3 Songs in Spanish for Upper Elementary Music

I love using songs in Spanish in my elementary music lessons. I have a high percentage of Spanish-speaking students in my school, and the students who don't speak Spanish are still usually familiar enough with the language that it's easy for them to learn the lyrics and a fun way to learn some new vocabulary while practicing musical skills and concepts. Here are 3 Spanish language songs I use with my 5th and 6th grade classes year-round (not just during Hispanic Heritage Month!) to teach specific musical concepts.

1. El Mundo Es Mio

This is the only song by Bad Bunny I've found that's appropriate for elementary school, and it's worth using simply as a way to bring the music and artists many of the students are listening to into the classroom! But I love using it as a template for practicing flow and rap writing. These may not be skills you're used to seeing listed in an elementary music curriculum because most center skills and concepts from Western classical art music, but I believe they are very important to include in a well-rounded, inclusive, decolonized elementary music curriculum- you can read more about how I teach rap in elementary music in this post, and more about my thoughts on how to more authentically incorporate hip-hop into elementary music curriculum in this post.

If you aren't familiar, here is the song "El Mundo Es Mio". It has a very simple refrain that students can pick up immediately that translates to "the world is mine, the world is yours", and the rest of the lyrics basically are about believing in yourself/ don't listen to the haters. After introducing the song and learning the refrain, I have students each write an 8-beat rap about something they are proud of about themselves. I use this lesson after they have already been practicing flow for a bit, so I play the backing track for the song while they think and tell them to make sure their lyrics fit with the track. Then I have a few students rap their lines in a row and then have the whole class sing the refrain, then back to a few more students rapping their lines followed by the refrain until we go through the whole class. Because it's a slower beat students have an easier time fitting their lyrics with the track in a way that sounds good, and it's a great way to build classroom community because students naturally start hyping each other up during the whole activity. You can see more ways I used the song in my lessons to teach other musical concepts with different grade levels after his superbowl half time performance in this blog post.

2. Tutuca

I just discovered this Argentinian concentration game/ hand clapping song this year and I love using it to practice improvisation! Here's a demonstration of the game- basically each student takes turns saying a 4-beat phrase using a combination of 4 Argentinian snack names, and the class repeats it back with motions that are assigned to each snack name. All of this needs to be done on the steady beat. I used the game this year as a way to get students used to improvising 4-beat phrases by teaching them the game but modifying it slightly so they are not allowed to pause before they say their pattern (as they sometimes do in the demonstration video). We start very slow and have the class echo back the patterns without the motions- just the words- and then once they get used to it start speeding up and then add in the motions. You can read more about the game and other lesson ideas using it in this blog post.

3. Al Citron (aka Acitrón)

This is the most commonly-used song in elementary music circles on my list and it's perfect for introducing and practicing dotted quarter- single eighth rhythms. It's a Mexican passing game that is pretty simple for students to learn (read my tips for teaching passing games in this post) and gets my older students to experience and practice maintaining a steady beat while singing the song with the target rhythm in it, which is no small feat at this age! I have students learn the passing game first while I sing the song, and then once they've gotten the hang of the passing I have them add the singing. After getting the passing game going with the singing added in I have students identify where the notes fall with the beats in the first line of the song to discover the 1.5 beat dotted quarter note. You can read more about how I use the song in my lessons, as well as other activities I use to practice the dotted quarter note rhythm, in this blog post.

I hope this gives you some new ideas to incorporate more Spanish language into your upper elementary music lessons! There are plenty more that I've done but these are definitely my favorites to come back to every year. If you want to see all of the lesson ideas, choir songs, and performance ideas using Spanish (and many other languages) I've shared over the years, you can see them all listed by language here.

Read more "3 Songs in Spanish for Upper Elementary Music "

What To Do With Those Scarves

If you are starting a new job in a new classroom and suddenly find yourself with a bunch of scarves you don't know what to do with, or you have had them for a while and feel like you're not getting as much use out of them as you should, this post is for you! In this post you'll find tips for managing their use with students, plus plenty of ways to use them in specific lessons as well!

1. Storage

I used to like the idea of wall-mounted storage for scarves, either by hanging them from a velcro strip or storing them in those containers with holes on the sides that are made for keeping plastic bags (like this). I still like those ideas but I have found for my purposes, I like being able to carry the set of scarves around rather than having them tied to one place and having to have students go get them from a specific place in the room. I have, over the years, accumulated quite a few scarves though, and I've realized it's important for whatever storage system I use to have enough space for students to be able to throw them in and fit without too much extra stuffing, so I have ended up splitting my scarves into cool colors and warm colors and keeping them in 2 separate bins:

The side benefit of this system, I've realized, is that it's easy to pick out specific color schemes, which is handy for some of my favorite scarf activities where I want cool colors to evoke water, rain, the ocean, ice, or snow, or warm colors to look like fall leaves, etc, and if we're using all the colors it's a little faster to have students put them away by calling their scarf color two at a time (one cool and one warm) to put away in two bins simultaneously. 

