composition played by a major orchestra. Price composed over 300 works: four symphonies, four concertos, as well as choral works, art songs, chamber music, and music for solo instruments". Learn more about her on her website. I like sharing her Piano Concerto in One Movement with my elementary students:

Mary Lou Williams (1910-1981)

How did I not learn about this woman until recently?!? Mary Lou Williams was "an American jazz pianist, arranger, and composer. She wrote hundreds of compositions and arrangements and recorded more than one hundred records... Williams wrote and arranged for Duke Ellington and Benny Goodman, and she was friend, mentor, and teacher to Thelonious Monk, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Tadd Dameron, Bud Powell, and Dizzy Gillespie" (source). Amazing! Learn more about her on her website, and use this short preview of the documentary about her to share who she is with students:

Micki Grant (1929-2021)

Micki Grant was a "multi-award-winning lyricist, composer, writer, director, actress and singer, revered as a trailblazer for African Americans in theater, television and music for over six decades...She was the first woman to win a Grammy Award for the score of a Broadway musical, winning Best Score for Don’t Bother Me I Can’t Cope in 1973. She was also the first woman to earn Tony nominations for all three musical theatre writing disciplines: book, music and lyrics" (source). Learn more about her here, and hear the full cast recording of "Don't Bother Me" here. This video is completely unrelated in many ways but it shows her acting in a scene where she's talking about music, and shows a lot of her personality:

Sylvia Robinson (1925-2011)

Sylvia Robinson is another musician that I can't believe I didn't learn about until recently. She is known as the "Mother of Hip Hop" and founded the label Sugar Hill Records. She co-wrote and produced Sugarhill Gang's "Rapper's Delight" and "The Message" by Grandmaster Flash and The Furious Five! She also wrote "It's Gonna Work Out Fine" for Ike and Tina Turner, among many others. You can read more about her here, and I like showing students the song she wrote and sang, "Sunday", alongside the Moby song "Sunday (The Day Before My Birthday)", which samples Sylvia's recording, from 2003. I wouldn't show it to elementary students, but this video is a great summary of her and her work:

Chanda Dancy (1978-)

Chanda Dancy is a film and TV soundtrack composer. She has written the scores for "Blink Twice", "Devotion", "I Know What You Did Last Summer", "I Wanna Dance With Somebody", "Swiped", and "Lawmen: Bass Reeves", which won her an Emmy nomination. Her background as a strings player is always really interesting for my students to learn about! Learn more about her on her website here. I like using this video to introduce her and her work:

I hope this gives you some fresh ideas of musicians to share with your students! It has been so much fun for me to learn about these composers myself and share them with my students. What other Black female composers have you shared with your elementary students? Help us all add to our lists by sharing your favorites in the comments! If you are looking for more female musicians, you can see my first list here and my second list here. You can also see all my previous posts on Black musicians in this post here.

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Music In Our Schools Month® Activities 2026

It's time to get ready for Music In Our Schools Month® (MIOSM®) again! I love the buzz in my school building around music education each year I do this, and you can create that buzz too without a lot of prep work (promise) because I'm laying it all out for you here, from a March Madness song bracket to advocacy posters and in-class activities my students beg for every year! Each year I do things a little differently so here is a run-down of everything I'm doing for Music In Our Schools Month 2026.

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 so check there if you've never done this before, 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 include 2 or more languages (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.

Advocacy Posters

We've had a lot of turnover in teaching staff the last few years in my building and I've noticed a trend of teachers not taking seriously the importance of music classes in the comments they make to me, to each other, and most importantly our students. So I'm ramping up my advocacy efforts this year, especially focusing on getting my colleagues to understand that music class actually enhances their overall education rather than taking away from their "more important learning" as many of them seem to think, especially in relation to the ensemble classes and pullout instrumental lessons. 

