Lesson Warm-ups to Practice Pitch Letter Names

I've been using student-led warmups at the beginning of my elementary general music lessons for years now and I am a big fan! I've gotten a lot of questions about the warmups I do and how I do them, so today I'm sharing my favorite warmups to practice note letter names for treble and bass clef!

Most of my warmups are focused on practicing/ reviewing a basic skill or concept I want my students to practice regularly. Identifying the letter names of notes on the staff is definitely one of those things that is best learned through regular practice, so this is one I use a lot with my upper elementary classes.

You can read more about why I do student-led warmups and how I manage the logistics of warmups in general in this post, but essentially I have a small group of 2-4 students who are assigned to lead the warmup / opening activity / do now at the beginning of class. These warmups are super easy to implement and, for the upper elementary grades I use them with, one of the easiest ones to get buy-in because they don't require the leaders to "perform" anything in front of their peers.

1. Space and line note naming

This is the first one I use at the beginning of the year or when students have just been introduced to a particular staff (I introduce treble clef fully in 3rd grade, and bass clef in 6th). I have whole notes on each of the ascending spaces on one staff, and each of the ascending lines on another. Student leaders take turns coming up to the board and pointing to one space note, which the rest of the class then raises their hand to name, and one line note. **Important side bonus: I specify if I want the leader to point to a space or line note, and I switch up the order from person to person. There are always a few who seem to confuse the concept of line note vs space note so this is good practice for them, and a good assessment for me.

2. Scattered note naming

This one is almost the same as the first but I use this to increase the difficulty once students are comfortable with the notes in a particular clef. I put up a slide that has individual whole notes on their own (short) staff with the clef in front of each, scattered in random formation around the screen. Otherwise the process is the same: the leader points to a space/ line note (as specified by me) and the others raise their hands to name it.

3. Note naming: other variants

Once classes are really comfortable with naming notes with just whole notes, which really isolates the pitch element from rhythm and other elements, I throw in other variations:

1) use the same scattered formation of notes from #2 but this time have notes with different note values, like quarter notes, half notes, etc to mix it up

2) show an actual excerpt from an actual song, and have the student leaders point to random notes in the excerpt for the class to identify (bonus: I will usually do this with a song they already know, and ask them at the end if anyone can identify the song)

4. Note writing

The student leader is given a set of cards, each card having one alphabet letter for the 7 note names. Individual or small groups of students are given a dry erase marker and staff board. The leader pulls out a card to show the class, and they race to write the corresponding note on their boards and hold it up to show them. I actually use this one as a teacher-led lesson activity as well when they are first practicing notes in a new clef, but after that I use it as a warmup activity to review.

There are so many fun ways to put students in charge and practice naming notes! These only take about 3 minutes at the beginning of class and they really help keep a skill that really needs to be "drilled" regularly feel less like a chore. You can find my post on warmup activities for steady beat in here, and I'll share more warmups for other skills and concepts in a future post- if you have any questions or more ideas please leave them in the comments! 

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Lesson Warmups to Practice Steady Beat

I've been using student-led warmups at the beginning of my elementary general music lessons for years now and I am a big fan! I've gotten a lot of questions about the warmups I do and how I do them, so today I'm sharing my favorite warmups to practice steady beat!

Most of my warmups are focused on practicing/ reviewing a basic skill or concept I want my students to practice regularly. Steady beat is definitely one of those things I focus on heavily in Kindergarten and then just assume my older students don't need to practice it after that, but I've learned some students need more time to really solidify their sense of beat, and students need practice feeling and demonstrating the beat with different meters, tempi, and styles of music.

You can read more about why I do student-led warmups and how I manage the logistics of warmups in general in this post, but essentially I have a small group of 2-4 students who are assigned to lead the warmup / opening activity / do now at the beginning of class. These steady beat warmups are ones that I always have ready and probably use the most often out of all the warmups we do throughout the year because they are easy and active.

1. Movement Mirroring

Before class, I get an audio track ready. As soon as the class starts walking in, I start the track and pull a chair over in front of the students to start doing different moves on the steady beat. Everyone copies me for a while, then I call up one of the student leaders, and they take over leading the class in steady beat moves. The leaders keep going until I call up the next person or stop the track.