2. Management

Scarves don't present too many management headaches, but when I'm handing them out students often want to a) drape them over their heads, or b) ball them up and toss them (both of which are not particularly problematic, just distracting), and when they're waiting to put them away they want to spread them out perfectly on the floor and fold them into neat squares (which is very thoughtful of them but time-consuming when you're trying to transition quickly to the next activity). To help manage those behaviors I do 2 things: 1) give them something specific to do with the scarves when they are getting them out and putting them away, and 2) give them time to explore and choose what to do with the scarves at some point. 

With any instrument, prop, supply, etc, giving students time to explore the new item before demanding that they use it only in the way you instruct them is a really effective strategy. So the first time we're using scarves each school year, or if it has been a long time, I often will turn on some music and tell students they have until the end of the song to play with the scarf without leaving their spot (after spreading them out around the room). This gives them time to try throwing it, balling it up, putting it on their head, etc and not only "gets it out of their system", but gives students time to figure out how to manipulate it before they try to do anything specific with it.

Exploration time is obviously too time-consuming to do every time, though, so once they've had that chance the first time, in subsequent lessons I will tell students a specific way to hold the scarf/ stand/ sit as soon as they get the scarf. Often it is to get into whatever position we start the activity in, but sometimes it's totally unrelated- the main point is just to give them specific direction for what to do without having to tell them to sit there and stare at the new colorful toy I just put in front of them without touching it! 

For putting them away, I do the same thing. Sometimes I tell them to put it on their heads until I call their color, or drape it over their laps, etc. Other times, if we have the time for it, I will go around the room one student (or a small group of students) at a time and have them do a short song/ rhyme that ends with them putting the scarf away (like this flower song).

3. Lesson Activity Ideas

Scarf songs

My favorite way to use scarves is as a movement prop with a song. It can be a great way to help students demonstrate specific musical elements of the song, or connect with the lyrics with movements that go with the words, or a way to get students to sing with something that makes them a little less self-conscious and sparks their imagination. You'll find my top favorite songs for early childhood/ self-contained music classes in this post:

I also have to mention my other favorite singing game with scarves that I use with my middle grades: Draw a Bucket of Water. You can do it without scarves too, but it works best if you have scarves for students to pull back and forth while they sing. Here's a video showing the movement game if you aren't familiar- it's a great song to use to learn about same and contrasting sections.

Movement with instrumental pieces

Just like with scarf songs, scarves can be such a great tool for getting students to demonstrate specific musical elements of an instrumental piece of music. It can actually be a really useful assessment tool for that reason! I use it especially to have students demonstrate pitch, by having them move the scarf up for high notes and down for low notes, and to demonstrate form, by having them either use different predetermined moves for each section, or use a scarf for one section and put it down to do other movements for the other.

-The Bird from Peter and the Wolf is a great one to have students show pitch by making their scarf go up and down with the notes like the bird flying in the air.

-Aquarium from Carnival of the Animals is another one I have students show the notes going up and down with their scarves, pretending to be the fish swimming around in the water.

-Sylvia Pizzicato by Leo Debiles is my favorite song to use with scarves to have students show form. I have them tip toe for the A section and then pick up their scarves and twirl around with the melody for the B section.

Substitutes for other movement props

-If you've ever come across an awesome parachute activity (here are my favorites) and wished you could do it but didn't have the parachute and/or the space for a parachute, a lot of the moves can be done with scarves. Just have students hold the edge of their scarf with 2 hands and move their scarves the same way they would move the parachute! 

-I love teaching my students about poi in my unit in Maori music and I've now made my own out of rope for students to use (there's tutorial in that same post), but for many years I just used scarves to have students practice poi moves, and it works just fine! 

-Of course scarves can also be a great substitute for ribbon wands as well if you come across a great lesson activity that calls for those.

Other creative uses

-If you've ever had classes, especially in upper elementary/ middle school, that get icky about holding hands for movement or circle games etc, have them hold scarves in between each person and you can accomplish the same thing without dealing with the awkwardness of hand holding!

-I use some of my white or blue scarves to represent the "river" when I do my lesson on "Going On a Bear Hunt" with Kindergarten every year to practice steady beat! You can read about that entire lesson (highly recommend) in this post.

I hope this helps you find some new ways to use those scarves that have been sitting in your closet! If you're looking for more ideas for other movement props from parachutes to cups and so much more, check out this post:

Read more "What To Do With Those Scarves"

World Cup / Soccer Themed Elementary Music Lesson Activities

My students have been buzzing about the world cup the last few weeks and I'm thrilled they're so much more aware of it this time than my students have been in the past! With all the excitement around this major worldwide sporting event I knew I had to add in some soccer and world cup themed lesson activities before the end of the school year. Even if you're on summer break these would be perfect to start off the year in the fall, or use any time to grab your little soccer fans' attention!

