Getting In Shape for Back to School

Maybe it's because I'm getting older but... I've been thinking a lot more about taking care of myself physically this back to school season. In previous years I thought a lot about getting myself mentally/ emotionally prepared with lesson plans, organization systems at home, etc, but this year I'm trying to be more intentional about getting my body ready for going back to teaching- here's what I'm doing to get in school shape now that I'm a few weeks away from the first day of school.

1. Sing More

This is actually one thing I've done consciously for several years now but it's worth mentioning: I am intentional about singing more throughout the day as the school year approaches. I've found it helps so much with vocal stamina when I do this, and I lose my voice a lot less than I used to! Plus of course the side benefit is my improved mood from singing more :) I just turn on my favorite songs and sing along whenever I can!

2. Eat at Regular Times

One of my favorite things about summer vacation is snacking. Eating whenever I feel like it, and not having to shove food down my throat, is such a luxury! But I'm trying to get my stomach and my body used to only eating at meal times, and specifically at the meal times I have during the school year.

3. Sleep More

I tend to keep a pretty consistent sleep schedule even in the summer time so I don't have to start getting used to waking up earlier (but if you are one of those people who likes to sleep in late in the summer, I would switch my wakeup times a few weeks before to adjust), but sometimes in the summer I do stay up a little later watching a show, reading a book, or talking to a friend because I know I can sleep in- I'm trying to hold myself accountable to getting to bed like I have a full week of teaching ahead. Honestly it gives me more energy and puts me in a better mood so I can better enjoy these last few weeks of vacation anyway!

4. Exercise

This has been the most dramatic addition to my back to school preparation this year. I have never been good at motivating myself to exercise on purpose, especially during the school year, so the second half of this summer I've really tried to commit to doing at least 10-20 minutes of some type of exercise each day. What I'm realizing is that I'm going into the school year so much more in shape than I have in the past, and I really think (hope) that will help me with the exhaustion I normally feel at the beginning of the school year, even just from classroom setup!

I don't think anything on this list is revolutionary, but I hope it serves as a reminder for all of us to take care of ourselves this year! Let me know in the comments what you're doing to get yourself ready physically for the start of the school year.

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Instruments of the Orchestra

In this post, I'm compiling all of my lesson ideas, teaching strategies, and resources for teaching students about the instruments of the orchestra. If you need ideas for how to teach the instruments across all the elementary grade levels, or just looking for some new resources to add to your toolbox, you're in the right place!

Just like any other concept, I sequence my teaching of instruments- both of the western orchestra and other instruments in general- across grade levels. I start introducing a few instruments in Kindergarten, and then gradually build on that knowledge all the way through 6th grade. Check out this post for all the details on when I teach what:

Besides those focused units and lessons for students to learn about the various aspects of the instruments of the orchestra over the years, I also include quick review of instrument names, families, and characteristics in lesson warmup activities to make sure students don't forget what they've learned as much from year to year. Here are 5 different student-led warmup activities I use in various grades to review and practice:

A lot of the lesson activities I use for introducing students to various instruments are pretty straight-forward, but one of the concepts I find can be challenging but also important is the categories or families of instruments. Here are my top 3 lesson activities I have found most successful for teaching instrument families:

The most important resource for teaching students about instruments is high-quality performance examples where they can see and hear how the instrument works! Here are 3 posts with some of my favorites to share with my students- I try to share different ones in each grade level so they get to see a wide range:

I hope this gives you some new ideas to try in your classroom! If you have any questions or other ideas to share, please leave them in the comments. If you want to see my favorite lesson ideas and resources for other general music concepts, go to the general music concept index!

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Elementary Music Classroom Student Jobs

Giving students jobs is a great way to give them a sense of ownership and responsibility in the classroom, but the traditional way elementary homeroom teachers use them won't work for music, art, PE, and other subject specialists because with hundreds of students to teach and dozens of classes there's no way we can keep track if we assign each student to a specific job! I came up with a different way to assign jobs that makes sure everyone has a job, but makes it incredibly easy for me to manage, and they genuinely make my life easier and help class run more smoothly! I've written about my system a few times but I've made some changes in recent years so I decided it's time for an update.

The basic idea is that I split up the class into color teams based on their assigned seats (I use color teams for so many things- read about those here), and each team has a job (rather than assigning individual students to each job). I have 6 teams, so I rotate the jobs every half of a trimester so everyone does each job one time over the course of the year. This makes it so much easier for me because I only have to remember 6 jobs, and I can use the same job assignments for every class in the whole school! 

Over the course of the last 10 years using classroom jobs, I have changed the jobs that I have a few times. I've now been using the same jobs for several years and I feel confident that these are the ones that work best for me:

Teacher Helper- help with random things (turn off lights/ close door/ run an errand/ etc)

Warmup Leader- lead the warmup activity at the beginning of each lesson (read more about how I start class with student-led warmups in this post)

Supplies- hand out things like pencils, instruments, papers etc

Cleanup- collect things like pencils, instruments, papers etc

Line Leader- lead the class to the door at the end of class (read more about my specific lineup procedure and my end of class procedures in this post)

Compliment- give another student a compliment at the end of class (they each have to pick someone not on their team and say something specific and positive- it doesn't have to be about music class)

Other jobs I've used over the years include Sanitizer (during covid), Attendance (to let me know where any missing students are), and Peace Keeper (to help with any students who are upset etc). I've found those responsibilities work better as general things I ask someone to do as needed rather than an assigned job, especially when it's assigned to a small group.

