We Are the Music Makers Podcast

Our repertoire in Kindergarten serves multiple purposes at the same time. From a musical standpoint, these songs and rhymes form the basis for all the other musical work we'll do in later years. Musical expectations about things like phrasing, tonality, meter, and form are constructed through active musical experiences in Kindergarten. But perhaps more importantly, this is also where we learn crucial skills about how to interact with each other in a group setting. What is it like to make music in a collaborative, collective ensemble? What will the overall tone of music class be? Ideally, in addition to building music foundations, we're also building a love for music class, a joy from being together, and the capacity to engage with many different types of musics on many different levels. Teaching Music Tomorrow In the new Kindergarten Music series on Teaching Music Tomorrow, Anne Mileski and I are talking about active Kindergarten experiences for developing musicianship skills in a play-based way. Click here to listen and learn more. And with that, let's jump in! Action Song: All Around the Brickyard What a great action song for entering the classroom, or any time throughout the lesson! This song has been well-loved across many places in America, but was collected in Illinois as a circle dance (McIntosh, 1957). Song Activity: In the classroom today, it's more commonly sung as a follow-the-leader, action game in which students suggest movements to replace the text. For example, “I'm gonna jump it and a jump it,” “I'm gonna wiggle it and a wiggle it,” etc. Consider starting with the teacher as the line leader, leading the class around the room and calling out different movements with each iteration. After a few rounds students can suggest their own motions, and eventually be the line leader instead of the teacher. Ball-Bouncing Game: Bounce High Bounce Low This is a Kindergarten classic! It's a great game to use at the beginning of the year, or after a break, especially when learning names. Singing Game Directions: To play the game, students stand in a circle with one student in the middle. That student in the middle bounces a ball on the strong beats of the song as the whole class sings. Instead of “Shilo,” the class sings the name of another student in the circle. The person in the middle bounces the ball to the chosen student and the two switch places. Repeat the activity wth different student names each time. To save time with choosing which student's name the class will sing in the next iteration of the song, I have also modified this game to have a solo singing component. The whole class sings the first four beats (“bounce high bounce low”) and the student in the middle sings “bounce the ball to __(student name)___.” Circle Game: Old Bald Eagle A classic play party, this singing game has been re-imagined for young music students in a classroom setting. In an interview, Jean Ritichie (1957) commented that Old Bald Eagle was often the last song they would sing at their “singing plays” before it was time to go home. This can make it another great song to use at the end of class, like “Caballito Blanco.”Singing Game Directions: Students create a circle with one student on the inside. That student walks around the inside of the circle as the class sings the song. At the end, the student in the middle chooses the student they are standing next two, and both students walk around the middle of the circle as the class sings “two bald eagles sail around.” Cumulative Song: Juanito Quando Baila How does young Juan like to dance? He dances with his feet, his hands, his fingers, his elbow…. Just like this! This Spanish song has been loved by many children across many Spanish-speaking countries, making it difficult to pinpoint an exact location for its origin. Kindergartners can add themselves to the collection of children across the world who love singing and moving to this Spanish song! additional Verses(2) Con el pie pie pie (foot)(3) Con la rodilla dilla dilla (knee)(4) Con la cadera dera dera (hip)(5) Con la mano mano mano (hand)(6) Con el codo codo codo (elbow)(7) Con el hombro hombro hombro (shoulder)(8) Con la cabeza eza eza (head) Song Activity: Sing the song and dance with each new addition to the text. This is a cumulative song. Each time through, add on one more body part to dance with! Echo Singing GAME: Charlie Over the Ocean By the time this singing game was recorded in its current version, it was no longer associated with its original social and political connotations. Like other mentions of Charles Edward Stewart in Scottish songs like “Over the River to Charlie,” Scottish songs with Jacobite references eventually became encompassed into play parties, then in children's singing games, and transitioned into the singing games we love today.Singing Game Directions: Students create a circle with a leader on the outside. The leader sings the song while skipping around the outside of the circle, and the rest of the class echoes. At the last line (“can't catch me”), the leader taps the student closest to them on the shoulder. Both students run around the circle, with the student who was just tagged trying to catch the leader. If the leader makes it back to the tagged student's spot, the student who was tagged becomes the new leader and the game begins again. If the leader is caught, they lead the game in the next round. Alternatively, consider playing the game with students in the circle sitting down instead of walking. Greeting Song: Bonjour, Mes Amis This activity is a hit at the beginning of my Kindergarten lessons! I've used it in other grades as well, and it's just as delightful. TranslationHello, my friends, hello!Song ActivityThere isn't a game or activity that accompanies this song, so this is one I have added. In this activity, I ask students to imagine how they would greet a friend if they couldn't use any words. We explore all sorts of non-verbal waves: waving two hands enthusiastically, wiggling fingers, Barbie wave, etc.With a few student ideas at a time, the teacher signs and shows different ways to wave for each phrase. Students copy the teacher's movements. Another day, students choose their favorite three silent ways to wave. Practice switching between the three waves, following the teacher as they hold up 1, 2, or 3 fingers. Students sing the song and wave with their first, second, and third movement choices as the teacher directs. Imaginative Play Song: Con Mi Martillo What could we build with our hammer? TranslationWith my hammer, hammer, hammer,with my hammer I hammerSong ActivityIn this activity I‘ve added to the song, my Kindergarteners love suggesting things we could make. Students imagine what we could build, the class sings the song as we pat imaginary hammers, and then we inspect our work. Each iteration of the song, the teacher discovers we have made a mistake following the directions, and have almost finished building something else entirely. Students suggest what we built by accident, and we sing the song again. LOCOMOTOR Pathway Song: Caballio Blanco This is another hit in my Kindergarten lessons, and another song that doesn't come with a standardized activity. Instead, I've added a movement activity to help us line up at the end of class. Translation: Little white pony, take me from here Take me to my home where I was born Song ActivityStudents sing the song and walk in a circle. (My students sit in a circle, so it's easy to stand and point our “noses and our toeses” in one direction.)At some point, the teacher breaks away from the circle and the class continues to follow. Explore different movement pathways around the room such as zig-zag, straight, curvy, etc.) With each iteration of the song, ask students to suggest how much further the little white pony has to travel until we're back home.Eventually the teacher leads the line of students to the door. Lullaby: Sulla Rulla Sulla Rulla is one of my favorite lullabies for Kindergarten, or any age! It's associated with Østerdalen, a valley in southeastern Norway. The phases, “sulla rulla,” or “sulla lulla,” are calming sounds used in many Nordic lullabies. Traditional performance practice would include an elongation of consonants rather than vowels, specifically with the “ll” sound. This song is sourced from the collection at Nordic Sounds. Move & Freeze dance: Las Estatuas de Marfil This singing game from Mexico is such a great way to practice movement and stillness! Montoya-Stier (2008) suggested that teachers might give categories of statues for students to explore (animals, etc.).TranslationLike the ivory statues, one, two, three, like thisSinging Game Directions There are several ways to play this game about ivory statues, all of which involve freezing in place at the end of the song. For Kindergarten, a fun way to play is to move around a circle, or around the room in open space, while singing the song. One student stands at the front of the room, facing the other students. At the end, all students freeze in their favorite statue shape. If anyone moves the person at the front of the room calls their name and they are out in the next round of the game. Movement Song: Just From the Kitchen This children's ring game was shared by the beloved singer, Bessie Jones. Bessie Jones is one of the most well-known singers from the Georgia Sea Islands, and has contributed tremendously to the field of children's music education through her preservation and dissemination of Georgia Sea Islands culture. The phrase, “shoo lie loo” was believed by Jones to be a joyful expression of gratitude. The song references children playing in the yard who periodically go into the kitchen and come back out with a handful of biscuits. Singing Game Directions: Students stand in a circle and sing the response. In the place of "Miss Mary", the lead singer sings the name of another student in the circle. That student improvises a movement as he or she travels to the opposite side of the circle. Singing Story: Aiken Drum The history of Aiken Drum is fascinating! The melody I notated here is from The melody I have notated here is from Crane (1878) and Forrai (1990), but there are many more tunes associated with the name, “Aiken Drum,” and even more stories about its origin. You can find more in the “sources and variants” section of the repertoire page. From my reading of the sources, this is a very old Scottish children's song that was recycled into a Jacobite ballad, and like “Charlie Over the Ocean,” this song isn't currently associated with the Jacobite cause or Charles Edward Stuart. Some other early versions include another character, Willie Wood, before Aiken Drum is introduced. Song Activity: In the classroom, students love changing the foods Aiken Drum was made of. For example: His head was made of a tomato, a tomato, a tomato....His hair was made of spaghetti, of spaghetti, of spaghetti...His nose was made of a strawberry, of a strawberry, of a strawberry… Winding Game: Caracol Col Col Winding games are delightful additions to Kindergarten music, provided every member of the group shows the self control to keep everyone safe!The text of this song is conducive to encouraging self-control, as students pretend to be very slow snails. Translation Little snail snail snail, Take out your horns and stand in the sun Singing Game Directions: Students hold hands in a line, with a leader at the front. The leader moves the line in an inward circle, creating a spiral like a snail. Eventually the leader turns around and unwinds the group. Fun & Games - where to find more I don't think I've met a person who loves Kindergarten music as much as my friend, Anne Mileski. Anne and I collaborate on the podcast, “Teaching Music Tomorrow.” If you're interested in more songs, games, and activities for Kindergarten music, I cannot recommend enough that you jump over to teachingmusictomorrow.com to listen to our latest podcast season about Kindergarten music!

There are times we come across a song or rhyme we know students would enjoy, but we might not be sure where it fits in the curriculum. How can we step back and imagine musical possibilities? What if we were to treat songs like musical prompts? In this post we talked about some ways to explore one rhyme with several different pedagogical lenses. Today we'll do the same for a song, Sea Shell. Here's an example of how one song might be used for three different pedagogical outcomes and three different age groups. This also shows how we might approach the song in different areas of learning: The first activities are for students who don't know the song. The next two, it's expected that students would know the song already. The 2nd grade activities are in preparation, before students are aware of the notation and label for half note. The 3rd grade activities are in practice, after students consciously know low sol. Each grade objective includes student choice in the activities.Let's jump in! The SongThis song is sourced from the collection at Holy Names University. Echo Singing & Vocal ExplorationKindergarten / 1st Grade This activity is designed for young musical learners in the early grades. Before the Activity: Previous Knowledge and ExperienceThis activity doesn't require any previous knowledge or experience! Consider using this as an introduction to vocal exploration and add it to your collection of echo songs. Learning Experiences Experience #1: IntroduceIn this first learning experience, the teacher introduces the song through movement and active listening. Seated, the teacher sings the song and leads students in swaying side to side as they listen. In between rounds of the song, the teacher asks questions: “What is our song about?” “What do you think the sea shell is singing about?” “Wait, can sea shells actually sing?”Sing while moving hands like the waves of the ocean, showing the melodic contour of the song. Students echo each four-beat phrase with ocean movements.Sea shell, sea shell (sea shell sea shell), Sing a song for me (sing a song for me) Experience #2: Ocean Movements In this second experience, students extend their ocean movements and continue echoing the song. This learning experience is primarily a review and reinforcement of the previous class, giving students more opportunities to listen and move to the song.Review the previous class: Sing while moving hands like the waves of the ocean, showing the melodic contour of the song. Students echo each four-beat phrase with ocean movements.Sea shell, sea shell (sea shell sea shell), Sing a song for me (sing a song for me) “What if you could make your ocean movements while standing on your spot?” Repeat the activity with students echo singing and showing the melodic contour with stationary movement Experience #3: Whole-Class Pitch Exploration There are many possibilities for the pitch exploration here! Feel free to write your own on the board. Echo sing and move to the song as review “What do you think the sea shell's song sounded like?” Show several options of melodic contour on the board, and lead students in performing with vocals and movementsExperience #4: Partner Pitch Exploration Students have sung the song and explored many examples of pitch exploration. Now it's time for them to create their own sea shell songs. Asking for four different options encourages students to invent variations, instead of stopping after one idea.Echo sing and move to the song as review Review pitch exploration ideas on the board With their shoulder partner, students use a piece of yarn to create their own vocal explorations Ask students to come up with four different options Students take turns sharing their ideas with the class Half Note & Form 2nd Grade Many music curricula explore one sound over two beats in the 2nd grade year. The ocean theme of this song can make it convenient for exploring elongated sounds, like ocean waves. We can also experiment with the form of the song. Before the Activity: Previous Knowledge and ExperiencePrevious Knowledge: Before this activity, students should have conscious knowledge of steady beat, quarter notes, and eighth notes. Even though the activity focuses on one sound over two beats, students don't need to have conscious knowledge of half notes. In future classes, students will be introduced to the half note vocabulary and symbol we'll use in this class. Previous Experience: Students should have plenty of independent and collaborative experiences singing, playing instruments, speaking, moving, reading, writing, improvising, arranging, and aurally identifying the rhythmic set listed in the knowledge section above. For these activities, students should have heard the song before, though it does not need to be memorized for the first learning experiences. Learning ExperiencesExperience #1: Rhythm Movement In this first learning experience, students use movement to show the duration of the rhythm. This happens as a whole class at first, then with pairs of students. There is an opportunity for formative assessment as students tiptoe, step, and slide with a partner at the end of this experience. The teacher sings the song with movement directions for tiptoe, step, and slide. Students echo sing and move (locomotor or non-locomotor) Step step step step (students echo) Tiptoe tiptoe sliiiiiiide (students echo)Tiptoe tiptoe step step (students echo)Tiptoe tiptoe sliiiiiiide (students echo)The teacher sings the song on text. Students echo sing and move, translating to tiptoe, step, and sliding movements Sea shell sea shell (student sing text and step step step step)Sing a song for me (students sing text and tiptoe tiptoe sliiiiiiide) Sing about the ocean (students sing text and tiptoe tiptoe step step) Sing about the sea (students sing text and tiptoe tiptoe sliiiiiiide)Divide the class in half. One half sings and moves first, then pauses for the other partner to sing and echoExperience #2: Aurally Identify The movement work from the previous class is extended here, as the teacher takes away the movement directions and replaces them with an instrument or neutral syllable. Students use their aural awareness to identify one sound that lasts for two beats. Review previous class. Students echo sing the song on text“Let's take out the echo and sing it straight through.” Students sing the song straight through, without echoing.Students sing the whole song and clap the words, remaining seated Seated with their feet in front of them, students sing and put the rhythm of the words in their feetStudents stand, and sing the whole song while tiptoeing and stepping in open space As a B section, the teacher plays four or eight-beat rhythms on a recorder (or sings on a neutral syllable), using a combination of two sounds on a beat, one sound on a beat, or one sound elongated over two beats. Students echo move.Example: ta ta ta-a (students step step sliiiiiiide), ta-di ta-di ta-di ta (tiptoe tiptoe tiptoe step) ta-a ta-di ta (sliiiiiiide tiptoe step) ta-di ta-di ta-a (tiptoe tiptoe sliiiiiide)Students sing the song as they tiptoe, step, and slide back to their spots. “How many times do we slide in this song?” Students inner hear and pat a steady beat (we slide two times)“How many sounds do you hear in the word, ‘me'?” (one sound) “How many beats does it last?” Students sing and pat a steady beat (it lasts two beats) Experience #3: Visual & Form Students have identified one sound that lasts for two beats. Now they use their aural awareness and translate it to a visual representation of the rhythm. Iconic notation is used here to show the elongated sound. In later lessons, the label and symbol for a half note may be used. At the end of the learning experience, students mix up the form to create a new order of the song. Review previous experiences as necessary“Which phrases of the song have matching rhythms?” Students sing and pat a steady beat (phrases 2 and 4 have matching rhythms) Help the teacher put the phrases of the song in the correct order. “How do you know this is the correct answer? Talk to your shoulder partner.” Students explain their thinking, then share their answers as time allows “I'm tired of giving the correct answer all the time. Let's mix up the form so it's the incorrect answer.” Mix up the form to create new version of tiptoeing and sliding. Students speak the new combination while moving their feet in front of them (staying seated) or turning their fingers into people and moving on the floor in front of them. Repeat the activity, with students arranging the form for the classStudents repeat the activity with a partner and move around the room to their arrangement. Share combinations as time allows Low Sol & Partwork3rd Grade By the 3rd grade year, many students are ready to work on the extended pentatone, including low sol. As melodic vocabulary grows, students can apply their knowledge to their developing partwork skills. Before the Activity: Previous Knowledge and ExperiencePrevious Knowledge: Before this activity, students should have conscious knowledge of solfege pitches, do, re, mi, sol, la, low la, low sol. These learning experiences would fall in to the “practice” phase of learning. Previous Experience: This activity is for students who are ready to sing a bass line to a known song. Consider previous experiences students have had with bass lines and partner melodies to prepare them for these experiences. You can find more information about scaffolding vocal partwork skills here. Students should also already know the song for these experiences. Learning ExperiencesThese are adapted from the low sol concept plan in the 2021 - 2022 Planning Binder. Experience #1: Partner Melody & Movement In this learning experience, students listen to the new partner melody with the song. After hearing the melody, students learn it by rote through a combination of movement and aural skills. Aurally decoding the melody is one of the reasons this experience should fall in the practice phase of the learning process. When students have learned the melody, they sing it as the teacher sings the main song. Students walk in a circle, singing the song without teacher assistance“I'll try to mess you up this time. Listen to each other.” The teacher walks inside the circle in the opposite direction, singing the partner melody: Students sit in place. The teacher teaches the partner melody by rote. Students echo sing eight beats at a time, showing the high and low movements of the melodic contour The teacher sings eight beats at a time. Students echo on solfege with Curwen hand signs or with the movements they just created “Hey there, let me hear your song” (do do do do sol sol sol) “Hey there, then we'll sing along” (do do sol sol do do do) Students walk around in a circle, singing the partner melody without teacher assistance. The teacher walks around the inside of the circle singing the main melody of Sea Shell. Experience #2: PartworkThis lesson experience reviews the melody from the previous class, and expands partwork skills. Instead of the teacher singing one part and the whole class singing the other, students work toward partwork interdependence by dividing the partner melody and main melody between half the class. With a partner, students decide if they'll sing the partner melody on solfege with hand signs, or on text with movement that matches the melodic contour. Seated with their partner, students perform their choice, then switch jobsStudents walk around in a circle, singing the partner melody without teacher assistance. The teacher walks around the inside of the circle singing the main melody of Sea Shell. The teacher “tags” a few volunteers to be on the inside circle team and sing the main melody. The rest of the class continues to sing the partner melody. Continue tagging singers until the inside and outside groups are approximately even Experience #3: Transfer to Barred Instruments Students have already aurally identified low sol in the partner melody. When it's time to transfer their understanding to a barred instrument, students use their knowledge of steps and skips to identify low sol and figure out the partner melody by ear. With a partner, students decide if they'll sing the partner melody on solfege with hand signs, or on text with movement that matches the melodic contour.Seated with their partner, students perform their choice, then switch jobsUsing a barred instrument visual on the board, students work with their partner to figure out where do and low sol live if do is F. Students help the teacher notate the melody of the partner song on the boardStudents read the notation on the board, pointing to the notation or pointing to a barred instrument visual With a partner, students sit behind a barred instrument and figure out how to play the partner melody by ear. One partner plays and sings the partner melody. The student without mallets sings the main Sea Shell melody. Switch jobs. When we step back and look at our classroom materials as musical prompts, we see many pedagogical possibilities. Today we looked at how one song might be used for vocal exploration, half notes, and low sol. But there are so many more ways this song might be re-imagined in our teaching. There are many possibilities with one simple musical invitation!