Rhythm Play-Alongs

Of course my go-to easy option for tying in a certain theme is to use play-along videos, and there are some great ones for different rhythm elements out there! For example this one is super easy with just quarter notes and barred eighth notes, this one includes triplets, this one uses eighth-sixteenth combinations, this one has barred sixteenth notes, and this one includes eighth rests (but the first 2/3 of it only uses quarter notes/ rests and barred eighth notes if you want something easier).

Dance / Steady Beat Movement

I use the world cup theme songs from over the years for movement activities and dance games all the time because they are upbeat, school-appropriate, and the lyrics are always positive and energizing. I use them to practice steady beat by having students take turns coming up with a motion to do on the beat for the rest of the class to copy, or use the songs to play a game of freeze dance. There are lots of great ones but my favorites are Dai Dai from 2026, Waka Waka from 2010, and Dreamers from 2022. 

Instruments / Ensemble Playing

Another easy way to use the World Cup theme songs is as a backing track for instrument playing. Split the class up into small groups and give each group a different classroom instrument to play. For younger students point to or hold up pictures of the instruments to have them play the steady beat with the music, and for older students give each group an ostinato to play on your cue, layering them on top of each other (you could either do this by rote or have them read from notation). This is a great way to practice proper classroom instrument technique, ensemble listening/ playing, following a conductor, and if they're reading from notation, practice reading rhythms as well.

Vocabulary Review

All you need is a little soccer plushie and you can review any vocabulary you want! Write the vocabulary words on the board and have students stand at a distance and throw the plushie at the board. Whatever word or symbol they hit closest to they have to identify/ explain. Split the class into teams and have them take turns to earn points!

Music Around the World

The World Cup is a great jumping off point for exploring music from the countries they see represented in the tournament! I have units on several countries participating in the world cup this year that you could dive into, or just pull out a song or activity to add to your lessons: Korea, Japan, Colombia, Brazil, and New Zealand. I also have individual songs and lesson activities from many of the other participating countries- search by country on this page.

I hope this gives you some ideas to incorporate the World Cup into your elementary music lessons! Of course I'm sure there are plenty of other ways to tie into the soccer theme- I'd love to hear your ideas in the comments as well. And if you want to incorporate other sports, check out my previous posts on lessons using football, baseball, and ice skating themes!

Read more "World Cup / Soccer Themed Elementary Music Lesson Activities"

Scarf Songs for Every Season

I love using a simple movement prop to spark students' imagination when they are responding to music, and there is no simpler movement prop than scarves! I also love incorporating seasonal material when it fits well with the concepts we're working on, especially with my youngest students, so I've found some wonderful scarf songs for all four seasons that have been a hit with my early childhood and Kindergarten classes over the years. 

The nice thing about each of these is that the scarf movements for each one are pretty self-explanatory if you listen to the lyrics. One of the hardest things about teaching younger grades is how much material you need in each lesson to match their short attention spans! So I admit when I find new songs I often play the recording in class and just follow along with my scarf with the students until I learn it, then I'll switch to singing it myself (and eventually having the students sing with me of course). 

1. Fall: Blowing in the Wind

Technically this song is about the wind so I suppose you could use it in winter or spring as well, but for some reason I always find it fits so nicely with my other fall leaf songs. This is definitely my top favorite scarf song of all time!

2. Winter: Winter Scarf Song

My students love this one because of all the snow references! I am always amazed at how much students will ask to sing this song over and over again.

3. Spring: A Little Seed

The thing I love best about this song is that you can do it together as a class, but you can also use it to sing to each child individually and have them reveal their scarf "flower" at the end of the song to put it back in the container as a way to make the cleanup process go a little more smoothly.

4. Summer: Popcorn Kernels

I think I associate popcorn with summer because that's the only time I have time to watch movies? In any case I like to throw this one in at the end after we've done a longer movement activity with the scarves before we put them away.

I hope this gives you some fresh material to use with your younger students any time of year! What are your other favorite seasonal scarf songs to use with your students? I'd love to hear your favorites in the comments.

Read more "Scarf Songs for Every Season"

Music Teacher Planner December 2025

Each new year brings fresh motivation to get organized! I love looking through my planner from the first part of the school year over winter break before refilling it with fresh blank pages for the spring! Today you're coming with me to look through my planner from the first few months of the school year before we start fresh in January.

I actually showed the first few weeks of the school year in a separate video this fall. Here are my monthly and weekly planner pages from the end of August through the end of September:

And then here are the rest of the weekly and monthly pages through the end of December 2025, including a custom page I made to use over break! This is one of the things I love about using a printable planner like this- I can throw in different pages whenever I want to without feeling like I'm wasting anything and make it tailored to my needs.