I looked up some of the latest research studies and compiled some of the key findings that I thought other teachers, school and district administrators, and parents would find striking, and put them on these simple posters. I will be putting these up around the school and also sending them as images in emails to families throughout the month. Hopefully this will spark conversation and reflection for the other adults in the broader school community! I've also posted them here as a free download if you want to use them in your own buildings.

I've also had this bulletin board display up on the wall outside my classroom for years now, promoting the importance of music for its inherent value rather than just how it can help you do better in other subjects, mostly aimed at my students. If you haven't used this before I highly recommend it, I always get tons of positive comments and wonderful questions because of the display, and it's an easy way to periodically have students create their own posters talking about one of the inherent qualities from the display to add to the board and change it up.

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 (now 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 (see below), 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)

After doing this with my older students for a few years now, my 4th-6th graders take this just as seriously as the Rhythm Battle! So this year I'm changing it up and keeping track of points to make it a competition between classes as well. 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. Here are the links for the different versions I've set up for my students (all with 1 minute timers): treble clef on the staff, treble clef from middle C to high A above the staff, and treble and bass clef on the staff. There are endless ways to adjust these for different games to practice pitch names! 

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.

Read more "Music In Our Schools Month® Activities 2026"

Snow Themed Lessons for Preschool Music

With early childhood music classes I love using themes to help activate students' imagination and connect my lesson to the world around them. This time of year one of my favorite themes is snow! I use these music lesson activities with preschool, kindergarten, and younger self-contained special education classes and they have been a hit. Here are some of my favorite activities to use in snow-themed lessons.

1. Snow Songs

There are tons of great songs about snow but my favorites for this age group include: 

All of the Snowflakes (great for getting non-verbal students to vocalize, and a fun song that will get everyone singing! I use this song with 2nd grade for a composition activity as well- see my full lesson plans in the linked article)

I Have a Little Snowman (I use this to introduce and show notes going up and down with movement)

It's Wintertime (this song isn't just about snow but it does talk about snowmen so I often include it with my snow themed lessons- it's an additive song that includes a different instrument students can play for each verse)

2. Movement Activities

It's Snowing Outside (this song invites movement in the lyrics so it's easy to learn and great to reinforce steady beat and practice moving safely in space)

Winter Scarves (the linked video demonstrates scarf movements you can do to match the lyrics about snow- my students love this calming song!)

I Live Inside a Snowglobe (I have students sit and do motions while they sing the verse at the beginning, stand up when it says "shake it up" etc in the chorus and do the move to match the lyrics, and then sit back down when it says "and then the snow falls down". this is a great one for practicing following directions for students who are working on self control because they have to start and stop a lot throughout the song but in a fun way)

Snowman Dance (this is a great brain break type activity I like to keep in my back pocket when students are unfocused, a lesson just isn't going well, or I see they need to get up and move for a few minutes because students just follow along with the simple dance movements in the video)

3. Iconic Play-Alongs

I like using iconic notation play-along videos to get my youngest students to track notation and relate it later on to paired eighth note, quarter note, and quarter rest notation. I also use these same icons off-screen by printing out similar clipart and putting them up on the board for students to read while I point, or have students use them to create their own patterns too!

Snow Day (hat=quarter, mitten=eighths, blank=rest)

Snow! (skate=quarter, snowman=eighths, shhh=rest)

Snowman Village (hat=quarter, snowman=eighths, rest sign for rest)

4. Books

All of these are books that I pair with music lessons.

Froggy Gets Dressed (I use the lessons in the article linked here every year with Kindergarten)

Snow Music (perfect for adding sound effects with instruments and/or found sound)

The Snowy Day (a classic book that's great for vocal exploration)

I hope this gives you some fresh material to use in your early childhood lessons this winter! Many of these are honestly also great for older grades when you want something fun that's still musical but doesn't require a lot of brain power, so they're great to keep on hand no matter what age you teach! What other songs and music lesson activities about snow do you use in your elementary music classes? I'd love to hear more ideas in the comments. Want to see how I incorporate winter and snow themes into all my grade levels K-6? Here's my full curriculum for January with full lesson plans and all the visuals and materials!