There are times we come across a song or rhyme we know students would enjoy, but we might not be sure where it fits in the curriculum. How can we step back and imagine musical possibilities? What if we were to treat songs like musical prompts? In this post we talked about some ways to explore one rhyme with several different pedagogical lenses. Today we'll do the same for a song, Sea Shell. Here's an example of how one song might be used for three different pedagogical outcomes and three different age groups. This also shows how we might approach the song in different areas of learning: The first activities are for students who don't know the song. The next two, it's expected that students would know the song already. The 2nd grade activities are in preparation, before students are aware of the notation and label for half note. The 3rd grade activities are in practice, after students consciously know low sol. Each grade objective includes student choice in the activities.Let's jump in! The SongThis song is sourced from the collection at Holy Names University. Echo Singing & Vocal ExplorationKindergarten / 1st Grade This activity is designed for young musical learners in the early grades. Before the Activity: Previous Knowledge and ExperienceThis activity doesn't require any previous knowledge or experience! Consider using this as an introduction to vocal exploration and add it to your collection of echo songs. Learning Experiences Experience #1: IntroduceIn this first learning experience, the teacher introduces the song through movement and active listening. Seated, the teacher sings the song and leads students in swaying side to side as they listen. In between rounds of the song, the teacher asks questions: “What is our song about?” “What do you think the sea shell is singing about?” “Wait, can sea shells actually sing?”Sing while moving hands like the waves of the ocean, showing the melodic contour of the song. Students echo each four-beat phrase with ocean movements.Sea shell, sea shell (sea shell sea shell), Sing a song for me (sing a song for me) Experience #2: Ocean Movements In this second experience, students extend their ocean movements and continue echoing the song. This learning experience is primarily a review and reinforcement of the previous class, giving students more opportunities to listen and move to the song.Review the previous class: Sing while moving hands like the waves of the ocean, showing the melodic contour of the song. Students echo each four-beat phrase with ocean movements.Sea shell, sea shell (sea shell sea shell), Sing a song for me (sing a song for me) “What if you could make your ocean movements while standing on your spot?” Repeat the activity with students echo singing and showing the melodic contour with stationary movement Experience #3: Whole-Class Pitch Exploration There are many possibilities for the pitch exploration here! Feel free to write your own on the board. Echo sing and move to the song as review “What do you think the sea shell's song sounded like?” Show several options of melodic contour on the board, and lead students in performing with vocals and movementsExperience #4: Partner Pitch Exploration Students have sung the song and explored many examples of pitch exploration. Now it's time for them to create their own sea shell songs. Asking for four different options encourages students to invent variations, instead of stopping after one idea.Echo sing and move to the song as review Review pitch exploration ideas on the board With their shoulder partner, students use a piece of yarn to create their own vocal explorations Ask students to come up with four different options Students take turns sharing their ideas with the class Half Note & Form 2nd Grade Many music curricula explore one sound over two beats in the 2nd grade year. The ocean theme of this song can make it convenient for exploring elongated sounds, like ocean waves. We can also experiment with the form of the song. Before the Activity: Previous Knowledge and ExperiencePrevious Knowledge: Before this activity, students should have conscious knowledge of steady beat, quarter notes, and eighth notes. Even though the activity focuses on one sound over two beats, students don't need to have conscious knowledge of half notes. In future classes, students will be introduced to the half note vocabulary and symbol we'll use in this class. Previous Experience: Students should have plenty of independent and collaborative experiences singing, playing instruments, speaking, moving, reading, writing, improvising, arranging, and aurally identifying the rhythmic set listed in the knowledge section above. For these activities, students should have heard the song before, though it does not need to be memorized for the first learning experiences. Learning ExperiencesExperience #1: Rhythm Movement In this first learning experience, students use movement to show the duration of the rhythm. This happens as a whole class at first, then with pairs of students. There is an opportunity for formative assessment as students tiptoe, step, and slide with a partner at the end of this experience. The teacher sings the song with movement directions for tiptoe, step, and slide. Students echo sing and move (locomotor or non-locomotor) Step step step step (students echo) Tiptoe tiptoe sliiiiiiide (students echo)Tiptoe tiptoe step step (students echo)Tiptoe tiptoe sliiiiiiide (students echo)The teacher sings the song on text. Students echo sing and move, translating to tiptoe, step, and sliding movements Sea shell sea shell (student sing text and step step step step)Sing a song for me (students sing text and tiptoe tiptoe sliiiiiiide) Sing about the ocean (students sing text and tiptoe tiptoe step step) Sing about the sea (students sing text and tiptoe tiptoe sliiiiiiide)Divide the class in half. One half sings and moves first, then pauses for the other partner to sing and echoExperience #2: Aurally Identify The movement work from the previous class is extended here, as the teacher takes away the movement directions and replaces them with an instrument or neutral syllable. Students use their aural awareness to identify one sound that lasts for two beats. Review previous class. Students echo sing the song on text“Let's take out the echo and sing it straight through.” Students sing the song straight through, without echoing.Students sing the whole song and clap the words, remaining seated Seated with their feet in front of them, students sing and put the rhythm of the words in their feetStudents stand, and sing the whole song while tiptoeing and stepping in open space As a B section, the teacher plays four or eight-beat rhythms on a recorder (or sings on a neutral syllable), using a combination of two sounds on a beat, one sound on a beat, or one sound elongated over two beats. Students echo move.Example: ta ta ta-a (students step step sliiiiiiide), ta-di ta-di ta-di ta (tiptoe tiptoe tiptoe step) ta-a ta-di ta (sliiiiiiide tiptoe step) ta-di ta-di ta-a (tiptoe tiptoe sliiiiiide)Students sing the song as they tiptoe, step, and slide back to their spots. “How many times do we slide in this song?” Students inner hear and pat a steady beat (we slide two times)“How many sounds do you hear in the word, ‘me'?” (one sound) “How many beats does it last?” Students sing and pat a steady beat (it lasts two beats) Experience #3: Visual & Form Students have identified one sound that lasts for two beats. Now they use their aural awareness and translate it to a visual representation of the rhythm. Iconic notation is used here to show the elongated sound. In later lessons, the label and symbol for a half note may be used. At the end of the learning experience, students mix up the form to create a new order of the song. Review previous experiences as necessary“Which phrases of the song have matching rhythms?” Students sing and pat a steady beat (phrases 2 and 4 have matching rhythms) Help the teacher put the phrases of the song in the correct order. “How do you know this is the correct answer? Talk to your shoulder partner.” Students explain their thinking, then share their answers as time allows “I'm tired of giving the correct answer all the time. Let's mix up the form so it's the incorrect answer.” Mix up the form to create new version of tiptoeing and sliding. Students speak the new combination while moving their feet in front of them (staying seated) or turning their fingers into people and moving on the floor in front of them. Repeat the activity, with students arranging the form for the classStudents repeat the activity with a partner and move around the room to their arrangement. Share combinations as time allows Low Sol & Partwork3rd Grade By the 3rd grade year, many students are ready to work on the extended pentatone, including low sol. As melodic vocabulary grows, students can apply their knowledge to their developing partwork skills. Before the Activity: Previous Knowledge and ExperiencePrevious Knowledge: Before this activity, students should have conscious knowledge of solfege pitches, do, re, mi, sol, la, low la, low sol. These learning experiences would fall in to the “practice” phase of learning. Previous Experience: This activity is for students who are ready to sing a bass line to a known song. Consider previous experiences students have had with bass lines and partner melodies to prepare them for these experiences. You can find more information about scaffolding vocal partwork skills here. Students should also already know the song for these experiences. Learning ExperiencesThese are adapted from the low sol concept plan in the 2021 - 2022 Planning Binder. Experience #1: Partner Melody & Movement In this learning experience, students listen to the new partner melody with the song. After hearing the melody, students learn it by rote through a combination of movement and aural skills. Aurally decoding the melody is one of the reasons this experience should fall in the practice phase of the learning process. When students have learned the melody, they sing it as the teacher sings the main song. Students walk in a circle, singing the song without teacher assistance“I'll try to mess you up this time. Listen to each other.” The teacher walks inside the circle in the opposite direction, singing the partner melody: Students sit in place. The teacher teaches the partner melody by rote. Students echo sing eight beats at a time, showing the high and low movements of the melodic contour The teacher sings eight beats at a time. Students echo on solfege with Curwen hand signs or with the movements they just created “Hey there, let me hear your song” (do do do do sol sol sol) “Hey there, then we'll sing along” (do do sol sol do do do) Students walk around in a circle, singing the partner melody without teacher assistance. The teacher walks around the inside of the circle singing the main melody of Sea Shell. Experience #2: PartworkThis lesson experience reviews the melody from the previous class, and expands partwork skills. Instead of the teacher singing one part and the whole class singing the other, students work toward partwork interdependence by dividing the partner melody and main melody between half the class. With a partner, students decide if they'll sing the partner melody on solfege with hand signs, or on text with movement that matches the melodic contour. Seated with their partner, students perform their choice, then switch jobsStudents walk around in a circle, singing the partner melody without teacher assistance. The teacher walks around the inside of the circle singing the main melody of Sea Shell. The teacher “tags” a few volunteers to be on the inside circle team and sing the main melody. The rest of the class continues to sing the partner melody. Continue tagging singers until the inside and outside groups are approximately even Experience #3: Transfer to Barred Instruments Students have already aurally identified low sol in the partner melody. When it's time to transfer their understanding to a barred instrument, students use their knowledge of steps and skips to identify low sol and figure out the partner melody by ear. With a partner, students decide if they'll sing the partner melody on solfege with hand signs, or on text with movement that matches the melodic contour.Seated with their partner, students perform their choice, then switch jobsUsing a barred instrument visual on the board, students work with their partner to figure out where do and low sol live if do is F. Students help the teacher notate the melody of the partner song on the boardStudents read the notation on the board, pointing to the notation or pointing to a barred instrument visual With a partner, students sit behind a barred instrument and figure out how to play the partner melody by ear. One partner plays and sings the partner melody. The student without mallets sings the main Sea Shell melody. Switch jobs. When we step back and look at our classroom materials as musical prompts, we see many pedagogical possibilities. Today we looked at how one song might be used for vocal exploration, half notes, and low sol. But there are so many more ways this song might be re-imagined in our teaching. There are many possibilities with one simple musical invitation!

This year is unique in so many ways. This year is challenging in so many ways. One of the difficult obstacles many educators face is rethinking lesson ideas and teaching strategies to fall within the safety parameters set by their school districts, including no singing and no moving around the room. These are the options we're used to having: What's different about this year? It's not that much! We still have many options for active, student-centered musicing.When a musical pillar like singing gets taken away, it can be hard to imagine our classes without it! However, when we take a step back and start with what we can do, we can find a different perspective. This different perspective doesn't change how challenging this year is, and it doesn't take away how discouraged we can feel by the constant need to rework our go-to ideas. But simple shifts to the reality of the situation (there are many avenues of musicing) instead of the false situation (I can't do music this year) can be incredibly helpful as we move forward. Today we'll look at some practical ways to teach a song without singing. We'll begin with a framework you can use for any concept and any song in any year, and then look at a specific example of teaching a song without singing. Let's jump in! Choosing Songs to Teach: Start with PurposeWhen we know why we're doing an activity, the rest of the steps suddenly become much more clear! The answer to the question becomes the primary goal in our musicing.Possible Reasons for Selecting a Song:There are infinite reasons we might select material for the music room. Here are some possibilities:Just for fun! Simply having fun and collectively making music is a beautiful curricular objectiveMelodic vocabulary: Maybe the song has a pattern of pitch relationships we want to highlightRhythmic vocabulary: Maybe the song uses a specific pattern of durations or a new collection of weighted beatsForm: Perhaps the song has an interesting structure we want to highlightPartwork: The song might lend itself to exciting ensemble layersExpression: The song might open our imaginations to exciting ways to show musical meaning through dynamics, articulation, and tempo variations.When we're clear on the purpose, we have an opportunity to transform the tired question (How do I teach a song without singing?) into one that moves us forward in a more musical way.Transforming the Question For so many educators, the question of how to teach a song without singing is one that causes confusion, anxiety, and discouragement. This is a tired question.We can reframe it from one that causes confusion and anxiety to one that moves to clarity, imagination, and music.The old question: How do I teach a song without singing?The new question: How could I explore the purpose of the song (fun, melody, rhythm, form, partwork, expression, etc.) without singing? Examples of Transformed QuestionsLet's go back to the purpose of the songs we've selected. With the purpose in mind, here are some examples of transforming the question to gain more clarity, imagination, and music.Just for fun: If we selected a song because its fun, our primary goal is not for students to sing the song. It's to have fun! How can we still have fun without singing?The new question: What are some ways to have fun with this song without singing?Building Melodic Vocabulary: If we selected a song for a specific melodic understanding, what other ways of musicing could we use to show pitch relationships? Could we use visuals? Movements? Body percussion? Listening? All of these are wonderful options for embodying melodic ideas!The new question: What are some ways to show pitch relationships without singing?Building Rhythmic Vocabulary: If we selected a song for a specific rhythmic understanding, how else could we show duration or beat? What other modes of musicing could we use besides singing?The new question: How can we show duration without singing?Form: If the form of the song is important, how could we show the structure of same, similar, and different musical sections?The new question: How can we explore the structure of music without singing?Partwork: If we love how the song helps students with musical independence in an ensemble setting, what are some ways we could explore that besides singing?The new question: How can we practice independent musicianship without singing?Expression: If we chose the song because of all the opportunities for expressive musicing, the purpose of the song isn't singing. The purpose of the song is exploring things like dynamics, articulation, and tempo variations.The new question: How could we show interesting expressive qualities without singing?These new questions do a much better job of moving our thoughts toward clear musical goals! The Process for Teaching a New Song without Singing:There will be variations in this process, and depending on the purpose of the activity this could be extended in many exciting ways! However, the core steps at beginning will probably follow this structure:Listen (actively)Notice something important about the songEmbody the important parts through a musical medium like movement, body percussion, or speechExtend the activity based on your teaching objective Action Example: Teaching Melody with TideoLet's imagine we want to teach Tideo without singing. There are so many possibilities! The song: TideoThe purpose: Melodic patterns with mi re doThe question: How can we explore stepwise motion that moves to the tonic without singing?There are infinite possible answers to this question! Here's one process, but yours may be different. The text in italics is the teacher dialogue. This recording is available as part of this collection of vocal recordings for elementary general music. Vocal Recordings for Elementary General Music 29.00 Add To Cart Step 1 - Active listening:As you keep a steady beat to our new song, I have a curious question: What could this song be about? Listen to a recording of Tideo and tap a steady beat. Students share their answers.Step 2 - Notice something important:Interesting! This time as you tap the beat a different way, let's listen for how many times our song says, “tideo.” Listen to the recording and tap the steady beat. Wait! Hold your answer in your head and double check while you keep the beat a new way! Listen to the recording again. Students hold up eight fingers.Step 3 - Embody the important parts through a musical medium:I agree, it is eight! This time, let's show the direction of the melody on each “tideo” with our eyebrows OR our noses. You choose. Play the first half of the song only. Students show the melodic contour. Please talk to your shoulder partner about how each tideo is different. Students discuss with friends around them, then share answers as a class. Great! The first one moves up with a skip, the second moves down by step, the third moves up with a skip, the last one moves down by step. A pattern! This time as we listen you may silently show those movements any way you want. Students take a few seconds to think about their movements, and give a thumbs up when they have their motions ready. Listen to the first half of the recording again.Step 4 - Extend based on your teaching objectiveThis is where the possibilities are endless! It's likely that this step will take place in the next class, and could be extended for several lessons. Here are some ideas: Notate the melody: Now that we've listened to the target melodic pattern, moved to it in multiple ways, and talked about it with friends, students can help us map it out in graphic notation. Graphic notation is a beautiful way for students to work with pitch relationships! After students help us map the graphic notation, we can easily transfer it into standard notation as well. Play on body percussion:Students can take all their musical knowledge of the melody this far and play the melody on body percussion. To do this, students will need to show different levels of sound that reflect the melody.To create their body percussion patterns, students might work independently, or with their immediate shoulder partner without contact. Here's one option, but there are many more! Teaching a Song Without SingingTo recap, there are many possibilities for teaching a song without singing! They start with having clarity on the purpose of the song. From there, we can help students actively listen to the song, notice the important aspects, invite them to embody the music, and extend the activity based on our musical objective.