If you're looking to get more organize in 2026 I've got you covered! This is the planner format I use, and you can see all of the Organized Chaos Planners designed specifically for music teachers here as well. If you have any questions about how I use my planner etc, please leave a comment and I'll be happy to help!

Read more "Music Teacher Planner December 2025"

New Ideas I Loved This Year

After teaching elementary music for almost 2 decades there are a lot of things that I can do on autopilot. I definitely have to think about a lot less things than I did my first year of teaching! But I also would get completely bored if I didn't mix things up, and of course every year bring fresh challenges and ever-changing students to teach. Here are the new things I did this school year that I loved. 

1. Djembe storage

I found myself with a very good problem this fall: I got one more set of the rainbow-colored djembes I love to use with my younger students to get a class set, and the storage setup I had been using no longer fit the extra instruments! My solution: by storing half of them upside down, they take up less shelf space and I can fit them all neatly in the same shelves.

2. Teaching passing games

I was so thrilled with this idea I already wrote an entire post on the topic but honestly, this has been maybe the most exciting new idea of the year for me. After years of struggling to get students to be successful with passing games, I realized that if I have them start in small groups and then gradually increase the group size until they are doing it with the full class, they are much more successful! Read about the full strategy and how I run it in my classes in the post below:

3. "Hip and Hop Don't Stop"

I excitedly bought this book several years ago knowing it would be perfect to teach fast and slow in place of the tired old tortoise and the hare story, and just never got my act together and it sat in my closet. This year I finally pulled it out and put some lessons together and they went just as well as I thought they would, PLUS I was able to bring some hip-hop skills into my Kindergarten curriculum in an authentic way. Click below to see the lesson plans I used:

4. Algonquin Water Song

Finding Native American music I can comfortably and confidently teach my students has always been challenging. When I came across this song that was specifically written to be sung by anyone, whether indigenous or not, that is also simple to learn, I was thrilled. I used it this year with Kindergarten, including for their performance in my annual International Music Festival, and it has been the perfect addition to our repertoire. Click below to learn more about the song:

5. "I Got a Letter"

This song is actually an old favorite from my first couple of years of teaching that I brought back, but the lesson plans I did to build community at the beginning of the year while introducing new rhythms to my 3rd graders were new, and they were so successful my students still talk about those lessons. Click below for the full lesson plans:

6. Taking personal days for myself

Some of you are probably going to shake your head in disbelief, and some of you are going to nod in understanding. This year, my 18th year of teaching, was the first time I took a personal day for myself. Don't get me wrong, I have used my personal days in the past, but only to take care of my kids when they've been sick or needed to go to the doctor. This year I felt myself getting pushed to the brink of burnout and I took a personal day to rest. I took another half personal day the afternoon after my morning concert to avoid pushing myself too much as well. I think this is a testament both to just how taxing this school year has been for me, but also to what I'm learning from the younger teachers entering the profession. I think there is definitely a balance we need to strike, but us "veterans" can learn a thing or two from the new teachers about keeping an eye on our own mental health and giving ourselves a break when we need one. 

Of course there are lots of other small things but that's a roundup of the highlights of new things I've tried this year in my classroom. What about you? If you haven't already, I encourage you to reflect on the new things you've tried this year, whether they were completely successful or not. It makes me feel proud to realize all the new things I've tried this year and now I'll remember to keep the successes for next year! Maybe you'll find some inspiration from my list to try in your classrooms next year. If you have any new ideas you've tried this year please leave them in the comments so we can all get fresh ideas from each other too!

Read more "New Ideas I Loved This Year"

Favorite Lessons for Teaching Dotted Quarter / Single Eighth Notes

The last couple of years I have finally found some successful lesson plans for introducing and practicing dotted quarter - single eighth note rhythms I like using with my 6th graders. This is a pretty advanced rhythm pattern and it has taken me a long time to find lesson activities that help students successfully read and perform the rhythm while also having fun! Here is the lesson I use to introduce this rhythm pattern to my 6th graders in the fall that helps them be successful with it the rest of the school year.

By the time I introduce dotted quarter and single eighth notes in 6th grade, they already know quarter notes, eighth notes, the single eighth- quarter- eighth "syncopa" pattern, and dotted half notes, so they have all the building blocks to understand the concept. But I've found it's still quite challenging to get students to really be fluent with the rhythm and be able to decode it from notation as well.