Read more "Snow Themed Lessons for Preschool Music"

Bad Bunny in Elementary Music

At this point I think most of us are aware of Bad Bunny's halftime performance at the 2026 Superbowl! And many of our students, especially upper elementary and older, will be aware of him now if they weren't already. Although most of his music isn't appropriate for elementary classroom use, I found the perfect song that is not only school appropriate but also can be used to teach and practice so many important skills and concepts I teach in elementary general music lessons!

Bad Bunny's halftime performance has brought new excitement and attention to Puerto Rico and its music and culture, and to Spanish language as well, which has been absolutely amazing. But it's hard to reference his music directly in elementary school because most of his music is made for adults, not children, and in a school setting especially would not be appropriate to share with students. But of course I was determined to find a way to feed off the energy of his performance! 

If you're looking for a song you can comfortably share with elementary students in its original form, I think "El Mundo Es Mío" is the one- the lyrics are not only school appropriate, but the message is empowering and the refrain is simple and easy for elementary students to learn even if they don't speak Spanish. 

Here are a few ideas for using this song in elementary music lessons:

1. Steady beat

Use the song as a track to practice showing steady beat through movement or instruments! With Kindergarten and 1st grade I love doing a game I call "follow the leader", where I call out each student's name throughout the song and that student becomes the new leader to come up with a steady beat move for the rest of the class to follow. With older students I will also review classroom instrument names playing techniques by handing out a few different instruments, then calling out a name of an instrument for only those students to play on the steady beat.

2. Rhythm practice

Use the song as a track to have students play rhythms with: they could practice reading rhythms from notation and then play it with the beat of the song, take turns improvising rhythms, or split up into groups and play different rhythms as ostinato patterns, with body percussion or with instruments (bonus points for instruments that are a part of Puerto Rican music, like guiros, maracas, or hand drums!).

3. Solfege

Ask students to identify the solfege in the refrain (la-re-do, la-re-do-ti). This is perfect if you are working on presenting or practicing low la and low ti. Once they have aurally identified the solfege, practice singing the refrain with Curwen hand signs, or have students notate it on the staff. I like using mini erasers and other small manipulatives as note heads for students to practice notating solfege, and I think my bunny mini erasers will be perfect for this!

4. Rap writing

Teach students the brief refrain, "el mundo es mio, el mundo es tuyo". Ask students to think of something that they're proud of about themselves, and then figure out how to say it with the beat in an 8-beat phrase. Have a few students take turns saying their line about something they are proud of, then have the whole class sing the refrain, then a few more students say their line. You could even use a karaoke track of the song to do it with. This could tie into or lead into more lessons to practice developing "flow" in rapping: here are some lesson ideas for teaching rap skills in elementary music.

Of course this is also the perfect opportunity to explore the music of Puerto Rico more broadly as well! Here is a lesson plan for Ambos A Dos, a Puerto Rican game song I love using with Kindergarten, and another set of lessons for El Coqui, a frog song from Puerto Rico I use with 2nd grade. You can search for all my blog posts on Puerto Rico, or on Spanish language songs, on this page. This would also be a great time to explore Puerto Rican musical styles like Reggaeton, Plena, or Bomba... more on that to come. 

Are you planning to talk about Bad Bunny with your students at all? Have you found other ways to incorporate his music in your elementary music lessons? I'd love to hear your thoughts and ideas in the comments. 

Read more "Bad Bunny in Elementary Music "

Ice Skating Themed Elementary Music Lessons

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

Skating by Stephanie Leavell

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

Skating by Vince Guaraldi Trio

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

Paper Plate Skating

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

Skater's Waltz by Émile Waldteufel

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

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

Read more "Ice Skating Themed Elementary Music Lessons"

Making the "Other" Familiar

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

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

Normalize, not exoticize.

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

Watch your language,

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

Focus on transferable skills.

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

Learn from the source.

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

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

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