This year is unique in so many ways. This year is challenging in so many ways. One of the difficult obstacles many educators face is rethinking lesson ideas and teaching strategies to fall within the safety parameters set by their school districts, including no singing and no moving around the room. These are the options we're used to having: What's different about this year? It's not that much! We still have many options for active, student-centered musicing.When a musical pillar like singing gets taken away, it can be hard to imagine our classes without it! However, when we take a step back and start with what we can do, we can find a different perspective. This different perspective doesn't change how challenging this year is, and it doesn't take away how discouraged we can feel by the constant need to rework our go-to ideas. But simple shifts to the reality of the situation (there are many avenues of musicing) instead of the false situation (I can't do music this year) can be incredibly helpful as we move forward. Today we'll look at some practical ways to teach a song without singing. We'll begin with a framework you can use for any concept and any song in any year, and then look at a specific example of teaching a song without singing. Let's jump in! Choosing Songs to Teach: Start with PurposeWhen we know why we're doing an activity, the rest of the steps suddenly become much more clear! The answer to the question becomes the primary goal in our musicing.Possible Reasons for Selecting a Song:There are infinite reasons we might select material for the music room. Here are some possibilities:Just for fun! Simply having fun and collectively making music is a beautiful curricular objectiveMelodic vocabulary: Maybe the song has a pattern of pitch relationships we want to highlightRhythmic vocabulary: Maybe the song uses a specific pattern of durations or a new collection of weighted beatsForm: Perhaps the song has an interesting structure we want to highlightPartwork: The song might lend itself to exciting ensemble layersExpression: The song might open our imaginations to exciting ways to show musical meaning through dynamics, articulation, and tempo variations.When we're clear on the purpose, we have an opportunity to transform the tired question (How do I teach a song without singing?) into one that moves us forward in a more musical way.Transforming the Question For so many educators, the question of how to teach a song without singing is one that causes confusion, anxiety, and discouragement. This is a tired question.We can reframe it from one that causes confusion and anxiety to one that moves to clarity, imagination, and music.The old question: How do I teach a song without singing?The new question: How could I explore the purpose of the song (fun, melody, rhythm, form, partwork, expression, etc.) without singing? Examples of Transformed QuestionsLet's go back to the purpose of the songs we've selected. With the purpose in mind, here are some examples of transforming the question to gain more clarity, imagination, and music.Just for fun: If we selected a song because its fun, our primary goal is not for students to sing the song. It's to have fun! How can we still have fun without singing?The new question: What are some ways to have fun with this song without singing?Building Melodic Vocabulary: If we selected a song for a specific melodic understanding, what other ways of musicing could we use to show pitch relationships? Could we use visuals? Movements? Body percussion? Listening? All of these are wonderful options for embodying melodic ideas!The new question: What are some ways to show pitch relationships without singing?Building Rhythmic Vocabulary: If we selected a song for a specific rhythmic understanding, how else could we show duration or beat? What other modes of musicing could we use besides singing?The new question: How can we show duration without singing?Form: If the form of the song is important, how could we show the structure of same, similar, and different musical sections?The new question: How can we explore the structure of music without singing?Partwork: If we love how the song helps students with musical independence in an ensemble setting, what are some ways we could explore that besides singing?The new question: How can we practice independent musicianship without singing?Expression: If we chose the song because of all the opportunities for expressive musicing, the purpose of the song isn't singing. The purpose of the song is exploring things like dynamics, articulation, and tempo variations.The new question: How could we show interesting expressive qualities without singing?These new questions do a much better job of moving our thoughts toward clear musical goals! The Process for Teaching a New Song without Singing:There will be variations in this process, and depending on the purpose of the activity this could be extended in many exciting ways! However, the core steps at beginning will probably follow this structure:Listen (actively)Notice something important about the songEmbody the important parts through a musical medium like movement, body percussion, or speechExtend the activity based on your teaching objective Action Example: Teaching Melody with TideoLet's imagine we want to teach Tideo without singing. There are so many possibilities! From Lois Choksy: 120 Singing Games and Dances for Elementary Schools The song: TideoThe purpose: Melodic patterns with mi re doThe question: How can we explore stepwise motion that moves to the tonic without singing?There are infinite possible answers to this question! Here's one process, but yours may be different. The text in italics is the teacher dialogue. This recording is available as part of this collection of vocal recordings for elementary general music. Step 1 - Active listening:As you keep a steady beat to our new song, I have a curious question: What could this song be about? Listen to a recording of Tideo and tap a steady beat. Students share their answers.Step 2 - Notice something important:Interesting! This time as you tap the beat a different way, let's listen for how many times our song says, “tideo.” Listen to the recording and tap the steady beat. Wait! Hold your answer in your head and double check while you keep the beat a new way! Listen to the recording again. Students hold up eight fingers.Step 3 - Embody the important parts through a musical medium:I agree, it is eight! This time, let's show the direction of the melody on each “tideo” with our eyebrows OR our noses. You choose. Play the first half of the song only. Students show the melodic contour. Please talk to your shoulder partner about how each tideo is different. Students discuss with friends around them, then share answers as a class. Great! The first one moves up with a skip, the second moves down by step, the third moves up with a skip, the last one moves down by step. A pattern! This time as we listen you may silently show those movements any way you want. Students take a few seconds to think about their movements, and give a thumbs up when they have their motions ready. Listen to the first half of the recording again.Step 4 - Extend based on your teaching objectiveThis is where the possibilities are endless! It's likely that this step will take place in the next class, and could be extended for several lessons. Here are some ideas: Notate the melody: Now that we've listened to the target melodic pattern, moved to it in multiple ways, and talked about it with friends, students can help us map it out in graphic notation. Graphic notation is a beautiful way for students to work with pitch relationships! After students help us map the graphic notation, we can easily transfer it into standard notation as well. Play on body percussion:Students can take all their musical knowledge of the melody this far and play the melody on body percussion. To do this, students will need to show different levels of sound that reflect the melody.To create their body percussion patterns, students might work independently, or with their immediate shoulder partner without contact. Here's one option, but there are many more! Teaching a Song Without SingingTo recap, there are many possibilities for teaching a song without singing! They start with having clarity on the purpose of the song. From there, we can help students actively listen to the song, notice the important aspects, invite them to embody the music, and extend the activity based on our musical objective.

In this post we talked about why we need options for music education that are as accessible as possible to all our learners. We discussed the three brain networks that impact how students show up in our classrooms (Affective, Recognition, and Strategic), and some general strategies to consider when it comes to UDL. Today we'll zoom in on the Affective brain networks. In this model of brain research, the Affective networks are responsible for the level of engagement students experience in learning, as well as their motivation level to become a lifelong musical learner. We'll look at concrete examples of providing multiple means of engagement in elementary general music. This is by no means an exhaustive list, but it can get us started in thinking through practical applications of UDL in music. Let's jump in. On the go? Listen to this post instead of reading. Do I Need to Add More Means of Engagement?For some of us, UDL is a framework we learned in a recent teacher training course. For many of us, we're learning about this approach after many years already in the classroom. When we hear about a new approach in education, we might wonder if we really need to add one more thing to our list of things to think about.How will we know if students are being provided enough means of engagement?The answer might be more simple than we think. It doesn't come down to what our principals say we need to do, or a checklist from a PD session, or a trend in education. Look at the StudentsIf students are off task and unengaged in learning, it may be time to try out some new methods of recruiting interest, motivation, and self regulation. If there are students who struggle to participate in musical tasks - for whatever reason or whatever perceived reason - we can brainstorm more ways to engage them.We can also ask students about their experiences in our classrooms and listen to their feedback. If their answers show that they don't feel particularly interested in our curriculum, way of teaching, or level of ownership they're given, it might be time to explore some new ideas. Our goal is for students to be purposeful, motivated, and musical in our classrooms. Providing multiple means of engagement is how we can partner with elementary musicians so they make as much music as possible. The Guidelines for Engagement: Recruiting InterestWe like to learn about things that are interesting! How can frame or rework our presentations to nurture more student interest? Sustaining Effort and Persistence: Musicianship takes practice over time. How can we help students be attentive through the whole process? Self Regulation: When we self regulate emotional responses, we contribute to a classroom environment that's conducive to learning. How can we help students regulate their behavior so they're set up for success?These are guidelines from Cast, with examples of how they can be applied in elementary general music. Recruiting Interest (Guideline 7) We like to learn about things that are interesting! These are ways we can partner with students to engage them in classroom activities. Much of this has to do with the repertoire we select, but it also has to do with student roles in the classroom. Are students active participants in musical tasks, or are they only being asked to follow teacher directions quickly? Here are some ideas for adjusting our learning environments to be more interesting to students.Optimize individual choice and autonomy (7.1)Provide learners with as much discretion and autonomy as possible by providing choices: When we build lessons with student choice embedded, we not only strengthen our overall musicianship expectations, but we put students in a better place to take ownership of their part in learning. This starts with clear goals in our curriculum planning. From there, we can be flexible and creative about how students will show their learning. There are so many opportunities for student choice in the music room! Students can choose whether they will tiptoe or slide to their spots. They might choose to clap the rhythm of the words or pat the steady beat. They could choose to come in 1st or 2nd in a two-part round. They might choose to play an ostinato or clap the rhythm of the main song. Let's imagine we want to expand students' melodic vocabulary by exploring new melodic patterns that use low la in the extended pentatone. Early in this vocabulary building phase, we'll want students to show melodic contour of a specific pattern. Students can choose if they'll show the melody through movement or through body percussion. Since both options in this scenario move students toward our learning objective, we don't need to dictate how students show melodic contour. Both pathways give us the evidence we need to move learning forward.Read More:Musical Choice - Steps to Take Before ImprovisationAllow learners to participate in the design of classroom activities and academic tasks:Students can help us create arrangements for sharing activities like informances or other presentations. They can also help create arrangements just for fun to be performed in class. If letting students create class arrangements is new for you or your students, an easy way to get started is with rhythmic building blocks. When we work with a folk song, students can use rhythmic building blocks to create their own rhythms in small groups. With their rhythms created, we can decide as a class if the rhythms will be a B section the class plays all together, or if a few of them will be ostinati that happen throughout the whole song. Read More: Planning an Elementary Music Informance (Part 1)Optimize relevance, value, and authenticity (7.2)Vary activities and sources of information so that they can be age and ability appropriate: Among other criteria, repertoire we engage with in the music room should be repertoire we expect students to enjoy! We can select repertoire that is age appropriate, and then see how students respond over time. Students can also suggest repertoire to be used in the music room. Using student-provided repertoire requires more time and creativity from us, but the buy-in from students makes it a worthwhile endeavor.Read More: Resources for Creating a Grade-Level Song ListDesign activities so that learning outcomes are authentic, communicate to real audiences, and reflect a purpose that is clear to the participants When our musical tasks are authentic, they can be transferred to real-world scenarios outside of the music classroom. In an active musical learning environment, students learn music by musicing - by actively embodying musical ideas - not by simply being in the room while a teacher talks about musical ideas. This emphasis on active musicing engages students in authentic, real-world activities. When we think beyond things like worksheets and memorizing the lines and spaces of the staff, so many new possibilities open up like singing, playing instruments, speaking, moving, reading, writing, improvising, composing, arranging, and listening.Read More: Planning an Active Music CurriculumMinimize threats and distractions (7.3)Create an accepting and supportive classroom climate: From the first day of class, we can make sure our classrooms are safe places to learn. Our music classrooms should be places where student mistakes are welcomed and encouraged, and where forward motion is praised. Students might need coaching on the specific language to use in group work or in other classroom sharing activities when peers perform musically so the feedback is process-oriented. Read More: First Day of Elementary Music Lesson PlansVary the social demands required for learning or performance, the perceived level of support and protection and the requirements for public display and evaluation: Music engagement requires vulnerability on the part of us and our students, specifically when it comes to specific performance tasks such as singing or improvising. Because we learn by actively musicing, it's possible for the performance aspect of our classrooms to cause nervousness in some students. When we compare music learning to a traditional math class, this difference is highlighted well. When students learn math in a traditional classroom, they often sit at their desks while the teacher talks about math. When it's time to show their knowledge, students often write down an answer on a worksheet. If a student has trouble with a specific math skill, their peers won't know. In contrast, in an active music room students perform musical tasks to show their knowledge. The emphasis on authenticity can also cause anxiety for some students who can be concerned that if they don't perform a skill well, everyone will know. We can help minimize threats and distractions by scaffolding skills well and lesson planning with intention so students aren't put in a vulnerable position before they're ready. When it's time to do a skill like singing or improvising, we can practice as a whole class, we can inner hear answers in our heads, we can practice with small groups, and then with partners all before necessarily asking students to perform alone.Read More: Improvisation Tips for Elementary General Music The Takeaway: We can offer students choice, make learning active, and scaffold tasks strategically to engage more student interest. Sustaining Effort and Persistence (Guideline 8) When we learn a new skill, we need a combination of challenges to move us forward and assistance to help us meet those challenges. Thoughtful practice over time and internal motivation are both necessary to create lifelong musical learners. How can we partner with students so they're self-aware and motivated to persevere as they build musicianship over time? Because we see (on average) ages 5 - 11, the answers to this question will change as our students change with age, interest, and life experiences.Heighten salience of goals and objectives (8.1)Engage learners in assessment discussions of what constitutes excellence and generate relevant examples that connect to their cultural background and interests: Students can be involved in the creation of goal setting and evaluation in the classroom! In preparation for an informance or another sharing event, students can think about what an excellent final product would be, and come up with a list of criteria to know they've reached the goal. Class-created rubrics can be helpful to get the whole group of musicians on the same page. Learn More: Active Embedded Assessment in Elementary General MusicUse prompts or scaffolds for visualizing desired outcome: As we work toward an aural picture of musicianship, there are many ways we could achieve our desired outcomes! We could listen to field recordings. The teacher could demonstrate. We could listen to peer ideas. We could inner hear our desired vocal sounds. We could mime playing the instrument while inner hearing. We could map out the form of our arrangement on the board. There are many possibilities to provide an aural and visual image of the final musical goal!Vary demands and resources to optimize challenge (8.2)Vary the degrees of freedom for acceptable performance: When we're clear on our long-range and short-term learning goals, we get clarity on how much room we have for individual choice within those learning parameters. For example, if students are asked to perform a B section with rhythmic building blocks using patterns containing and beat and beat subdivision, there are many options embedded! Will students perform on text or on rhythm syllables? Will they clap the rhythms as they speak? Could they put the rhythms on body percussion? Will they add movements for each rhythm item? Will all cards have two beats or will some have four? Will students come up with the rhythms or will we provide them? We can consider what parameters we will set as teachers and what freedoms within those parameters students will have after we clarify our specific learning goals.Read More: The Ultimate Guide to Lesson Planning in the Music Room - Part 1Emphasize process, effort, improvement in meeting standards as alternatives to external evaluation and competition: Why should students be interested and engaged in our learning tasks? Is it to see their class score on a behavior chart? Is it the threat of punishment or potential for a reward (both two sides of the same threat-based coin)? Thoughtful practice over time and internal motivation are what create lifelong musical learners. We can help deemphasize stickers, charts, pizza parties, and competition by emphasizing student progress, effort, and improvement. Instead of “Yessss your class is winning the good behavior competition between the 3rd grade classes! One step closer to free choice day in music!” we can try “I think our class rondo sounds even more expressive after today's class! Let's compare the audio I just recorded with what I recorded three classes ago and see what we think. After you listen, talk to your shoulder partner about what we can do next.”Foster Collaboration and Community (8.3)Our classrooms aren't isolated contexts. Elementary music students have a lot to learn from each other, and it's important that they leave our classrooms able to listen and collaborate with other people.Create cooperative learning groups with clear goals, roles, and responsibilities: In an active music classroom, information is shared from teacher to student, student to teacher, student to student, and students to community. This is an important part of deemphasizing the teacher as the source of all musical knowledge, and reframing the teacher's role to the musical guide while the students construct their own knowledge. Students can work in small groups to figure out how to play a melodic pattern on barred instruments by ear. They could create a group ostinato. They could brainstorm ideas for a B section. They could discuss the meaning of the text in a song, book, or story. Create expectations for group work: Like us, young musicians can have conflict when working in groups. What are the expectations for listening to ideas? What are the expectations for trying those ideas? Creating rubrics or checklists for students to work toward in small groups can be helpful to establish boundaries and goals. Increase mastery-oriented feedback (8.4) Musical skills are built, not born. Despite the wide-spread myths around innate talent and creativity, our students become better musicians when they are motivated to thoughtfully practice over time. All of us are motivated to keep learning when we feel we're making progress. One of the teacher's jobs in the UDL classroom is to help students approach challenges through mastery-oriented feedback.Provide feedback that encourages perseverance, focuses on development of efficacy and self-awareness, and encourages the use of specific supports and strategies in the face of challenge:When students encounter challenges to things like pitch matching, we can give them specific supports such as vocal sirens, inner hearing the melodic contour while moving, or singing with a friend. Instead of “Grace, you have such a beautiful voice!” we can try “Grace, did you hear how your voice changed after we did the sirens together?!” One implies an innate ability. One implies building skills over time through strategic support and self-awareness.Provide feedback that models how to incorporate evaluation, including identifying patterns of errors and wrong answers, into positive strategies for future success: In preparation for an informance or another sharing scenario, students may be working on a whole class ensemble arrangement of (just as an example) Engine Engine Number Nine. In this arrangement example, as one group is moving like a train, one group is playing a steady beat on tubanos, and one group is playing the rhythm of the words on rhythm sticks, it's possible to get off from the steady beat. When that happens, we can say something like “hmmmm let's do that again and listen across the room while we perform. When we're done, we'll tell someone next to us what we notice.” Students perform the arrangement again, discuss with their shoulder partner, then share a few comments with the class. If steady beat matching is identified as a problem, students can brainstorm solutions that the teacher writes on the board (inner hear and pretend to play your part, play quieter, watch the other groups, etc.). Students choose their strategy, then discuss whether or not it helped the ensemble.Listen to More: Rhythm vs Beat Arrangement for Engine Engine Number Nine The Takeaway: We can create safe learning environments where students create goals, explore freedom within boundaries, and get process-oriented feedback from us. Provide options for Self Regulation (Guideline 9) Students differ in how engaged they are in specific tasks and how aware they are of their behavioral reactions to emotion. We can build in checks to strategically help students monitor their behavior, motivation, and engagement. The more we circle back to these internal motivation checks, the more opportunities we provide for students to be successful. Promote expectations and beliefs that optimize motivation (9.1):It can be challenging for some students to wrestle with their current musical skill level in comparison to where they want to be. It's possible for students to act out of frustration when musical tasks are beyond their reach the first try. Provide prompts, reminders, guides, rubrics, checklists that focus on elevating the frequency of self-reflection and self-reinforcements: It can be helpful for students to have checks with group or independent work so they're not alarmed or panicked when time is up. This idea is one I adopted from my Orff level 1 instructor, Alicia Knox. When student group or individual work time is nearing its end, the teacher plays an attention-grabber (bell, clap, chimes, etc.) and students hold up fingers for the number of minutes they still need to complete the task. The teacher scans the numbers quickly, then shares how many more minutes (if any) students will work before moving on with the lesson. When we ask students what they need, we give them an opportunity to mentally check in on their own musical progress and make an statement on what they need next.Support activities that encourage self-reflection and identification of personal goals: As we work on individual or group assignments like compositions, it can be helpful for students to create their own goals for independent work. When working on a composition or other extended project, students can turn their paper over and fill in the blank to two simple prompts: “Today I ___ (write what was worked on)____. Next class I will ___ (write the next steps)___.” Students can also discuss these goals with a shoulder partner before writing. This helps keep the whole class focused on the next steps.Read More: An Orff Arrangement for Bluebird BluebirdFacilitate personal coping skills and strategies (9.2):We all have times we feel sad, nervous, or angry in music class. Managing responses to emotions may come easier to some students than others, but there are ways we can help all students move toward managing their emotionally reactive behavior.Provide differentiated models, scaffolds and feedback for appropriately handling subject specific phobias and judgments of “natural” aptitude: When we feel uncomfortable, anxious, or embarrassed, it's normal to behave in a way that helps us avoid those feelings. Often that behavior isn't conducive to the classroom environment we want to build. For example, students might react to these feelings by throwing mallets, yelling, shutting down, using comical voices or gestures, attempting to leave the learning space, or using hurtful words. Other guidelines in this post have mentioned the importance of scaffolding musical tasks and offering choices so students are challenged appropriately. We can also help students clarify their wording from “I'm not good at music” (a thought that can trigger an unproductive emotional behavior response) to “I didn't play the 16th notes the way I wanted this time, but what if I try with a slower tempo?” (a thought that can move toward more positive and musical behavior).Develop self-assessment and reflection (9.3)Offer devices, aids, or charts to assist individuals in learning to collect, chart and display data from their own behavior for the purpose of monitoring changes in those behaviors: I taught a particular musician who found it incredibly difficult to go through class without verbal outbursts. These were harmful to the learning environment and I wanted to partner with the student to see how we could find alternative ways of expression. The first step was simply helping this musician see what I was talking about when I referred to “verbal outbursts.” We came up with a system where the musician would keep track via written talleys for the number of outbursts in the class. There was no punishment for more talleys and no reward for fewer talleys. At the end of class the musician would share their numbers with me quickly before going to baseball practice. In those conversations, we mostly talked about what the student thought about class that day, and how baseball was going. The outbursts lowered dramatically in those weeks, and my relationship with the student improved.Read More: Upper Elementary Classroom Management for Music Teachers The Takeaway: We can help students monitor their thoughts and behaviors by incorporating regular check-ins and opportunities for reflection. In this post we've discussed many different angles for providing multiple means of engagement in Elementary General music. Again, this is by no means an exhaustive list! The purposes just to get us thinking about some practical applications of Universal Design for Learning in elementary general music. As teachers we are learners first. When we learn about a new framework for education we have an opportunity to try on new ideas, new philosophies, and new practices. Sometimes we also get to connect those new philosophies to actions that we're already doing in the classroom. Most of us we are likely already implementing some of these UDL ideas, so perhaps we decide to highlight those practices moving forward. Perhaps there are some things that we could tweak just a bit to enhance the types of engagement we offer. If you have thoughts about Universal Design for Learning or this particular pillar of multiple means of engagement I would love to hear from you. You can drop a comment below, shoot me an email, or find me on instagram. How to Cite this Blog Post: Boler, V. (2021, March 2). Multiple means of engagement in elementary general music (UDL in music part 2). Victoria Boler. https://victoriaboler.com/blog/udl-elementary-music-multiple-means-of-engagement