The biggest key to success has been finding a song that gets students to feel the beat while performing and hearing the rhythm pattern over and over, and for that I have found "Acitrón de un Fandango" (aka

"Al Citron") to be the key to success. If you haven't heard of this Mexican passing game song, you can read more about the song, including the various versions of the lyrics and translations, here. This is a clear recording by native speakers (although honestly I don't play any recordings with my 6th graders because they're more likely to roll their eyes if I do). The basic idea is to pass something around the circle on the beat until you get to the last 3 beats of the verse, where you tap back and forth before passing- here's a video showing the game:

As with most singing games with upper elementary/ middle school grades, I start by challenging them with the game first before I have them sing. First I have them practice passing bean bags or rhythm sticks around the circle on the beat while I sing. Once they can do that and they've heard the song a few times, I tell them to tap back and forth on "triqui triqui tran", and continue to have them focus on just passing. Once they can do that, we go back and I up the ante by telling them they have to be able to sing while doing the passing (this way they are less focused on being self conscious about singing and more focused on showing off that they can beat the challenge)- I teach them the song and then we add it back to the game. Obviously once they can do that then we repeat it and try to increase the speed, then we make it a game where if you mess up, you sit out, and the circle gets smaller until there are only 2 students left standing!

As a sidenote: I finally this school year figured out how to make this game, and all the other passing games I've used in the past, successful again after finding them frustratingly difficult post-pandemic. I wrote an entire post about my process here but basically I found that having them practice the passing game in smaller groups first and then gradually making the circles bigger works. Now I am enjoying teaching passing games like this one again! 

Once they have sung the song many times and felt the beat with it in their bodies, I ask students to tell me how many beats the word "un" is in the first line where we sing "un fandango". I have them pat the beat while I slowly sing it so they can see where the notes fall with the beat, and eventually they figure out that it is 1.5 beats long. Then I introduce the dotted quarter note, reminding them what they learned about how dotted notes work when they learned dotted half notes in 4th grade. From there it's an easy final step to figure out how many beats the next syllable is and recall the single eighth note they learned in 5th grade with the "syncopa" pattern.

Once they've been introduced to the notation and they've thought through how many beats each note is in the melody, I have half of the class pat the beat while the sing, while the other half of the class claps the rhythm while they sing. Once they can do that, we remove the singing so they are just clapping and patting. 

Over the next few lessons we practice the rhythm and notation more with other songs and with rhythm play-alongs that include the new rhythm. My favorite videos to use for this are:

Autumn Trail by Ready Go Music

Game On by Ready Go Music

Of course there are lots of other great songs with dotted quarter/ single eighth notes that we use to practice them throughout the year, but this is definitely my favorite song to use to introduce them and it has finally helped my students be successful with the new rhythm! What is your favorite song for introducing this tricky rhythm pattern? I'd love to hear more of your favorites in the comments below. And if you want to see my favorite lessons for teaching other specific rhythmic elements, you'll find them all in this post:

Read more "Favorite Lessons for Teaching Dotted Quarter / Single Eighth Notes"

Teaching Passing Games

Has anyone else found passing games harder and harder to teach the last 5 years or so? I don't remember it being this difficult for students to grasp when I started teaching, but the last several years it has been a struggle for my students to successfully do passing games and honestly, most of the time I've ended up having to move on without the class ever fully being able to do it correctly, which just leaves us all frustrated. This school year after talking to some of my elementary music colleagues I tried a new strategy to scaffold my instruction for passing games and it has been highly successful! I'm so relieved to have a way to make passing games fun and successful again. 

I have always loved including passing games as part of my elementary music lessons (I have a few of my favorites at the end of this post if you're interested). They are a great way to reinforce steady beat and meter, get older kids to sing while they're distracted with a different challenge, and foster teamwork. But the last several years I went from looking forward to teaching them to dreading them because every time it seemed like the lessons would end in frustration! My colleagues and I were commiserating about this back in the fall and together we came up with an idea to help students be more successful, and it has turned out to be genius.

I still start teaching passing games by showing them the movements/ song with all the students facing me and mirroring my movements. It's important for them to practice doing the movements and the song without the added confusion of having the people you're facing across the circle doing it "backwards", or the risk of the people next to you doing it wrong and messing you up!

The next step has been the key to my students' success: instead of moving to a circle with the full class to learn how to do it as a passing game, I have them get into small groups of 3-4 students (in my case, my color teams) and practice doing it in a tiny circle with just their small group. I am able to walk around and correct students without trying to correct the whole class at once, and once students in a group can all get it they can play without having to wait for the whole class to figure it out. 

I tell students when they start that they get to "level up" whenever they complete a level. Leveling up is just adding another group to theirs! So when I see 2 small groups are successfully doing the passing game, I tell one group to join the other to make a larger circle and try again. Adding the level of competition is definitely motivating for everyone, and the students who struggle are a lot less embarrassed and catch on more quickly because they don't have the entire class yelling at them for messing them up.

Because I can identify the students that are struggling more easily in small groups, I can not only help them more easily without correcting them in front of the whole class, but I can also strategically place myself next to them when they level up to the full class circle. I also have found the stronger students will do the same thing and intentionally put themselves next to the ones who are always late to pass etc to help keep them on the beat.

This has been a complete game-changer and I'm so happy to bring the fun back to our passing games again! If you haven't done them before I highly recommend giving some of these a try with your upper elementary students- because they reinforce steady beat they are a great way to experience new meters and rhythms or just add some interest to a song you want them to sing.

