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.
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