In this post we talked about why we need options for music education that are as accessible as possible to all our learners. We discussed the three brain networks that impact how students show up in our classrooms (Affective, Recognition, and Strategic), and some general strategies to consider when it comes to UDL. Today we'll zoom in on the Affective brain networks. In this model of brain research, the Affective networks are responsible for the level of engagement students experience in learning, as well as their motivation level to become a lifelong musical learner. We'll look at concrete examples of providing multiple means of engagement in elementary general music. This is by no means an exhaustive list, but it can get us started in thinking through practical applications of UDL in music. Let's jump in. On the go? Listen to this post instead of reading. Do I Need to Add More Means of Engagement?For some of us, UDL is a framework we learned in a recent teacher training course. For many of us, we're learning about this approach after many years already in the classroom. When we hear about a new approach in education, we might wonder if we really need to add one more thing to our list of things to think about.How will we know if students are being provided enough means of engagement?The answer might be more simple than we think. It doesn't come down to what our principals say we need to do, or a checklist from a PD session, or a trend in education. Look at the StudentsIf students are off task and unengaged in learning, it may be time to try out some new methods of recruiting interest, motivation, and self regulation. If there are students who struggle to participate in musical tasks - for whatever reason or whatever perceived reason - we can brainstorm more ways to engage them.We can also ask students about their experiences in our classrooms and listen to their feedback. If their answers show that they don't feel particularly interested in our curriculum, way of teaching, or level of ownership they're given, it might be time to explore some new ideas. Our goal is for students to be purposeful, motivated, and musical in our classrooms. Providing multiple means of engagement is how we can partner with elementary musicians so they make as much music as possible. The Guidelines for Engagement: Recruiting InterestWe like to learn about things that are interesting! How can frame or rework our presentations to nurture more student interest? Sustaining Effort and Persistence: Musicianship takes practice over time. How can we help students be attentive through the whole process? Self Regulation: When we self regulate emotional responses, we contribute to a classroom environment that's conducive to learning. How can we help students regulate their behavior so they're set up for success?These are guidelines from Cast, with examples of how they can be applied in elementary general music. Recruiting Interest (Guideline 7) We like to learn about things that are interesting! These are ways we can partner with students to engage them in classroom activities. Much of this has to do with the repertoire we select, but it also has to do with student roles in the classroom. Are students active participants in musical tasks, or are they only being asked to follow teacher directions quickly? Here are some ideas for adjusting our learning environments to be more interesting to students.Optimize individual choice and autonomy (7.1)Provide learners with as much discretion and autonomy as possible by providing choices: When we build lessons with student choice embedded, we not only strengthen our overall musicianship expectations, but we put students in a better place to take ownership of their part in learning. This starts with clear goals in our curriculum planning. From there, we can be flexible and creative about how students will show their learning. There are so many opportunities for student choice in the music room! Students can choose whether they will tiptoe or slide to their spots. They might choose to clap the rhythm of the words or pat the steady beat. They could choose to come in 1st or 2nd in a two-part round. They might choose to play an ostinato or clap the rhythm of the main song. Let's imagine we want to expand students' melodic vocabulary by exploring new melodic patterns that use low la in the extended pentatone. Early in this vocabulary building phase, we'll want students to show melodic contour of a specific pattern. Students can choose if they'll show the melody through movement or through body percussion. Since both options in this scenario move students toward our learning objective, we don't need to dictate how students show melodic contour. Both pathways give us the evidence we need to move learning forward.Read More:Musical Choice - Steps to Take Before ImprovisationAllow learners to participate in the design of classroom activities and academic tasks:Students can help us create arrangements for sharing activities like informances or other presentations. They can also help create arrangements just for fun to be performed in class. If letting students create class arrangements is new for you or your students, an easy way to get started is with rhythmic building blocks. When we work with a folk song, students can use rhythmic building blocks to create their own rhythms in small groups. With their rhythms created, we can decide as a class if the rhythms will be a B section the class plays all together, or if a few of them will be ostinati that happen throughout the whole song. Read More: Planning an Elementary Music Informance (Part 1)Optimize relevance, value, and authenticity (7.2)Vary activities and sources of information so that they can be age and ability appropriate: Among other criteria, repertoire we engage with in the music room should be repertoire we expect students to enjoy! We can select repertoire that is age appropriate, and then see how students respond over time. Students can also suggest repertoire to be used in the music room. Using student-provided repertoire requires more time and creativity from us, but the buy-in from students makes it a worthwhile endeavor.Read More: Resources for Creating a Grade-Level Song ListDesign activities so that learning outcomes are authentic, communicate to real audiences, and reflect a purpose that is clear to the participants When our musical tasks are authentic, they can be transferred to real-world scenarios outside of the music classroom. In an active musical learning environment, students learn music by musicing - by actively embodying musical ideas - not by simply being in the room while a teacher talks about musical ideas. This emphasis on active musicing engages students in authentic, real-world activities. When we think beyond things like worksheets and memorizing the lines and spaces of the staff, so many new possibilities open up like singing, playing instruments, speaking, moving, reading, writing, improvising, composing, arranging, and listening.Read More: Planning an Active Music CurriculumMinimize threats and distractions (7.3)Create an accepting and supportive classroom climate: From the first day of class, we can make sure our classrooms are safe places to learn. Our music classrooms should be places where student mistakes are welcomed and encouraged, and where forward motion is praised. Students might need coaching on the specific language to use in group work or in other classroom sharing activities when peers perform musically so the feedback is process-oriented. Read More: First Day of Elementary Music Lesson PlansVary the social demands required for learning or performance, the perceived level of support and protection and the requirements for public display and evaluation: Music engagement requires vulnerability on the part of us and our students, specifically when it comes to specific performance tasks such as singing or improvising. Because we learn by actively musicing, it's possible for the performance aspect of our classrooms to cause nervousness in some students. When we compare music learning to a traditional math class, this difference is highlighted well. When students learn math in a traditional classroom, they often sit at their desks while the teacher talks about math. When it's time to show their knowledge, students often write down an answer on a worksheet. If a student has trouble with a specific math skill, their peers won't know. In contrast, in an active music room students perform musical tasks to show their knowledge. The emphasis on authenticity can also cause anxiety for some students who can be concerned that if they don't perform a skill well, everyone will know. We can help minimize threats and distractions by scaffolding skills well and lesson planning with intention so students aren't put in a vulnerable position before they're ready. When it's time to do a skill like singing or improvising, we can practice as a whole class, we can inner hear answers in our heads, we can practice with small groups, and then with partners all before necessarily asking students to perform alone.Read More: Improvisation Tips for Elementary General Music The Takeaway: We can offer students choice, make learning active, and scaffold tasks strategically to engage more student interest. Sustaining Effort and Persistence (Guideline 8) When we learn a new skill, we need a combination of challenges to move us forward and assistance to help us meet those challenges. Thoughtful practice over time and internal motivation are both necessary to create lifelong musical learners. How can we partner with students so they're self-aware and motivated to persevere as they build musicianship over time? Because we see (on average) ages 5 - 11, the answers to this question will change as our students change with age, interest, and life experiences.Heighten salience of goals and objectives (8.1)Engage learners in assessment discussions of what constitutes excellence and generate relevant examples that connect to their cultural background and interests: Students can be involved in the creation of goal setting and evaluation in the classroom! In preparation for an informance or another sharing event, students can think about what an excellent final product would be, and come up with a list of criteria to know they've reached the goal. Class-created rubrics can be helpful to get the whole group of musicians on the same page. Learn More: Active Embedded Assessment in Elementary General MusicUse prompts or scaffolds for visualizing desired outcome: As we work toward an aural picture of musicianship, there are many ways we could achieve our desired outcomes! We could listen to field recordings. The teacher could demonstrate. We could listen to peer ideas. We could inner hear our desired vocal sounds. We could mime playing the instrument while inner hearing. We could map out the form of our arrangement on the board. There are many possibilities to provide an aural and visual image of the final musical goal!Vary demands and resources to optimize challenge (8.2)Vary the degrees of freedom for acceptable performance: When we're clear on our long-range and short-term learning goals, we get clarity on how much room we have for individual choice within those learning parameters. For example, if students are asked to perform a B section with rhythmic building blocks using patterns containing and beat and beat subdivision, there are many options embedded! Will students perform on text or on rhythm syllables? Will they clap the rhythms as they speak? Could they put the rhythms on body percussion? Will they add movements for each rhythm item? Will all cards have two beats or will some have four? Will students come up with the rhythms or will we provide them? We can consider what parameters we will set as teachers and what freedoms within those parameters students will have after we clarify our specific learning goals.Read More: The Ultimate Guide to Lesson Planning in the Music Room - Part 1Emphasize process, effort, improvement in meeting standards as alternatives to external evaluation and competition: Why should students be interested and engaged in our learning tasks? Is it to see their class score on a behavior chart? Is it the threat of punishment or potential for a reward (both two sides of the same threat-based coin)? Thoughtful practice over time and internal motivation are what create lifelong musical learners. We can help deemphasize stickers, charts, pizza parties, and competition by emphasizing student progress, effort, and improvement. Instead of “Yessss your class is winning the good behavior competition between the 3rd grade classes! One step closer to free choice day in music!” we can try “I think our class rondo sounds even more expressive after today's class! Let's compare the audio I just recorded with what I recorded three classes ago and see what we think. After you listen, talk to your shoulder partner about what we can do next.”Foster Collaboration and Community (8.3)Our classrooms aren't isolated contexts. Elementary music students have a lot to learn from each other, and it's important that they leave our classrooms able to listen and collaborate with other people.Create cooperative learning groups with clear goals, roles, and responsibilities: In an active music classroom, information is shared from teacher to student, student to teacher, student to student, and students to community. This is an important part of deemphasizing the teacher as the source of all musical knowledge, and reframing the teacher's role to the musical guide while the students construct their own knowledge. Students can work in small groups to figure out how to play a melodic pattern on barred instruments by ear. They could create a group ostinato. They could brainstorm ideas for a B section. They could discuss the meaning of the text in a song, book, or story. Create expectations for group work: Like us, young musicians can have conflict when working in groups. What are the expectations for listening to ideas? What are the expectations for trying those ideas? Creating rubrics or checklists for students to work toward in small groups can be helpful to establish boundaries and goals. Increase mastery-oriented feedback (8.4) Musical skills are built, not born. Despite the wide-spread myths around innate talent and creativity, our students become better musicians when they are motivated to thoughtfully practice over time. All of us are motivated to keep learning when we feel we're making progress. One of the teacher's jobs in the UDL classroom is to help students approach challenges through mastery-oriented feedback.Provide feedback that encourages perseverance, focuses on development of efficacy and self-awareness, and encourages the use of specific supports and strategies in the face of challenge:When students encounter challenges to things like pitch matching, we can give them specific supports such as vocal sirens, inner hearing the melodic contour while moving, or singing with a friend. Instead of “Grace, you have such a beautiful voice!” we can try “Grace, did you hear how your voice changed after we did the sirens together?!” One implies an innate ability. One implies building skills over time through strategic support and self-awareness.Provide feedback that models how to incorporate evaluation, including identifying patterns of errors and wrong answers, into positive strategies for future success: In preparation for an informance or another sharing scenario, students may be working on a whole class ensemble arrangement of (just as an example) Engine Engine Number Nine. In this arrangement example, as one group is moving like a train, one group is playing a steady beat on tubanos, and one group is playing the rhythm of the words on rhythm sticks, it's possible to get off from the steady beat. When that happens, we can say something like “hmmmm let's do that again and listen across the room while we perform. When we're done, we'll tell someone next to us what we notice.” Students perform the arrangement again, discuss with their shoulder partner, then share a few comments with the class. If steady beat matching is identified as a problem, students can brainstorm solutions that the teacher writes on the board (inner hear and pretend to play your part, play quieter, watch the other groups, etc.). Students choose their strategy, then discuss whether or not it helped the ensemble.Listen to More: Rhythm vs Beat Arrangement for Engine Engine Number Nine The Takeaway: We can create safe learning environments where students create goals, explore freedom within boundaries, and get process-oriented feedback from us. Provide options for Self Regulation (Guideline 9) Students differ in how engaged they are in specific tasks and how aware they are of their behavioral reactions to emotion. We can build in checks to strategically help students monitor their behavior, motivation, and engagement. The more we circle back to these internal motivation checks, the more opportunities we provide for students to be successful. Promote expectations and beliefs that optimize motivation (9.1):It can be challenging for some students to wrestle with their current musical skill level in comparison to where they want to be. It's possible for students to act out of frustration when musical tasks are beyond their reach the first try. Provide prompts, reminders, guides, rubrics, checklists that focus on elevating the frequency of self-reflection and self-reinforcements: It can be helpful for students to have checks with group or independent work so they're not alarmed or panicked when time is up. This idea is one I adopted from my Orff level 1 instructor, Alicia Knox. When student group or individual work time is nearing its end, the teacher plays an attention-grabber (bell, clap, chimes, etc.) and students hold up fingers for the number of minutes they still need to complete the task. The teacher scans the numbers quickly, then shares how many more minutes (if any) students will work before moving on with the lesson. When we ask students what they need, we give them an opportunity to mentally check in on their own musical progress and make an statement on what they need next.Support activities that encourage self-reflection and identification of personal goals: As we work on individual or group assignments like compositions, it can be helpful for students to create their own goals for independent work. When working on a composition or other extended project, students can turn their paper over and fill in the blank to two simple prompts: “Today I ___ (write what was worked on)____. Next class I will ___ (write the next steps)___.” Students can also discuss these goals with a shoulder partner before writing. This helps keep the whole class focused on the next steps.Read More: An Orff Arrangement for Bluebird BluebirdFacilitate personal coping skills and strategies (9.2):We all have times we feel sad, nervous, or angry in music class. Managing responses to emotions may come easier to some students than others, but there are ways we can help all students move toward managing their emotionally reactive behavior.Provide differentiated models, scaffolds and feedback for appropriately handling subject specific phobias and judgments of “natural” aptitude: When we feel uncomfortable, anxious, or embarrassed, it's normal to behave in a way that helps us avoid those feelings. Often that behavior isn't conducive to the classroom environment we want to build. For example, students might react to these feelings by throwing mallets, yelling, shutting down, using comical voices or gestures, attempting to leave the learning space, or using hurtful words. Other guidelines in this post have mentioned the importance of scaffolding musical tasks and offering choices so students are challenged appropriately. We can also help students clarify their wording from “I'm not good at music” (a thought that can trigger an unproductive emotional behavior response) to “I didn't play the 16th notes the way I wanted this time, but what if I try with a slower tempo?” (a thought that can move toward more positive and musical behavior).Develop self-assessment and reflection (9.3)Offer devices, aids, or charts to assist individuals in learning to collect, chart and display data from their own behavior for the purpose of monitoring changes in those behaviors: I taught a particular musician who found it incredibly difficult to go through class without verbal outbursts. These were harmful to the learning environment and I wanted to partner with the student to see how we could find alternative ways of expression. The first step was simply helping this musician see what I was talking about when I referred to “verbal outbursts.” We came up with a system where the musician would keep track via written talleys for the number of outbursts in the class. There was no punishment for more talleys and no reward for fewer talleys. At the end of class the musician would share their numbers with me quickly before going to baseball practice. In those conversations, we mostly talked about what the student thought about class that day, and how baseball was going. The outbursts lowered dramatically in those weeks, and my relationship with the student improved.Read More: Upper Elementary Classroom Management for Music Teachers The Takeaway: We can help students monitor their thoughts and behaviors by incorporating regular check-ins and opportunities for reflection. In this post we've discussed many different angles for providing multiple means of engagement in Elementary General music. Again, this is by no means an exhaustive list! The purposes just to get us thinking about some practical applications of Universal Design for Learning in elementary general music. As teachers we are learners first. When we learn about a new framework for education we have an opportunity to try on new ideas, new philosophies, and new practices. Sometimes we also get to connect those new philosophies to actions that we're already doing in the classroom. Most of us we are likely already implementing some of these UDL ideas, so perhaps we decide to highlight those practices moving forward. Perhaps there are some things that we could tweak just a bit to enhance the types of engagement we offer. If you have thoughts about Universal Design for Learning or this particular pillar of multiple means of engagement I would love to hear from you. You can drop a comment below, shoot me an email, or find me on instagram. How to Cite this Blog Post: Boler, V. (2021, March 2). Multiple means of engagement in elementary general music (UDL in music part 2). Victoria Boler. https://victoriaboler.com/blog/udl-elementary-music-multiple-means-of-engagement