Escatumbararibe

Bhombela

Al Citron

Take Five

I've done plenty of others but those are some of my top favorites! If you want to see the full lesson plans for these, you can find them in the Organized Chaos General Music Curriculum. If you have other favorite passing games, or teaching hacks that have helped your students learn them, please leave them in the comments!

Read more "Teaching Passing Games"

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.

Read more "All of the Snowflakes: winter composition lesson"

Call and Response Songs

One of the first things I teach in Kindergarten is call and response singing. After working on singing voice and echo singing, it's so fun when students are able to sing their own part independently with call and response songs! There are lots of great ones out there, but today I'm sharing my current top favorite call and response songs, as well as my process for teaching call and response.

I introduce call and response after students have been introduced to echo songs and have consciously identified that in echo songs, someone sings something and then someone else sings the same thing after (here's my blog post on echo songs if you want to see the songs and teaching process I use for that). Once they're comfortable with echo songs, I introduce the first call and response song, "John the Rabbit" (more on the song below), by having them practice singing "oh yes" on la (in la-based minor) and then telling them to sing "oh yes" every time I point to them. First I just sit there silently and point out to them at random intervals to sing "oh yes". Once they can do that, I start singing (on la/ do/ mi) things like, "no matter what I sing when I point to you you sing..." then point to them for them to sing "oh yes". I go back and forth, recitative-style, until they are all consistently able to sing "oh yes" instead of copying me, then launch straight into the song. 

After we've learned the song and sung it a few times we discuss that our parts were different, not the same, and I compare it to if I called someone on the phone and they answered by copying what I say: that would be rude! Instead of copying, people answer, or "respond", when you call them. That is what a call and response song is. I put my hands in a traditional phone signal with thumb and pinky and have them practice saying "call" with one phone hand up to their face, and "and response" with the other hand. I've found having different motions connected to echo and call and response really aids with memory, and even if they can't remember the vocabulary right away (especially multilanguage learners), they can show they remember the concept with the hand signs.

1. John the Rabbit

There are a few versions of this song but I prefer the minor key version like the recording linked above, mostly because it's what I was introduced to first, honestly, but also because I like to throw in minor tonality with my youngest grades whenever I can! After introducing the song like I described above, I pull out my rabbit puppet and tell them this time, only the student John the Rabbit looks at is going to sing the response, and I have students sing it individually. Besides having an incredibly simple response part, I like using this as my first call and response song because I can quickly assess their ability to hear and produce the tonal center and sing on pitch independently with this activity, plus the students love doing it with the rabbit!

2. Who Fed the Chickens

This Ella Jenkins song is a great song to use as a 2nd call and response song because it also has a very simple response part, it ties into the farm theme that many Kindergarten classes do in the fall in other subjects, and it's another great way to involve individual students again. After introducing the song and singing it together a few times, I've done it a couple of different ways: by having individual students sing "I did" when my chicken puppet looks at them, and by pointing to specific students while I sing the call and having all the students respond with the name of the student (e.g. "Jaden did"). 

After learning the song and doing it a few times, I ask students to identify whether the song is echo or call and response by silently showing the motion for the one they think it is, which allows every student to answer rather than calling on 1 student to verbally identify it.

3. Ambos a Dos

I introduce this song from Puerto Rico by playing the beginning of the recording linked above and telling students to hold up one finger if they hear one person singing alone, and all ten fingers if they hear a group singing together. After they listen to it once this way, I tell them to do it again, but this time pay attention to whether the solo and group parts are the same or different so they can decide if it's an echo or call and response song. Once we have labeled it as call and response, I teach students the move that is used with the song in the children's game, where you walk forward 3 steps and kick, then take 5 steps back (like in this video). I have the whole class get in a line facing me and I move with the solo part and they move with the group part. Once they can do that, I have everyone sing the words "matarile" and "matarile, rile, ron" with the response parts (if they haven't already spontaneously started singing it while practicing the moves). I have a whole blog post on this song, and different ways I've used the song, here.

Introducing echo and call and response singing is foundational for teaching part singing later on, so these are really important skills to teach in early childhood. I hope this gives you some fresh ideas to use in your classroom, and I'd love to hear about other call and response songs you love using with this age group in the comments (there are plenty more great ones)! If you want to see the full lesson plans with visuals, sheet music, and more for teaching call and response, you can find them in my Kindergarten music curriculum here.

Read more "Call and Response Songs"

Favorite Fall Songs

I've always loved using songs about fall in my music lessons, so I've been thrilled to discover some new ones my students and I have absolutely loved this year to add to my collection! Today I'm sharing my top three favorites that I've found this year.