When they are done well, having classroom jobs not only gives students a sense of ownership and responsibility but it genuinely makes my job easier and helps transitions run more smoothly and quickly. The keys to making them work so they aren't more trouble than helpful are to give students opportunities to practice and learn how to do their jobs at the beginning of each rotation, and to plan out transitions and procedures with the idea in mind that students will be helping with those tasks. 

Giving students time to practice is especially important for the supplies and cleanup jobs, because the students need to know where things go and how they are supposed to be carried correctly (especially if it's instruments). I have to remind myself, each time something new comes up, to be very specific in explaining how to get things out/ put them away, and be patient as they do it a little more slowly the first time or two (especially in the younger grades). The nice thing is once they get it, I can have students handing out supplies while I'm giving directions, other students are moving into position for the next activity, etc and it all moves much more smoothly and quickly while also giving students a much greater sense of ownership.

I've found one of the best ways to help these student-led transitions go smoothly and quickly is to think about where and how I'm storing things to make them easy for students to find and maintain. Having things organized by color teams (as explained in this blog post) and stored on open shelving at accessible heights for students (I explain my thought process on that in this post) makes it so much easier for students to actually get out and put away things independently.

Similarly with the warmups, I plan out the warmup activities based on what I know students can easily lead without me having to give a lot of explanation or help, and I try to remember to make sure they know how to do something when it is their first time, which usually just means I model it for them first and then have them come and take over. It doesn't take a lot of time at all if the activity is straight-forward- this post has all of the different simple activities I use so that they can successfully be student-led.

If you have any questions about how I do student jobs in my elementary music classes, please leave a comment and I'd be happy to get back to you! I really think they have made a positive difference in my classes and I am so happy with how they work. 

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Poi in Elementary Music

I've been teaching a unit on Maori music in my 2nd grade general music class for years, and poi was something I started briefly mentioning a few years ago but didn't spend a lot of time on. This past year I put a lot more focus on it because my students were moving quickly through the curriculum, and I don't think I will ever go back! Here are some resources and lesson ideas for incorporating poi in your elementary music curriculum.

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First, I think it's important to contextualize poi for your students, especially if you are, like me, not Maori. Poi is a traditional dance from Maori culture that has since been taken around the world and adapted to different tools. This video gives an overview of the history and origins of poi, and this video shows Maori people explaining the significance of poi in their own words (this one would be good to show students). Some students may be familiar with things like fire poi or glow poi, which are different from traditional Maori poi in the tools and the movements they use- those can be a good connection point but it's also good to show what Maori poi specifically is like both in the past and today. I show a series of videos (over the course of the unit) that show traditional poi and how poi continues to be a significant part of Maori and New Zealand culture today, in this order:

In terms of actual poi for students to use, there are a lot of options. For a long time if I did have students try it out I just used the movement scarves I already had to let students practice the moves without needing to prepare any new equipment, and that worked fine for a quick activity or two, so you can always start there (making sure students are seeing what actual poi are like and explaining that we're just using the scarves to practice the moves). I know many people have also used knee-high socks with a tennis ball, or anything soft balled up really, in the foot. If you have a lot of socks you can get somewhere for free or cheap then this could be a good step up so kids can actually experience a little more closely the feeling of swinging something with a ball on the end that they can use to tap rhythms etc. I found that when I actually went to look at buying a bunch of socks in bulk to make a "cheap version" to use as poi, they were in fact not that cheap (to get a whole class set)! So I went the route that many who are actually learning poi use and made them out of rope.

I wanted to make my poi in the colors of my color teams (if you know me you are not surprised) so I got all 6 colors of this rope. It was cheap and it worked really well, and so far has held up great, so I recommend it! Making a knot in the rope to create your own poi seems intimidating at first (or at least it was to me) but after watching lots of videos I got the hang of it and then I was able to bang out 60 poi pretty quickly while I mindlessly watched a movie. Here's a demonstration of how I made mine, but you can also look it up online like I did and find plenty of tutorials:

In terms of activities, there are lots of great resources out there to choose from depending on your curricular goals/ the concepts you want to teach. Poi are a great way to teach and practice steady beat, quarter and half notes, whole notes, duple meter (you can pair this with tititorea, like I did, which is traditionally in triple meter- see this post), or even high and low by having students move their poi high and low to match a melody. 

I incorporated poi with the Maori lullaby "Hine E Hine" because I wanted students to learn this song, which is one of the more famous Maori songs in New Zealand, and also to use it to have students begin to experience whole notes. Although this is not traditionally a poi song specifically, after we learned the song it was a great way to do some slow basic poi moves, criss-crossing across the body, spinning above their heads, and on each side, to practice the moves while also getting the feeling of the long notes. This was a great way to introduce notes longer than half notes and get students to physically demonstrate and experience them. 

For actually learning some basic poi moves and focusing more on the poi, the traditional Maori poi song "E Rere Taku Poi" is perfect. This video has children of different ages demonstrating the moves with Maori singers demonstrating the song- I just had students follow along with the video to learn the moves and after a few tries most of them were able to do it! 

Another great way to practice some basic moves in a fun way that is a little more challenging is with this "Spin Your Poi" song. I would not do with in the beginning, but I used this at the end of the unit to challenge the students who were getting it more quickly and do something more high energy with them:

Those are all the Maori poi lesson activities and resources I used. I hope this is helpful for you as you consider incorporating poi into your elementary music classroom- they are so much fun for the middle grades and a wonderful tool for experiencing rhythm, beat, and meter concepts especially, and of course a great addition to a unit on Maori or Polynesian music and culture. If you want to see all of the other lesson activities and resources I use to teach Maori music, you'll find those in this blog post, where you'll also find links to all of the other cultures I teach as units in my elementary general music curriculum. 

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