When we refer to an “Orff arrangement,” we typically mean that the song or rhyme uses barred instruments. However, that may not be all there is to making something “Orff.”What Makes it Orff?The Orff approach is a play-based process that centers around student choice and creativity. Simply using an “Orff instrument” may not necessarily mean that the students are using the instrument to expand their musical knowledge in a way that puts the learner's needs first.How teachers apply this philosophy can look very different from classroom to classroom. However, there are a few things we can expect to see in an Orff-inspired approach:Mixed media: students speak, play instruments, sing, and move to express musicality.Musical Choice: The teacher gives an amount of control over the musical elements in a piece. For example, students might improvise or arrange a section, create movements, decide the musical form, or choose instrumentation.Collaboration: Though individuality is celebrated in the Orff philosophy, students also spend a lot of time working in small groups or making musical decisions as a large ensemble. Every voice is valued!Here's an example of how the Orff approach can be used with the song, Bluebird Bluebird. All the resources for this arrangement (the score, worksheets, and visuals) are available as a free download. Getting Started:Previous Knowledge and Skills:Students will have the most success with this arrangement if they have the following concepts and skills already in place:Knowledge: steady beat, rhythm, rhythm vs beat, ta and ta-di, ta rest, half notes, sol and mi, la, do, and re.Skills: pitch matching, barred instrument techniques, auxiliary percussion techniques, improvisation, arranging, dictation, rhythmic and melodic readingIn my curriculum, this combination of knowledge and skills happens at the end of 2nd grade, or the beginning of 3rd grade. You can read more about my curriculum outline here, and get the templates for your own classroom in The Planning Binder. Musical Objective:The goal of the arrangement is for students to compose with the full pentatonic scale. This score has several musical elements happening at once. However, everything could be taken out except the song and glockenspiel, and the objective would still be accomplished.The Score:Here is the full score. You can get the score below, along with all the other resources for this arrangement! Breaking it Down:This song is made of a main melody, a harmonic outline, two ostinati, and student compositions.Process these parts however works best for your situation! If you'd like a starting point, I've included some ways my students have found success with these elements.Melody: The song and the game This is the version of the game I use: Students stand in a circle with their hands above their heads to form “windows.” One student is the bluebird. The bluebird flies in and out the student windows while the rest of the class sings the song. At each “take a little partner,” the bluebird taps the closest student on the shoulder. The three students follow behind the bluebird and the game begins again. Each repetition of the song, the head bluebird chooses three more students until the whole class is in the bluebird line. Harmony: Bass xylophoneSince students have knowledge about do as the “home” pitch, they are ready to play the bass xylophone part. Using the idea of “home” and “away,” students play the tonic and dominant pitches. This image of birds flying away and coming back home is helpful to reinforce the harmonic concepts. I would also have the class help me transfer it to standard notation after students have played the progression a few times. Process:As with any mallet part, it's a good idea to consider starting the learning process with body percussion. Students can stomp for tonic and snap for dominant. We'll use this same body percussion designation in the composition process too. It helps to spiral concepts through a variety of different uses! Ostinati: Alto xylophone and tubanoI tend to teach these parts aurally, and use the notation as a reference in later lessons. Choosing Instruments: The Orff Arrangement Sound Pyramid I chose alto xylophone instead of soprano because in the sound pyramid for this ensemble, we don't need much more treble apart from the glockenspiel. By the same reasoning, the tubano sound will add more low frequencies to balance out the piece. Student-Created OstinatiStudents can also come up with their own ostinati based on the text! Most of the time each student comes up with some ideas, and then we share out as a class. When I notice a pattern that will work with the existing rhythms, I casually verbalize my decision of the pattern we'll use (speaking the rhythmic syllables of the pattern, not the name of the student who created it).Composition: GlockenspielIn a nutshell, this glockenspiel part is the whole purpose of the arrangement. It is also the part of the process that really makes it “Orff!”I chose glockenspiel because the high pitched, ringing sound seems the most bird-like. I also like that the glockenspiel timbre and register cuts through the rest of the ensemble.Process:The composition involves a few more steps than the other elements. Here is how I prefer to approach this sequence: Step 1: As with most mallet parts, we begin with body percussion. With a partner, students create rhythmic compositions and arrange them for body percussion. All the rhythmic compositions will end the same way to add a more unifying structure.As they think about their body percussion assignments, they follow notation on the board. This is a simplified version of the bass part. Using it as a guide will ensure that their glockenspiel melodies work smoothly with the harmonic progression. The only requirement is that students play the first beat of each measure on the designated note (either “home” or “away”). This enforces the physical sensation of their rhythms and the harmonic progression, even if they don't necessarily correspond to all the pitches they will use on barred instruments! Step 2: Students “place their rhythms” on barred instruments. I like to do this part individually, but it can also be done with a partner if you don't have enough barred instruments. As students compose, they should play the instrument first, find a pattern they like, and THEN write it down so they can remember it later. I discourage students from writing letter names on the worksheet at random and then trying to figure out how to play their composition. That approach is sure to lead to awkward intervals that are difficult to play.Step 3: Editing. Any composer, writer, teacher, designer, engineer, or coder knows that great final products go through editing. In this case, students should make sure their final composition is easy to play, that it matches the harmonic outline on the worksheet, and that they like how it sounds. A simple step to help the editing process is for students to write on the back of the paper what they accomplished in that class period and what they plan to do next class. The prompt is, “Today I _____ (the student writes what they worked on). Next class I will _______(the student writes the next steps)__.” This helps everyone stay on track as the lesson progresses through several weekly segments.Putting it all together:This song is written in ternary form. However, it could easily be adapted to rondo form if you want to give more students the chance to share their compositions.The coda is very simple. It extends the rhythm of the last subphrase (Oh Johnny aren't you tired), and brings back the opening subphrase (bluebird bluebird go through my window) along with the two ostinati. Closing tips: Every Orff-inspired teacher applies the Orff philosophy in different ways. That said, here are some tried-and-true tips for working with an Orff arrangement like this one. Start with singing. Start with the singing game.All students learn all the parts.Put instrumental parts on body percussion before instruments.Add new elements in slowly.Keep it fun! This is musically dense, but still a play-based process.

When we refer to an “Orff arrangement,” we typically mean that the song or rhyme uses barred instruments. However, that may not be all there is to making something “Orff.”What Makes it Orff?The Orff approach is a play-based process that centers around student choice and creativity. Simply using an “Orff instrument” may not necessarily mean that the students are using the instrument to expand their musical knowledge in a way that puts the learner’s needs first.How teachers apply this philosophy can look very different from classroom to classroom. However, there are a few things we can expect to see in an Orff-inspired approach:Mixed media: students speak, play instruments, sing, and move to express musicality.Musical Choice: The teacher gives an amount of control over the musical elements in a piece. For example, students might improvise or arrange a section, create movements, decide the musical form, or choose instrumentation.Collaboration: Though individuality is celebrated in the Orff philosophy, students also spend a lot of time working in small groups or making musical decisions as a large ensemble. Every voice is valued!Here’s an example of how the Orff approach can be used with the song, Bluebird Bluebird. All the resources for this arrangement (the score, worksheets, and visuals) are available as a free download. Getting Started:Previous Knowledge and Skills:Students will have the most success with this arrangement if they have the following concepts and skills already in place:Knowledge: steady beat, rhythm, rhythm vs beat, ta and ta-di, ta rest, half notes, sol and mi, la, do, and re.Skills: pitch matching, barred instrument techniques, auxiliary percussion techniques, improvisation, arranging, dictation, rhythmic and melodic readingIn my curriculum, this combination of knowledge and skills happens at the end of 2nd grade, or the beginning of 3rd grade. You can read more about my curriculum outline here, and get the templates for your own classroom in The Planning Binder.Musical Objective:The goal of the arrangement is for students to compose with the full pentatonic scale. This score has several musical elements happening at once. However, everything could be taken out except the song and glockenspiel, and the objective would still be accomplished.The Score:Here is the full score. You can get the score below, along with all the other resources for this arrangement! Breaking it Down:This song is made of a main melody, a harmonic outline, two ostinati, and student compositions.Process these parts however works best for your situation! If you’d like a starting point, I’ve included some ways my students have found success with these elements.Melody: The song and the game This is the version of the game I use: Students stand in a circle with their hands above their heads to form “windows.” One student is the bluebird. The bluebird flies in and out the student windows while the rest of the class sings the song. At each “take a little partner,” the bluebird taps the closest student on the shoulder. The three students follow behind the bluebird and the game begins again. Each repetition of the song, the head bluebird chooses three more students until the whole class is in the bluebird line.Harmony: Bass xylophoneSince students have knowledge about do as the “home” pitch, they are ready to play the bass xylophone part. Using the idea of “home” and “away,” students play the tonic and dominant pitches. This image of birds flying away and coming back home is helpful to reinforce the harmonic concepts. I would also have the class help me transfer it to standard notation after students have played the progression a few times. Process:As with any mallet part, it’s a good idea to consider starting the learning process with body percussion. Students can stomp for tonic and snap for dominant. We’ll use this same body percussion designation in the composition process too. It helps to spiral concepts through a variety of different uses!Ostinati: Alto xylophone and tubanoI tend to teach these parts aurally, and use the notation as a reference in later lessons. Choosing Instruments: The Orff Arrangement Sound Pyramid I chose alto xylophone instead of soprano because in the sound pyramid for this ensemble, we don’t need much more treble apart from the glockenspiel. By the same reasoning, the tubano sound will add more low frequencies to balance out the piece. Student-Created OstinatiStudents can also come up with their own ostinati based on the text! Most of the time each student comes up with some ideas, and then we share out as a class. When I notice a pattern that will work with the existing rhythms, I casually verbalize my decision of the pattern we’ll use (speaking the rhythmic syllables of the pattern, not the name of the student who created it).Composition: GlockenspielIn a nutshell, this glockenspiel part is the whole purpose of the arrangement. It is also the part of the process that really makes it “Orff!”I chose glockenspiel because the high pitched, ringing sound seems the most bird-like. I also like that the glockenspiel timbre and register cuts through the rest of the ensemble.Process:The composition involves a few more steps than the other elements. Here is how I prefer to approach this sequence: Step 1: As with most mallet parts, we begin with body percussion. With a partner, students create rhythmic compositions and arrange them for body percussion. All the rhythmic compositions will end the same way to add a more unifying structure.As they think about their body percussion assignments, they follow notation on the board. This is a simplified version of the bass part. Using it as a guide will ensure that their glockenspiel melodies work smoothly with the harmonic progression. The only requirement is that students play the first beat of each measure on the designated note (either “home” or “away”). This enforces the physical sensation of their rhythms and the harmonic progression, even if they don’t necessarily correspond to all the pitches they will use on barred instruments! Step 2: Students “place their rhythms” on barred instruments. I like to do this part individually, but it can also be done with a partner if you don’t have enough barred instruments. As students compose, they should play the instrument first, find a pattern they like, and THEN write it down so they can remember it later. I discourage students from writing letter names on the worksheet at random and then trying to figure out how to play their composition. That approach is sure to lead to awkward intervals that are difficult to play.Step 3: Editing. Any composer, writer, teacher, designer, engineer, or coder knows that great final products go through editing. In this case, students should make sure their final composition is easy to play, that it matches the harmonic outline on the worksheet, and that they like how it sounds.Putting it all together:This song is written in ternary form. However, it could easily be adapted to rondo form if you want to give more students the chance to share their compositions.The coda is very simple. It extends the rhythm of the last subphrase (Oh Johnny aren’t you tired), and brings back the opening subphrase (bluebird bluebird go through my window) along with the two ostinati.Closing tips: Every Orff-inspired teacher applies the Orff philosophy in different ways. That said, here are some tried-and-true tips for working with an Orff arrangement like this one. Start with singing. Start with the singing game.All students learn all the parts.Put instrumental parts on body percussion before instruments.Add new elements in slowly.Keep it fun! This is musically dense, but still a play-based process.