I've been using these songs so far with my self-contained class, which has a wide span of ages and abilities, and they have been perfect, but they would be fun to use with almost any grade, especially on those weird schedule days before a holiday or something when you just want to do something fun. With younger grades they can be used as originally intended, but with older grades these would also be great to have students create a full performance with instrumentation because they are short and have simple chord structures!

For each song, I've linked where you can get the sheet music and audio recordings, and included a video that shows the lyrics as well. 

1. "Falling Leaf" by Stephanie Leavell

If you don't know Stephanie Leavell (aka "Music for Kiddos"), you need to. Especially if you teach early childhood or self-contained music. I don't know why I didn't find this song until this year but it is the perfect energy level and perfect to use as a movement activity! I had students hold scarves one time, and also did it with students holding leaves, and it was a hit every time.

2. "Blowing in the Wind" by Stephanie Leavell

Another winner from Stephanie! This one could work in winter too, actually, but I love it for fall because of the minor tonality. This one is explicitly for scarves and is a great way to introduce students to different ways to move with scarves.

3. "Autumn is Here" by Rob DelGaudio

Rob DelGaudio is another fantastic elementary music resource and I'm not sure why it took me so long to discover this song! It is an additive song with suggestions for instruments you can use for each line that's added, as well as motions to go along with all the words.

I live in an area that is famously beautiful in autumn so when it comes to celebrating fall, we go pretty hard around here! If you're looking for more fall-themed songs and lessons to try, here some other tried and true favorites I've shared in previous years:

If you've used any of these songs I'd love to hear how you used them, and which grades you've used them with! And if you have more great songs for fall, please leave them in the comments.

Read more "Favorite Fall Songs"

Summer Reading for Music Teachers 2024

I know some teachers prefer to turn their teacher brains entirely off during summer break- and that's totally fine- but if you enjoy having the time and mental energy to reflect on teaching and are looking for books that will get you re-energized and invigorated for the new year, and give you some big ideas to chew on, I highly recommend these!

this post contains affiliate links

As much as I enjoy drinking my coffee slowly, going to the lake with family, and taking extra naps during the summer, I also love reading and reflecting on big picture ideas that get me excited and reinvigorated to teach. I know I'm a little late sharing this list but after reading several fantastic books at the beginning of this summer I had to share!

The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness by Jonathan Haidt

I nodded my way through this entire book, and it helped me think concretely about thoughts I have been having but haven't been able to fully articulate while also giving concrete solutions and action steps I am eager in implement both as a parent and as a teacher! 

Culturally Responsive Teaching in Music Education (2nd edition) by Constance L. McKoy and Vicki R. Lind

This was one of those books that I honestly don't know how it took me this long to read. The many examples directly from music teachers, and all of the suggestions and ideas that directly apply to music teaching specifically, are so wonderful. 

Unlocking Learning Intentions: Shifting from Product to Process Across Disciplines by Shirley Clarke

OK so this one I actually read last fall when I was stressing about the new mandate in our district to post written learning targets and success criteria for every lesson, but it's worth mentioning because I know many districts have similar mandates and are similarly giving inadequate or misguided guidance on how to do it, especially for us music teachers. Guess what?!? When it says it gives practical suggestions for each subject area, it actually includes music! Shocking, I know, and incredibly helpful. (If you want to read more about how I have implemented these ideas in my classroom you'll want to catch up on this previous post.)

I hope you'll take the time to read these if you haven't already- I HIGHLY recommend them all! And if you haven't seen my previous music teacher reading suggestions, you should definitely check out my previous recommendations as well below:

 

What have been your favorite books related to music teaching? I need more book recommendations for the rest of the summer, so let me know (and share with everyone else) in the comments below!

Read more "Summer Reading for Music Teachers 2024"

Lesson Plans that Work Between Spring Break and Summer

Finding lessons that will keep students engaged after spring break is difficult. Younger students are antsy, older students are checked out. On the one hand you don't want to try to teach new concepts because they're probably not going to remember it by next fall anyway, but there's no way you can "tread water" and just review for 2 months without losing them either! I've found there's a certain sweet spot that keeps students engaged without going beyond what they can handle that works really well for me and my students between spring break and summer that I highly recommend implementing to make the end of the school year actually fun and not something to just hope to survive!

I've realized there are some common threads in all the lessons that I've found effective this time of year, no matter the age group: they take skills and concepts that are comfortable and put them in fresh new contexts. The lesson activities feel new and interesting but not intimidating. Basically I imagine the "zone of proximal development" shrinks after spring break- that space that is past the "I already know this and it's boring" but not at the "this is too hard so I'm checking out" still exists and is still what I'm aiming for, but it's a much smaller circle than it is the rest of the school year. 