2. Music Selection

Before class, I have a slide ready with several different audio tracks embedded in the slide with just the same speaker icon for each one. I try to choose tracks that are different tempi/ styles/ etc. One of the student leaders picks a track at random from the slide, and all students choose their own moves to show the steady beat to whatever track was selected. After playing it for a bit, I stop the track, and the next student leader comes up and chooses a different track.

3. Movement Selection

I have a slide up on the board that shows picture icons for several different body percussion sounds (clap, snap, stomp, etc). I turn on some music, and student leaders take turns pointing to different icons, and the rest of the class does the corresponding move with the beat of the music.

4. Body Percussion Groups

Similar to #3, in this one I split up the class into 3 groups (since I have 3 rows of chairs), and assign each group/ row to one body percussion sound that is on the board. Then I turn on the music and student leaders point to one of the 3 that were assigned- only the group that was assigned that sound does the steady beat when the leader is pointing to their icon.

There are so many fun ways to put students in charge and practice steady beat! These only really take about 3 minutes at the beginning of class and they really help set the tone and keep things moving. I'll share more warmups for other skills and concepts in a future post- if you have any questions or more ideas please leave them in the comments!

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My Favorite Kindergarten Welcome Song

There's no better way to start early childhood music class than with a song! I've tried a few different ones over the years with varying success, but today I want to share my favorite one that I've stuck with for the last several years- it still hasn't gotten old for me all these years later!

I have been using the same welcome song to start my Kindergarten music classes for the last few years, and I realized I have never shared a post specifically about the song despite singing it at the beginning of pretty much every single Kindergarten music lesson for at least 5 years.

The original song is by Angelique Felix. I came across this video from her channel and knew I wanted to try it with my classes, especially since my Kindergartners seemed to have a particularly difficult time with directional language (left/ right, up/ down):

I made a few changes from her original version to make it work for me. First I changed the speaking part to be sung, and I changed the words slightly in the second line to "stretch your hands up to the sky" (honestly it was just easier for me to remember for whatever reason). I also of course sing it in a higher key that's more in the students' singing range. After doing the song a few times with the kids I quickly realized it was wise to change "turn your body round and round" to "turn your body ONCE around" to avoid the inevitable never-ending spin. So with those small changes, this is now how I do the song with my classes:

I love this song and more importantly, so do my students! It's the perfect way to start class with singing and movement but also get them all sitting down in their spots to start the first lesson activity. The great thing is, throughout the year if we are doing something standing up and it's time to sit down, I just sing the last line of the song and the students all join in with me to sing and sit. So much better than just TELLING them to sit! 

I know there are lots of other great ones out there- I'd love to hear your favorite welcome songs for Kindergarten/ early childhood in the comments below!

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Teacher Hack: make a perfect floor circle

I've been asked more times than I can count how I lay out my carpet spots on the floor to make a perfect circle- I know many teachers do this so today I thought I'd share my quick and easy way to make a perfect circle on the floor every time!

All you need is a piece of string and a piece of tape. Figure out where you want the center of your circle to be, and how big you want the circle to be (this might take some initial experimentation if you're figuring out a new classroom to know how big of a circle you need to give each student enough space to sit without running into the wall). Cut a piece of string the length of the circle's radius (from the center of the circle out to the edge), and tape the end of the string in the center of the circle. I actually have some extra floor spots I will never use because they are a color I don't need- the set I bought just happened to come them- so I taped the string to one of my extra floor spots and keep it that way so I can reuse each year (and it's easier to play around with where my center should be).

Now all you have to do is take the string and use it to measure out to where each spot should go! I always start with 4 spots in a box to divide the circle into quadrants, then do the spots halfway between each of those, to get the spacing between each spot even.

I know it's a little hard to see the string in the photos... here is a video explaining the process (don't mind my out of breath talking.... I was setting up my classroom with no A/C.... what else is new?!?). 

This is a simple trick but I hope this helps someone else's classroom setup a little easier! Stay tuned for a full tour of this year's classroom, I'm excited to show you!

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