Grab the cheat sheet download in the Resources page here.

Do you love your Kodaly-Inspired lesson template? Do you love those groovy Orff arrangements? There's no reason the two can't work together. It's just a matter of getting clear on your goals.This was a question from a lovely educator on instagram. I love chatting about music education topics, so if you're into it, shoot me a discussion topic. I'm @victoriaboler, or you can send an email to victoria@wemakethemusic.org

Do you love your Kodaly-Inspired lesson template? Do you love those groovy Orff arrangements? There’s no reason the two can’t work together. It’s just a matter of getting clear on your goals.This was a question from a lovely educator on instagram. I love chatting about music education topics, so if you’re into it, shoot me a discussion topic. I’m @victoriaboler, or you can send an email to victoria@wemakethemusic.org

Read more about song lists in this blog post.Check out the Planning Binder hereHoly Names University WebsiteKodaly HubVictoria Boler's Song CollectionSmithsonian Folkways RecordingsAlan Lomax's RecordingsThe Global Jukebox

Read more about song lists in this blog post.Check out the Planning Binder hereHoly Names University WebsiteKodaly HubVictoria Boler’s Song CollectionSmithsonian Folkways RecordingsAlan Lomax’s RecordingsThe Global Jukebox

For so many of us, the school year has come to a close, or the end is right around the corner!However, before checking out completely, I like to take a long moment to reflect on the past year and plan for the next. What went well? What would I do differently next time? What was my favorite moment of the year?Today I'm sharing the printable I use to review and reset. I'd love for you to give it a try! It's a great way to congratulate yourself on the things you're are proud of, and reflect on what could be made better next year.Find the printable here:

For so many of us, the school year has come to a close, or the end is right around the corner!However, before checking out completely, I like to take a long moment to reflect on the past year and plan for the next. What went well? What would I do differently next time? What was my favorite moment of the year?Today I'm sharing the printable I use to review and reset. I'd love for you to give it a try! It's a great way to congratulate yourself on the things you're are proud of, and reflect on what could be made better next year.Find the printable here:

There are so many ways you can bring your community in on your classroom process. One way is through an informance.An informance could be as simple as inviting parents to watch a class - simply set up some chairs in your room and you're ready! Alternatively, it might be something more polished and set on a stage.Whatever your choice, remember that an informance is meant to be process based, not product based. The goal is to educate the audience on what students are learning in your classroom. If you haven't already, click through to this post on getting started with informances.Today's post will cover some questions I've received about informance logistics. We'll look at parent communication, choosing material, rehearsals, and setting up the stage. Let's jump in!

There are so many ways you can bring your community in on your classroom process. One way is through an informance.An informance could be as simple as inviting parents to watch a class - simply set up some chairs in your room and you’re ready! Alternatively, it might be something more polished and set on a stage.Whatever your choice, remember that an informance is meant to be process based, not product based. The goal is to educate the audience on what students are learning in your classroom. If you haven’t already, click through to this post on getting started with informances.Today’s post will cover some questions I’ve received about informance logistics. We’ll look at parent communication, choosing material, rehearsals, and setting up the stage. Let’s jump in!

An informance is any production that is for the purpose of educating an audience about a topic. It can be as simple as inviting parents to watch your music class and giving them a brief explanation of the activities the students are doing. It could also be more formal and take place on a stage. The key is that education is the backbone of the presentation.When I do an informance, I want to educate my colleagues, parents, and community about the amazing creative musical work my students do in a typical music class.

An informance is any production that is for the purpose of educating an audience about a topic. It can be as simple as inviting parents to watch your music class and giving them a brief explanation of the activities the students are doing. It could also be more formal and take place on a stage. The key is that education is the backbone of the presentation.When I do an informance, I want to educate my colleagues, parents, and community about the amazing creative musical work my students do in a typical music class.

Today I'm giving a glance into my first day of school lesson plans, from TK - 5th grade. In the first day of music class, students are arguably the most attentive they will be all year. This puts a unique pressure on the first day's lesson plan to set the tone for the rest of our time together. Psst - On the go? Listen to this post instead of reading! 39.00 Add To Cart All the templates I use are available to purchase here as part of the Elementary Music Planning Kit. You can also download my completed lesson plans at the bottom of the post, or make your own from scratch! Let's jump in! My Goals for the First Day of Music Class: “Teach music in such a way that it is not a torture, but a joy for the pupil” — Zoltan Kodaly Establish expectations - From the moment students walk in to the moment they leave, the first lesson sets the tone for the rest of the school year. Even our youngest students are aware of the environment, our nonverbal communication, the physical space in the room, and the whole-class attitude. We establish expectations right away.Be musical - This is music class. The class shouldn’t be taken up with rules and procedures. It shouldn't be taken up talking about music. It should be spent making music.Have fun - Music is a legitimate subject in the academic world. It has an established theory and history and pedagogy like any other subject students explore in school. But music is also fun. I want students to experience that fun on the first day.Be creative in a safe place - I’m going to ask a lot out of students throughout the year. I’ll ask them to take risks. To be vulnerable. To create. To share some of their creations. To evaluate their creations. To try, fail, and try again. That type of creative learning can happen when students know they are safe and supported. I want that learning to start the first day.The Lessons1: Start with a Musical ExperienceWarm Up (4 minutes): Through this whole process I don’t give any verbal directions such as “now echo me”, or, “now copy my motions”. I jump straight in, and find that students copy very naturally.I jump into my regular warm up routine right away on the first day of school. Here's a breakdown of what that looks like: Steady Beat: Students enter the class in a straight line, keeping a steady beat.Younger grades copy my motions.Older grades create a body percussion pattern of their choice. Hand Signs for Sit and Stand: In Kindergarten and TK I introduce my class hand signs at this point. This is done without giving specific directions. I simply model the sign and over exaggerate sitting and standing. They naturally copy me for a few rounds of sitting, standing, sitting, standing, until they’re all giggling and out of breath.Other grades review this step as well, but we don't spend much time on it since I don't need to teach it from scratch.Sing a Greeting: From there we sing greetings based off tone sets we learned last year.For example, with first grade I'll sing "hello, first grade" on sol mi sol mi. With third grade I'll sing "hello third grade" on mi mi re do. Students sing their response to me. I'll sing a question such as "How was your summer?" or "How are you today?" and students sing their response.Body Percussion: We'll quickly echo a few clapping patterns or body percussion patterns.Game Time (5 minutes)The clapping or body percussion pattern we echo is the first four beats of our first song, and we've seamlessly transitioned into our opening game.It's great to play games students remember from last year. If you’re new at a school, consider reaching out to last year’s music teacher. If that's not possible, just choose one of your favorite simple games or activities to start with. Look for songs or games that allow students to be active, as energy will be high at the beginning of the lesson. Here are some of my favorites for the first day of music:TK and K: All Around the Buttercup1st: Apple Tree2nd: Charlie Over the Ocean3rd: Alabama Gal4th: Built my Lady a Fine Brick House5th: Tideo All of the sheet music is available for free in the Sheet Music Library. You can click the button below to grab the music for your classroom! Sheet Music Library 2: Seating Chartand RulesThis is the very first time I verbalize instructions in the lesson. Up until this point I’ve been simply doing what I want my students to do, and they naturally copy.Seating Chart (4 minutes) In the first month or so of school my students have assigned seats. This is so that I can wrap my head around which students are in which class.When I feel I am familiar enough with names, students are allowed to choose their own spot each class. Resource Library You can grab this seating and assessment chart in the Resource Library.Rules (4 minutes)I prefer not to spend a lot of time in this area. Here's why:When students come see us in the music room, they have already spent time in their grade-level classroom talking about rules and expectations. Likely, they’ll also hear a different set of rules in P.E., art, library, and the cafeteria. Memorizing guidelines from such a variety of sources is a lot to ask of our students. Realistically, students are unlikely to retain a list of area-specific, detailed rules. So instead I opt for two rules that I refer back to every class over the course of the school year.Always do your best.Respect yourself, others, and the classroom. I ask students to give some examples of how to apply the rules to the classroom. In addition to the scenarios students offer on their own, I always guide the conversation to include some specific areas: Instead of me listing out every single class rule I can think of, I have students apply two behavior expectations on their own. What does respect look like when we're sharing instruments?What does doing your best look like when you've had a bad day?How do we respect other friends in our group?How do we do our best if we feel nervous?What does respect look like when we play classroom instruments?3. Summer Vacation and Names (10 minutes)TK - 1st: Bounce High Bounce Low It’s very rare that I change lyrics to folk songs. However, there have been TK classes that have played “roll fast, roll slow, roll the ball to Shilo” if I fear the bounce will be too advanced.Bounce High Bounce Low is a song worth investing in on the first day! I can bring it back for movement, singing voice, steady beat, and sol la sol mi patterns. It also gives me a chance to start putting names with faces. If students are standing to bounce, I ask them to jump every time the ball hits the ground. This keeps everyone engaged. If we’re seated, I ask them to move one hand up and down their arm (to “roll” with the ball).With students standing in a circle, I go through the class roster and we play the game. Everyone gets a turn.2nd - 3rd: Play Your Vacation (A section)In second and third grade I want to jump into instruments on the first day. This activity works with any unpitched percussion instruments - I use rhythm sticks.To play the game: Each person speaks and plays their summer rhythm, and the class repeats. Some rhythm examples are: "I went to the beach" (ta-di ta-di ta rest)"I played video games" (ta ta taka-di ta)"I slept in" (ta ta ta rest)After four students, we do the A section again, and continue through the whole class. Having the class repeat each rhythm keeps everyone active, even though it makes the game last longer.4th and 5th - Play Your Vacation:In 4th and 5th grade we play the game exactly how 2nd and 3rd did. This version of the rhyme has an eighth note followed by two sixteenths (ta-dimi). (A section)Tips for the Vacation Game in 2nd - 5th grades: I like to have the whole class try out a rhythm - and even share it with someone next to them - before they’re asked to do it individually in front of everyone. This goes toward my goal of making music a safe creative space.If, for some reason a student doesn’t want to play alone the first day, I don’t make him or her.I keep a groove on the cajon to help establish a sense of pulse, but I don’t correct anyone if he or she plays outside a four beat phrase.As they play this game I video with my ipad. It’s useful for me to see which students naturally stayed within a four-beat phrase. This isn’t a formal assessment, it’s more like a temperature read on where we are rhythmically as a class.4. More Music, More Movement (10 minutes)By now, we need to move.Here are some of my favorite songs for closing the first day of school:TK - 2nd GradesTK, K, 1st, and 2nd grades will all review or learn how to move in open space. This is a concept I'll reuse throughout the year, so I like to introduce it right away.I also want to give another opportunity for students to create in my class, so I look for songs with creative movement opportunities.Read more about how to choose songs for your music room here.TK and Kindergarten: You Walk and You StopYou Walk and You Stop is one of my favorite songs for introducing open space. I tell students it's very important to look for open space when we move. We run through a few examples of what open space is (somewhere no one else is) and what it's not (touching a friend) before doing the song.If I sense the class isn't ready for locomotor movement, we'll still sing the song but students stay in their spots and jump, walk, wiggle, twist, etc. in place.Either way, after a few rounds of the song students give suggestions for actions to add to the song. Johnny Works with One HammerIf we have time, I add Johnny Works with One Hammer. This is especially valuable if students aren't ready for locomotor movement, since the song is incredibly active but takes place sitting down. Twinkle Twinkle Little StarI like to add a song that students probably already know to the first day. Many students already know motions to this song from doing it at home. While we sing they either copy me or do motions they already know. This is a calm, musical ending to our first day. First GradeJust From the KitchenThis song allows students to improvise movement the first day. I like to call students two at a time at first, in case anyone is anxious about moving by themselves on the first day. I can also add phrases like "everybody who likes pizza" or "everybody who plays minecraft" toward the end. Second GradeRig a Jig Jig The first few times we do this song, we'll play it like normal.Then, we make a change. Students say their names in rhythm, and come up with an accompanying movement. At the end of each song repetition, they create a name chain with their partner by saying their name and showing their movement two times each. The song begins again. 3rd - 5th gradesIn 3rd - 5th grade, we’ll go back to the song we used at the beginning of class. This time, I ask students to create a body percussion pattern as a B section to the game.Third GradeAlabama Gal First we play the game like we did at the beginning of class. Then students create an eight beat pattern with their partner using the words "Alabama" (ta-di ta-di) or "gal" (ta, rest). They can choose a movement or body percussion to go with their words.We practice this as a whole class a few times, and students make any changes they need. Then we add the B section after each repetition of the game. Fourth Grade Built my Lady a Fine Brick HouseJust like third grade, we'll play this game a few times as normal. Then, students create an eight beat pattern with their group using these rhythmic building blocks: Student groups change with each round of the game, so with each repetition students create a new rhythm.Fifth GradeTideo Play the game like normal, then ask students to create an eight beat pattern with their partner using these rhythmic building blocks: They also have the option of adding body percussion or movement to their pattern.Just like Built My Lady a Fine Brick House, students' groups change at every repetition of the song. I like this because it gives lots of opportunities for students to explore new combinations, body percussion, and movement.5. ClosingWhat I'm Excited About. . . . (4 minutes) If we're going to do awesome things in music, I need awesome behavior from my students. With a nod to the Responsive Classroom, I ask my students to think of how they are going to be able to do the things they're excited about. This ultimately comes back to the two rules we discussed at the beginning of class. Now, at the end of class, students apply them in a way that makes them excited about the whole year.At the end of class I quickly ask students what they hope to do in music this year, and what we need to do to make those exciting things happen. In TK - 1st grade students raise their hand and sing something they're excited about. I ask what we will do to make it happen, and students raise their hands again to sing ideas.In 2nd - 5th grade students finish the sentence, "I'm excited about _________ this year, so I need to ____________." (Example, "I'm excited about playing instruments this year so I need to show that I can respect them." "I'm excited about playing with my friends this year so I need to listen to everyone when we're working in a group.") They write their answers on sticky notes and attach them to the wall as they line up. TK Lesson Kindergarten Lesson First Grade Lesson Second Grade Lesson Third Grade Lesson 4th Grade Lesson Fifth Grade Lesson Lesson PlansYou can click the button or image to grab these lesson plans for free in the Resource Library. Enjoy! Resource Library Lesson Plan Templates 39.00 Add To Cart The lesson plan template is available to purchase as part of my Elementary Music Planning Kit. The templates are Google Docs so you can edit, save, and take them anywhere.Happy teaching!