1. Application instead of review

I definitely plan lesson activities that are "just" review at the end of the year as well, but I certainly can't do that for a full 6 weeks without students checking out! I've realized that what really works is essentially taking the skills and concepts I want to review and teaching students to apply them in different ways. This is where the units I do each spring on a specific culture's music work really well (see those plans in this previous post), as well as units I've done this time of year with older students on composition. These lessons definitely aren't just reviewing things they've already done, but they are taking those fundamental skills and concepts they've been working on all year and applying them to a new context and/or combining them in new ways. It feels new and exciting- kids go home saying "guess what I learned today"- but it doesn't require much mental stretch, it doesn't feel overwhelming.

2. New material instead of new skills

I learned early in my career that as soon as I give up on teaching and just try to fill time, even if it's fun activities, I start to see a lot more problematic and disruptive behaviors in my classroom. But that doesn't mean their brains are ready to handle, let alone retain, new learning! The key is to keep the "how" new, not the "what". So I'm taking concepts and skills they're familiar with already and applying them to new contexts, whether that's new genres like the music from a new culture, or new ways of contextualizing like composition projects that give students a chance to combine and implement concepts and skills in new ways instead of practicing them in isolation. 

Maybe this is a strange analogy but I think of this phase of the school year kindof like retirement: you want to still be productive and have meaning and purpose in life, but you don't want to work too hard- you want to celebrate the work you already did and enjoy the fruits of your labor and the relationships you've built along the way. 

I really believe there are a lot of different factors that can contribute to a positive experience between spring break and summer, and I know one thing that can hold teachers back from planning lessons like I've described here is the sheer burnout we feel from just being exhausted ourselves. One thing that can help is making our own mental and emotional wellbeing a priority- I've written about what I do to maintain a positive mindset for myself at the end of the school year in this post. And hey, the links above to my posts on music from different cultures and composition projects will take care of the lesson planning work for you! Here's to thriving in the final stretch between spring break and summer!

Read more "Lesson Plans that Work Between Spring Break and Summer"

Teaching Major and Minor

To be honest I was shocked to realize recently that I've never written a blog post on my favorite ways to teach major and minor- I love teaching tonality in my upper elementary grades! It's so much fun when they finally start to get it. They always seem to feel like they've unlocked the mysteries of the universe! Here are a few of my favorite ways to teach the difference between major and minor.

1. Demonstrate familiar songs in both tonalities

I think the easiest way to demonstrate the difference between major and minor is to take a song students already know that is originally major and show them what it would sound like in a minor key. When I'm first introducing the concept I'll play a few different major and minor chords and scales on the piano for them to get the basic idea, then I play something simple like "Twinkle Twinkle" in the original major key and then change it to minor (added bonus= students always think I'm a genius when I whip this out). I also use youtube videos that do this exact thing: I love showing the original "What a Wonderful World" and then this minor version by Chase Holfelder, and this compilation of major songs turned minor AND minor songs turned major by The Gregory Brothers (note: I don't show this whole video- some of the songs included in the compilation I'm not comfortable showing in 4th/5th grade- but it's perfect to show an excerpt). These videos are also a good opportunity to tease out what else besides the tonality they've changed to make them sound happy or sad.

2. Sing and play 2 similar songs

One of my favorite ways to really get students to experience the difference between major and minor, once they've got the basic idea, is to have them sing and play instrumental accompaniment with 2 songs- one major and one minor- with a similar theme. For example when I do this in the fall with 5th grade, we compare the song "Down, Down, Yellow and Brown" and "Autumn Leaves Are Falling". They're both actually songs meant to be done with much younger children, but that makes them perfect to learn both very quickly, and add accompaniment parts on barred instruments really easily, in one lesson to compare and contrast the two. I've done this other times of year with other themes, but the key is to pick really simple songs that can be learned quickly to get to the concept of tonality.

3. Listening examples

Obviously there's no substitute for listening to lots of different examples of major and minor tonalities. I actually like to take current songs students are familiar with from social media or the radio, but there are also really great collections on youtube like this one that I've used in sub lessons because it will play several in a row and give the answer after each one. Either way, I really try to find examples of minor songs that are fast and major songs that are slow, minor songs that have high notes and major songs that have low notes to try to throw them off and also get them to really focus in on the tonality and not just the immediate impression of happy vs sad. One great example is "Someone Like You" by Adele- most people will confidently say that song is minor but it's actually major! They don't believe me until I show them this minor version, then they hear the contrast. It always leads to really great conversations about why a composer would choose a major key for a song with those lyrics. "Panini" by Lil Nas X is a great example of a song everyone thinks is major but is actually minor.

These are all activities that I include in lessons starting in the middle of 4th grade into 5th grade, when we start getting into composing melodies in minor, and we continue to review with more and more complexity through 6th grade. I find that when I first introduce the concept they are easily thrown off if I play a minor chord on high notes or play a major song softly, but by 6th grade, my students are very good at distinguishing the two tonalities and it becomes almost second nature. If you want to see how I weave this concept into my upper elementary lessons, here is my curriculum set!

Read more "Teaching Major and Minor"