There are so many ways to open a class musically.Just like our morning routine sets the tone for our day as teachers, the opening activities of your music class set the tone for the rest of the lesson.We want those activities to be:MusicalEngagingPurposeful Pssssst - On the go? Listen to this post instead of reading! Here is my opening warm up sequence for my room.Keep in mind that every teaching situation is unique, so if you choose to add any of these to your classroom, be sure to edit and adapt them for your needs.I use these lesson plan templates to write down my warm up routine each lesson. The format is flexible enough for me, while still providing a lesson structure.Let’s jump in! 1. Beat or RhythmWe always start with either a steady beat or rhythm activity.When we enter, my young students copy my motions. After a few actions from me, I let other students be the leader instead.At the beginning of the year, all my students will enter keeping a steady beat, even the upper grades. However, upper grades don’t copy my motions. Instead they create their own body percussion pattern. After a few lessons, upper grades make up a rhythm pattern on body percussion as they walk in instead. (If you read this post, you’ll remember that I’m going into my second full year at my school. My older students are still working on many beginning concepts so I don’t mind spending this time to reinforce steady beat.)Music for Steady Beat and RhythmRecorded MusicWe often enter to recorded music. Some of my favorites are:Eine Kleine Nachtmusik by MozartConcerto Grosso in F Major by CorelliStars and Stripes ForeverAnything from John Feierabend’s Keeping the Beat CD is great for this! For older students I like to add a few more genres to the mix. Here are just two of my favorites.Snarky Puppy - LinguisGoat Rodeo Sessions - AttaboyIf you do a composer study or a music history study throughout your year, this would be a perfect time to add that music! Classroom Songs:Sometimes we also enter by singing one of our favorite songs. This is especially fun to do if your song has a quick, active game you can play at the end of your warm up routine.You can read about some of my favorite songs to use at the beginning of class here. Teacher Talk: Mix it Up! All of us need change from time to time. One of my favorite ways to do this in the warm up routine is to have a bucket of rhythm sticks at the door. Students grab a pair as they enter and we do the same routine with instruments. It also works just as well to have other unpitched percussion instruments laid out in a circle. Students enter keeping a steady beat, but once they get to their spot they use the instrument to do the activities. Every so often, have students pass their instruments to the right so more people get a chance to play different instruments.2. SingWe always sing hello as a part of our warm up routine, and I always use the tone set we're working on in class for our greeting. For example, if 2nd graders are working on do, I’m sure to include do in my greeting. If 3rd grade is working on low la, I’ll include that.What do we sing?I sing hello to my students, and they sing hello back. From there, I can sing any question I want such as:How are you today?What did you have for lunch?What’s your favorite video game?Students respond (singing) however they want. Sometimes I take individual responses if I think we have time.I also like to include a few tonal patterns for students to echo (again, using the tone set they’re working on). For this I use my voice, my alto recorder, or a slide whistle. Teacher Talk: When a Student Doesn't SingIf a student doesn’t sing during this part of the lesson, I don’t draw any attention to it. I just make a mental note, and look for vocal participation later in the lesson.3. PlayAgain, here I like to use rhythms that we are working on in class.For example, 1st grade rhythms will stick to 4 beat phrases, and use ta and ta-di. In 4th grade many of our patterns will be in 3/4 time. Students copy my body percussion pattern and we go through a few phrases before moving on to the next activity.This is a great transition to the next section of the lesson. Here are some quick examples: Students create a four beat pattern that becomes an ostinato to accompany the songStudents create a four beat pattern with a partner that they later put on percussion instrumentsStudents copy the teacher’s pattern and then figure it out on rhythm syllables.Students copy the teacher’s pattern and then figure out what song it isStudents copy the teacher’s pattern while moving to their spots You can find more transition ideas in the Music Teacher Resources Page, or watch this video from my IGTV channel. Teacher Talk: Mix it Up! Students don’t have to copy you all the time. It’s also fun to ask students to answer your rhythmic question, or you can have a student lead the class in a four beat pattern. You could also clap a pattern and have students echo you on the body percussion of their choice. Enjoy mixing it up!4. Extra - If We Have TimeNormally we end the warm up with rhythm patterns.However, if I want to add anything else (like reading patterns or running through a performance song) we do it here.How Much Time Does This Take?Though it seems like a lengthy process, in the classroom it actually takes a short amount of time.This whole routine takes about three or four minutes. If I want to add in something extra, the whole routine takes five minutes maximum.After the warm up routine we start our regular lesson. You can look at the typical flow of my lessons by downloading my first day of school lesson plans in the Resource Page. 39.00 Add To Cart You can also grab the lesson plan templates I use in the Elementary Music Planning Kit.Happy teaching!

When lesson plans are built on solid and purposeful teaching strategies, they are quick and painless to write! They are simply the implementation of all the ideas, strategies, and sequences you've documented over the planning process.Be sure to read the first and second parts of this series where we look at how to map out a long-range plan for your music room.Now we're on to the final step of the planning process: daily lesson plans. Psst - On the go? Listen to this post instead of reading! The image below is the planning template I use to create all my lessons.It includes everything I need from standards to assessments, and since it's a google doc I can edit and access it from anywhere.It's available to purchase here as part of a larger planning kit, or you can easily create your own from scratch! Parts of a Lesson Plan:The first page of this lesson template invites you to think through exactly what your intentions are, so you get a quality, purposeful lesson plan every time! If you take a look at the first page of the lesson planning template, you'll see several important components to include. Let's break each of them down. Lesson Objectives: These are easily measured, action-oriented, and student-centered goals for the lesson. Avoid phrases like “the student will learn about”, or “the student will understand”. Instead, focus on action verbs: “the student will improvise”, or “the student will sing”. Assessments: How will you know students have completed your lesson objectives? Keep assessments informative for you, and fun for your students. Each lesson should have some (simple) way for you to measure students' understanding and skill level. You can read more about assessment in the music room here. Materials: What materials will you need for the lesson? Puppets? Instruments? Often I need to prepare materials from scratch such as smartboard presentations or visuals. This section of the lesson plan keeps me on track so I remember what materials to set out before a class arrives, or what materials to create. Other Notes: This is the “catch all” section. If you have one class behind the others, if you're being observed that day, if you have a student who needs special accommodations, this is the place to document it.Skills and Standards: What skills are your students using in your lesson? Make a note of how you are asking students to interact with musical concepts. In the planning kit template I've only listed the National Core Arts Anchor Standards for simplicity. They can easily be substituted for your state standards in the google doc. IF YOU'RE MAKING PAGE 1 FROM SCRATCH: If you're making your lesson planning template from scratch instead of purchasing the planning kit, start by listing the grade, date, and lesson number at the top of the page. Then, list out the following components of a lesson plan: objectives, assessments, materials, notes, standards, and skills. Leave room under each category to make your notes. Writing the Lesson: The second page of the lesson plan is where the actual teaching process lives. It's the section you'll refer to most when you're in the classroom teaching. When it comes to writing the lesson outline, refer back to your scope and sequence for the lesson focus, and your concept plan for teaching strategies. This is where all the hard work pays off! Plug in the activity and flesh out the process. Tweak anything you need to from the original concept plan. Lesson Planning Tips for Music Teachers:1. Pacing:It's a good rule of thumb to keep each activity fairly short (think of the attention span of your students!), and to alternate between times of high concentration and relaxation. This structure keeps your pacing quick so students stay engaged.2. Transitions:Pay attention to how you plan to move from one activity to the next (transitions), as this is where the bulk of classroom management problems arise.Transitions are used for entering and exiting the music room, changing from one song or activity to the next, setting up for a game, and moving to instruments. Here are a few transition categories to get you started: Verbal / Textual: These are the most common in younger grades. Students love stories, so connect activities with a narrative if you can. Example: After students play the game to Apple Tree, suggest that you take an apple to your friend, Johnny, who is hungry after all his hard work building a house. Then sing Johnny Works with One Hammer.Musical (Melodic): Use identical melodic phrases to transition to a new song (such as Lucy Locket and We are Dancing in the Forest). The class sings the phrase on solfege, then the teacher asks, “What other song could this be?” Students guess from a list of songs on the board.Musical (Rhythmic): Read a rhythmic phrase of a song written on the board. The teacher changes one note at a time until the rhythm becomes the beginning of the next song.Nonverbal: Our students have to sort through a staggering amount of verbal information in a typical school day. A nonverbal transition can be a refreshing change for both you and your class! Use sign language for sit and stand; Use pictures of game formations such as concentric circles, longways setMovement: We Orff inspired teachers are always looking to add more movement to our lessons! Have students glide, stomp, tiptoe, slither, flounce, sneak, or jump to their next location.IF YOU'RE MAKING PAGE 2 FROM SCRATCH: If you're making the lesson outline from scratch, create a table four columns across and about six to eight rows down. The actual number will depend on how many songs you choose to include in your lesson. From there, record the time of each activity, the song you'll use, a detailed teaching process, and any special notes or considerations to keep in mind. There you have it! Daily lesson planning can be a breeze when you've done the right long-range planning beforehand.You can grab the planning kit to help make your year planning smooth, or create your own templates from scratch by following the process in these blog posts:Lesson Planning Part 1Lesson Planning Part 2 Yearly Music Planning Tip: It's okay to adapt as you go! You can't anticipate everything that will happen over the course of the school year and how your plan will need to change to fit your unique teaching situation. Drop any activities that don't serve you or your students, and let go of any pressure you feel to implement your yearly plan exactly as you wrote it.

When lesson plans are built on solid and purposeful teaching strategies, they are quick and painless to write! They are simply the implementation of all the ideas, strategies, and sequences you’ve documented over the planning process.Be sure to read the first and second parts of this series where we look at how to map out a long-range plan for your music room.Now we're on to the final step of the planning process: daily lesson plans. Psst - On the go? Listen to this post instead of reading! 39.00 Add To Cart The image below is the planning template I use to create all my lessons.It includes everything I need from standards to assessments, and since it's a google doc I can edit and access it from anywhere.It's available to purchase here as part of a larger planning kit, or you can easily create your own from scratch! Parts of a Lesson Plan:The first page of this lesson template invites you to think through exactly what your intentions are, so you get a quality, purposeful lesson plan every time! If you take a look at the first page of the lesson planning template, you'll see several important components to include. Let's break each of them down. Lesson Objectives: These are easily measured, action-oriented, and student-centered goals for the lesson. Avoid phrases like “the student will learn about”, or “the student will understand”. Instead, focus on action verbs: “the student will improvise”, or “the student will sing”. Assessments: How will you know students have completed your lesson objectives? Keep assessments informative for you, and fun for your students. Each lesson should have some (simple) way for you to measure students’ understanding and skill level. You can read more about assessment in the music room here. Materials: What materials will you need for the lesson? Puppets? Instruments? Often I need to prepare materials from scratch such as smartboard presentations or visuals. This section of the lesson plan keeps me on track so I remember what materials to set out before a class arrives, or what materials to create. Other Notes: This is the “catch all” section. If you have one class behind the others, if you’re being observed that day, if you have a student who needs special accommodations, this is the place to document it.Skills and Standards: What skills are your students using in your lesson? Make a note of how you are asking students to interact with musical concepts. In the planning kit template I’ve only listed the National Core Arts Anchor Standards for simplicity. They can easily be substituted for your state standards in the google doc. IF YOU'RE MAKING PAGE 1 FROM SCRATCH: If you're making your lesson planning template from scratch instead of purchasing the planning kit, start by listing the grade, date, and lesson number at the top of the page. Then, list out the following components of a lesson plan: objectives, assessments, materials, notes, standards, and skills. Leave room under each category to make your notes.Writing the Lesson: The second page of the lesson plan is where the actual teaching process lives. It's the section you'll refer to most when you're in the classroom teaching. When it comes to writing the lesson outline, refer back to your scope and sequence for the lesson focus, and your concept plan for teaching strategies. This is where all the hard work pays off! Plug in the activity and flesh out the process. Tweak anything you need to from the original concept plan.Lesson Planning Tips for Music Teachers:1. Pacing:It’s a good rule of thumb to keep each activity fairly short (think of the attention span of your students!), and to alternate between times of high concentration and relaxation. This structure keeps your pacing quick so students stay engaged.2. Transitions:Pay attention to how you plan to move from one activity to the next (transitions), as this is where the bulk of classroom management problems arise.Transitions are used for entering and exiting the music room, changing from one song or activity to the next, setting up for a game, and moving to instruments. Here are a few transition categories to get you started: Verbal / Textual: These are the most common in younger grades. Students love stories, so connect activities with a narrative if you can. Example: After students play the game to Apple Tree, suggest that you take an apple to your friend, Johnny, who is hungry after all his hard work building a house. Then sing Johnny Works with One Hammer.Musical (Melodic): Use identical melodic phrases to transition to a new song (such as Lucy Locket and We are Dancing in the Forest). The class sings the phrase on solfege, then the teacher asks, “What other song could this be?” Students guess from a list of songs on the board.Musical (Rhythmic): Read a rhythmic phrase of a song written on the board. The teacher changes one note at a time until the rhythm becomes the beginning of the next song.Nonverbal: Our students have to sort through a staggering amount of verbal information in a typical school day. A nonverbal transition can be a refreshing change for both you and your class! Use sign language for sit and stand; Use pictures of game formations such as concentric circles, longways setMovement: We Orff inspired teachers are always looking to add more movement to our lessons! Have students glide, stomp, tiptoe, slither, flounce, sneak, or jump to their next location.IF YOU'RE MAKING PAGE 2 FROM SCRATCH: If you're making the lesson outline from scratch, create a table four columns across and about six to eight rows down. The actual number will depend on how many songs you choose to include in your lesson. From there, record the time of each activity, the song you'll use, a detailed teaching process, and any special notes or considerations to keep in mind. There you have it! 39.00 Add To Cart Daily lesson planning can be a breeze when you've done the right long-range planning beforehand.You can grab the planning kit to help make your year planning smooth, or create your own templates from scratch by following the process in these blog posts:Lesson Planning Part 1Lesson Planning Part 2Yearly Music Planning Tip: It’s okay to adapt as you go! You can’t anticipate everything that will happen over the course of the school year and how your plan will need to change to fit your unique teaching situation. Drop any activities that don’t serve you or your students, and let go of any pressure you feel to implement your yearly plan exactly as you wrote it.

“I got rhythm.I got music” — Ira Gershwin Ira Gershwin knew the power of rhythm when he wrote these words to the musical, Girl Crazy.Teaching rhythm to students is one of my favorite things because after all, if you have rhythm, "who could ask for anything more"?! Enjoy these songs for teaching quarter and eighth notes to your kiddos! Cobbler Cobbler Mend my ShoeThere are many different ways to perform this song. I've heard it with a few different melodies, plus a spoken rhyme. This is my melody of choice :) Children like this song, especially when its put into perspective. Have students look at their shoes and ask them what they do when their shoes get dirty, or get damaged. Likely, they simply buy a new pair. Then you can explain that when this song was sung, there was a special person whose job it was to fix shoes called a cobbler. When your shoes were damaged you would take them to the cobbler to be fixed. You can also point out that apparently the person singing the song was impatient and needed the cobbler to hurry up! 'Round and 'Round (Also called "Boom Makaleli")To play the game: Students sing the song walking in a circle and holding hands, with one child in the middle. At the words "Down Miss Mary", the child in the middle touches someone in the circle on the head. That person crouches down, but must continue to walk. Keep going until all the children are crouching, or as long as time permits. It's a hoot! This song could also be brought back in later grades to teach eighth note followed by two sixteenth (ti tika or ta dimi). Rain Rain This popular english nursery rhyme is a classic. Your students will enjoy singing a song they already know! The Crane This song has some really great imagery to use as you teach it. For example, you can ask students to describe what the crane looked like. What was he doing? Do you think the peasants were okay with this "great big long nosed crane" eating their corn? Here Comes a Bluebird If you're not already familiar with this game: Students stand holding hands in a circle, arms held high to create "windows". One child, the bluebird, weaves in and out of the windows. At "pick a little partner" the bluebird choses one person from the circle. They join hands and jump in the middle (at "hop in the garden"). Then the original bluebird goes back in the circle and the new bluebird continues the game as the song is sung again.* One variation of this game has the students changing the color of the bird based on the color the child is wearing. Lesson planning is easy when: Lesson planning is easy when you have a great selection of songs to choose from, and a game plan of how to use them. I'm always trying to make this process more streamlined for myself which is why I put together this list of songs for you to use as well! I've categorized these songs rhythmically by their first line to make it easier to pull a good variety of rhythms in your song collection. Just click to download. Enjoy!

“I got rhythm.I got music” — Ira Gershwin Ira Gershwin knew the power of rhythm when he wrote these words to the musical, Girl Crazy.Teaching rhythm to students is one of my favorite things because after all, if you have rhythm, "who could ask for anything more"?! Enjoy these songs for teaching quarter and eighth notes to your kiddos! Cobbler Cobbler Mend my ShoeThere are many different ways to perform this song. I've heard it with a few different melodies, plus a spoken rhyme. This is my melody of choice :) Children like this song, especially when its put into perspective. Have students look at their shoes and ask them what they do when their shoes get dirty, or get damaged. Likely, they simply buy a new pair. Then you can explain that when this song was sung, there was a special person whose job it was to fix shoes called a cobbler. When your shoes were damaged you would take them to the cobbler to be fixed. You can also point out that apparently the person singing the song was impatient and needed the cobbler to hurry up! 'Round and 'Round (Also called "Boom Makaleli")To play the game: Students sing the song walking in a circle and holding hands, with one child in the middle. At the words "Down Miss Mary", the child in the middle touches someone in the circle on the head. That person crouches down, but must continue to walk. Keep going until all the children are crouching, or as long as time permits. It's a hoot! This song could also be brought back in later grades to teach eighth note followed by two sixteenth (ti tika or ta dimi). Rain Rain This popular english nursery rhyme is a classic. Your students will enjoy singing a song they already know! The Crane This song has some really great imagery to use as you teach it. For example, you can ask students to describe what the crane looked like. What was he doing? Do you think the peasants were okay with this "great big long nosed crane" eating their corn? Here Comes a Bluebird If you're not already familiar with this game: Students stand holding hands in a circle, arms held high to create "windows". One child, the bluebird, weaves in and out of the windows. At "pick a little partner" the bluebird choses one person from the circle. They join hands and jump in the middle (at "hop in the garden"). Then the original bluebird goes back in the circle and the new bluebird continues the game as the song is sung again.* One variation of this game has the students changing the color of the bird based on the color the child is wearing. Lesson planning is easy when: Lesson planning is easy when you have a great selection of songs to choose from, and a game plan of how to use them. I'm always trying to make this process more streamlined for myself which is why I put together this list of songs for you to use as well! I've categorized these songs rhythmically by their first line to make it easier to pull a good variety of rhythms in your song collection. Just click to download. Enjoy!

Choosing songs to teach from in the music room can be tricky business. For one thing, there are an infinite number of songs from which to choose. You can easily put your head down to think of one song to use in a lesson only to look up hours later with stacks of books and binders next to you, not to mention tabs on tabs of teaching websites on your laptop. (I know, because I've done it.) $9.00 Add To Cart With that in mind, I thought I'd share with you my favorite collection of songs to teach rhythm vs beat. This particular collection works very well for me and I think you'll enjoy it too! I'll also share other great ideas for these songs and rhymes beyond rhythm and beat. Let's jump in! kodaly.hnu.edu Kodaly.hnu.edu Choksy, L., & Brummitt, D. (1987). 120 Singing games and dances for elementary schools. Prentice-Hall. https://teachingwithorff.com/ 1. Burnie Bee Fun fact about this song: a Burnie Bee is actually another name for a ladybug! 2. Engine Engine Have students walk around in a circle with you, imitating train motions and walking in a steady beat. Each time you speak the rhyme increase the tempo to make the train go faster. The last time through, speak the rhyme slowly as the train pulls into the station. This keeps students engaged as they prepare rhythm and beat - they don't even realize they're repeating the song over and over and over (and over and over. . . . .).Another popular version of the song isEngine, engine number nine, going down Chicago lineSee it sparkle, see it shine,Engine, engine, number nine.Other Musical Uses:Sol and MiMelodic Composition4 Voices (singing, speaking, whispering, shouting)More Ways to Use Engine Engine: 3. Bell Horses This song is great to use for keeping a steady beat with jingle bells. If you have a class set, pass them out and let the students play while they sing.If not, have the students sit in a circle and choose a few students at a time to be the "bell horses". They can prance around the circle and then choose new horses to take their place. So fun!Other Musical Uses:Quarter RestSol MiLaMovement in free spaceRead More Uses for Bell Horses Here: 4. Queen Queen Caroline Queen Caroline was the wife of King George II. This is a funny rhyme about hygiene - washing hair with oil certainly is an odd thing to do and kids like to hear about how different life was back in the 1700's. Other Musical Uses:Quarter and eighth notesComposition 5. Button You Must Wander For this game, have students sit in a circle. One student sits in the middle with his or her eyes closed while the teacher hands a small button to someone in the circle. As the class sings the song, the button gets passed around in a steady beat. When the song is over, all students put their hands in their laps and the student in the middle tries to guess who has the button. Other Musical Uses: Do Re MiQuarter Notes, Eighth NotesQuarter Rest Why I Like this Collection: This group of songs makes a nice collection for teaching the difference between rhythm and beat. Rhythmic Variety: Each of the opening lines of these songs uses a different grouping of ta and ta-di. Since the opening phrases are all unique it makes it simple to play an aural discrimination game during the preparation or practice phase of teaching. (The teacher can clap the rhythm and students guess the "mystery song".)Mix of song types: This particular collection has a nice mix of singing, spoken rhymes, action songs, games, and even a lullaby. It makes for a nice range of options when lesson planning.Double Dip: These songs can be used for teaching more than one concept, such as speaking voice vs singing voice. You can also pull them out when you teach your students quarter and eighth notes. $9.00 Add To Cart If you're looking for more tracking printables for rhythm vs beat, check out these! There are 112 pages of rhythm vs beat printables for you to use in your classroom. Happy printing. Happy teaching.

Choosing songs to teach from in the music room can be tricky business. For one thing, there are an infinite number of songs from which to choose. You can easily put your head down to think of one song to use in a lesson only to look up hours later with stacks of books and binders next to you, not to mention tabs on tabs of teaching websites on your laptop. (I know, because I've done it.) 9.00 Add To Cart With that in mind, I thought I'd share with you my favorite collection of songs to teach rhythm vs beat. This particular collection works very well for me and I think you'll enjoy it too! I'll also share other great ideas for these songs and rhymes beyond rhythm and beat. The Tracking Printables for Rhythm vs Beat are available to purchase, or you can grab your own free version at the bottom of the post! Let's jump in! 1. Burnie Bee Fun fact about this song: a Burnie Bee is actually another name for a ladybug! 2. Engine Engine Have students walk around in a circle with you, imitating train motions and walking in a steady beat. Each time you speak the rhyme increase the tempo to make the train go faster. The last time through, speak the rhyme slowly as the train pulls into the station. This keeps students engaged as they prepare rhythm and beat - they don't even realize they're repeating the song over and over and over (and over and over. . . . .).Another popular version of the song isEngine, engine number nine, going down Chicago lineSee it sparkle, see it shine,Engine, engine, number nine.Other Musical Uses:Sol and MiMelodic Composition4 Voices (singing, speaking, whispering, shouting)More Ways to Use Engine Engine: 3. Bell Horses This song is great to use for keeping a steady beat with jingle bells. If you have a class set, pass them out and let the students play while they sing.If not, have the students sit in a circle and choose a few students at a time to be the "bell horses". They can prance around the circle and then choose new horses to take their place. So fun!Other Musical Uses:Quarter RestSol MiLaMovement in free spaceRead More Uses for Bell Horses Here: 4. Queen Queen Caroline Queen Caroline was the wife of King George II. This is a funny rhyme about hygiene - washing hair with oil certainly is an odd thing to do and kids like to hear about how different life was back in the 1700's. Other Musical Uses:Quarter and eighth notesComposition5. Button You Must Wander For this game, have students sit in a circle. One student sits in the middle with his or her eyes closed while the teacher hands a small button to someone in the circle. As the class sings the song, the button gets passed around in a steady beat. When the song is over, all students put their hands in their laps and the student in the middle tries to guess who has the button. Other Musical Uses: Do Re MiQuarter Notes, Eighth NotesQuarter RestWhy I Like this Collection: This group of songs makes a nice collection for teaching the difference between rhythm and beat. Rhythmic Variety: Each of the opening lines of these songs uses a different grouping of ta and ta-di. Since the opening phrases are all unique it makes it simple to play an aural discrimination game during the preparation or practice phase of teaching. (The teacher can clap the rhythm and students guess the "mystery song".)Mix of song types: This particular collection has a nice mix of singing, spoken rhymes, action songs, games, and even a lullaby. It makes for a nice range of options when lesson planning.Double Dip: These songs can be used for teaching more than one concept, such as speaking voice vs singing voice. You can also pull them out when you teach your students quarter and eighth notes. Download the Free PrintablesI've whipped up some rhythm vs. beat printables for you to use with these songs.You can find them in the Music Teacher Resource Library. It's completely free - you won't pay a dime and you can print off as many copies as you need. Resource Library 9.00 Add To Cart If you're looking for more tracking printables for rhythm vs beat, check out these! There are 112 pages of rhythm vs beat printables for you to use in your classroom. Happy printing. Happy teaching.

The first time I taught a group of kindergartens I was pretty excited. This age is so fun! But as the group walked in I realized the HUGE struggle it is to get Kindergarteners to do anything on their first day of school. It's the most adorable little struggle to get them to sit on the rug - to sit on the rug with their bottoms -to sit on the rug with their bottoms and then stay on their bottoms. My solution? Just get them singing and engage them as quickly as possible. Songs to Develop Steady Beat on Day OneThese songs work well for me with kindergarten because they're so action-oriented. I think you'll love them if you don't know them already - and your kids will too! Follow Me This one is SO easy to introduce the first day of teaching. It's a very simple way to practice how to listen, watch, and move in the music room. It could be used later in the year for students to enter the classroom musically and create a circle but for the first day I like to do the song without locomotor movement. Steady Beat: Students follow the actions of the leader - patting head, stomping feet, etc. Chop Chop Chippity Chop I learned this chant two ways - one in compound duple and then later in simple duple. I like the simple duple one better. I think the syncopation helps reinforce the steady beat as students chop. Steady Beat: Karate chop motion on the palm of the hand while the rhyme is being spoken. Students can be called upon to suggest imaginary items to chop for the soup. Down to the Baker's Shop Holy Names University. kodaly.hnu.edu I really enjoy the melody to this song. It's also a great way for these young kindergartners to practice movement and stillness since I instruct them only to hop when the song says "hop hop hop". This takes a little more self control so the song can also serve as a way to see which students will need more encouragement to follow movement and stillness instructions. Steady Beat: "Hop hop hop" motion. Students can suggest other ways to get to the baker's shop like swimming, marching, jumping, etc. Goodnight Sleep Tight If you like closing your lessons in a calming way then this is the song for you. Students rock back and forth while they sing the song. It's simple to learn since it just uses SML.When I was student teaching my cooperating teacher had stuffed animals that the students would pass around each time we sang, rocking them to sleep. They loved it!!Steady Beat: Swaying or rocking motion Kindergartners have so much to learn and have to work so hard to remember all the new names, routines, and procedures of a new year. We can help them get off to a great start by making their first moments in music engaging, musical, and on-purpose with songs like these. Enjoy your first Kindergarten classes!

The first time I taught a group of kindergartens I was pretty excited. This age is so fun! But as the group walked in I realized the HUGE struggle it is to get Kindergarteners to do anything on their first day of school. It's the most adorable little struggle to get them to sit on the rug - to sit on the rug with their bottoms -to sit on the rug with their bottoms and then stay on their bottoms. My solution? Just get them singing and engage them as quickly as possible. Songs to Develop Steady Beat on Day OneThese songs work well for me with kindergarten because they're so action-oriented. I think you'll love them if you don't know them already - and your kids will too! Follow Me This one is SO easy to introduce the first day of teaching. It's a very simple way to practice how to listen, watch, and move in the music room. It could be used later in the year for students to enter the classroom musically and create a circle but for the first day I like to do the song without locomotor movement. Steady Beat: Students follow the actions of the leader - patting head, stomping feet, etc. Chop Chop Chippity Chop I learned this chant two ways - one in compound duple and then later in simple duple. I like the simple duple one better. I think the syncopation helps reinforce the steady beat as students chop. Steady Beat: Karate chop motion on the palm of the hand while the rhyme is being spoken. Students can be called upon to suggest imaginary items to chop for the soup. Down to the Baker's Shop I really enjoy the melody to this song. It's also a great way for these young kindergartners to practice movement and stillness since I instruct them only to hop when the song says "hop hop hop". This takes a little more self control so the song can also serve as a way to see which students will need more encouragement to follow movement and stillness instructions. Steady Beat: "Hop hop hop" motion. Students can suggest other ways to get to the baker's shop like swimming, marching, jumping, etc. Goodnight Sleep Tight If you like closing your lessons in a calming way then this is the song for you. Students rock back and forth while they sing the song. It's simple to learn since it just uses SML.When I was student teaching my cooperating teacher had stuffed animals that the students would pass around each time we sang, rocking them to sleep. They loved it!!Steady Beat: Swaying or rocking motion Kindergartners have so much to learn and have to work so hard to remember all the new names, routines, and procedures of a new year. We can help them get off to a great start by making their first moments in music engaging, musical, and on-purpose with songs like these. Enjoy your first Kindergarten classes!

Happy Fourth of July!If you live in America I hope you're having a holiday full of great music, loud fireworks, and close friends and family. (And that your fireworks don't give you trouble like King George's did here.)To celebrate July 4th, here are some Patriotic songs you can use for your infant, all the way through your elementary schooler. 1. The Star Spangeled BannerThe words to The Star Spangeled Banner were written by a man named Francis Scott Key who fought in the War of 1812. One morning after a long, particularly hard night of battle he saw that the American flag was still flying high above the soldiers' heads as the sun was coming up. He was so inspired by the site of the flag that he wrote the words we now know as the Star Spangeled Banner.Americans took the melody of an old British song and put it with Mr. Key's new words. The song became our official national anthem in 1931. 2. Yankee DoodleThis song has its origin from the Revolutionary War in 1775. Back then there was no twitter or Facebook to spread the news of what was happening in the war and people needed to communicate in a way that could be passed quickly, could get stuck in your head, and was easy to remember. They communicated through songs.Yankee Doodle is a popular American song you probably already know by heart. It was actually brought to America by the British who were singing it as an insult to the American soldiers. A "Doodle" was another word for what we might call a dork or silly person. The song talks about how this "doodle" was dressed ridiculously, riding his pony with a feather in his hat. It also gives instructions to the "Yankee doodles" to make sure they're dancing correctly.The Americans must not have been too offended by these words. Ironically, they took the song and adopted it. It became a song they were proud to sing about themselves. We even made it the official state song of Connecticut. The Liberty SongJohn Dickinson was a lawyer who took a pretty big role in the formation of America during the war: He was an officer in the militia during the Revolutionary War, a member of the Continental Congress, one of the writers of the Articles of Confederation, and the state president of Delaware, and later of Pennsylvania. Dickinson wrote the words to The Liberty Song before the Revolutionary War had even officially begun. It gained popularity quickly and became a favorite of the soldiers' once the revolution started.Like the songs above, the tune is British - from the British Royal Navy, in fact! I hope you enjoy these songs this 4th of July. They're great for their musical benefits, but they can also give us a really valuable picture of what life was like during America's early years.These songs are jam packed with musical concepts we can practice, history to experience, and conversation starters for you to discuss with your kids. Enjoy! Songs for Young Sailors This is a 7 track CD of authentic pirate songs, sailing songs, and songs about the ocean. Whether you're pirate or privateer, you'll LOVE this collection!

Happy Fourth of July!If you live in America I hope you're having a holiday full of great music, loud fireworks, and close friends and family. (And that your fireworks don't give you trouble like King George's did here.)To celebrate July 4th, here are some Patriotic songs you can use for your infant, all the way through your elementary schooler. 1. The Star Spangeled BannerThe words to The Star Spangeled Banner were written by a man named Francis Scott Key who fought in the War of 1812. One morning after a long, particularly hard night of battle he saw that the American flag was still flying high above the soldiers' heads as the sun was coming up. He was so inspired by the site of the flag that he wrote the words we now know as the Star Spangeled Banner.Americans took the melody of an old British song and put it with Mr. Key's new words. The song became our official national anthem in 1931. 2. Yankee DoodleThis song has its origin from the Revolutionary War in 1775. Back then there was no twitter or Facebook to spread the news of what was happening in the war and people needed to communicate in a way that could be passed quickly, could get stuck in your head, and was easy to remember. They communicated through songs.Yankee Doodle is a popular American song you probably already know by heart. It was actually brought to America by the British who were singing it as an insult to the American soldiers. A "Doodle" was another word for what we might call a dork or silly person. The song talks about how this "doodle" was dressed ridiculously, riding his pony with a feather in his hat. It also gives instructions to the "Yankee doodles" to make sure they're dancing correctly.The Americans must not have been too offended by these words. Ironically, they took the song and adopted it. It became a song they were proud to sing about themselves. We even made it the official state song of Connecticut. The Liberty SongJohn Dickinson was a lawyer who took a pretty big role in the formation of America during the war: He was an officer in the militia during the Revolutionary War, a member of the Continental Congress, one of the writers of the Articles of Confederation, and the state president of Delaware, and later of Pennsylvania. Dickinson wrote the words to The Liberty Song before the Revolutionary War had even officially begun. It gained popularity quickly and became a favorite of the soldiers' once the revolution started.Like the songs above, the tune is British - from the British Royal Navy, in fact! I hope you enjoy these songs this 4th of July. They're great for their musical benefits, but they can also give us a really valuable picture of what life was like during America's early years.These songs are jam packed with musical concepts we can practice, history to experience, and conversation starters for you to discuss with your kids. Enjoy!Songs for Young Sailors Music Album: Songs for Young Sailors 8.00 This is a 7 track CD of authentic pirate songs, sailing songs, and songs about the ocean. Whether you're pirate or privateer, you'll LOVE this collection!

Today's post is perfect for anyone with an infant, toddler, preschool, or early elementary student who loves dinosaurs! How to Use the Songs: Infants:Hold your infant while singing the songs. As you sing, bounce or sway to the steady beat.Toddlers:Toddlers can bounce or pat on their own while you sing the songs. Once they've heard the song a few times you may notice them "babbling" the song with you. Preschool:Preschool aged children can sing the songs with you once they're comfortable. Until then, encourage them to sing while keeping a steady beat through stomping or clapping.Elementary:Kids in K - 2 should be able to sing and keep a steady beat well, especially if you model for them. They also enjoy making up motions to the songs and can come up with some pretty inventive ways to make the songs interesting. Romp, Stomp, Chomp1. My Pet DinosaurThis is by far the longest song of the three. It tells the story of a child who has a pet dinosaur named Fred. The dinosaur is supposed to stay outside, but one night the child feels sorry for the dinosaur standing out in the rain and invites him in the house....... but the Fred gets stuck in the doorway."He can't get out, he can't get in, better get help on the double" * This song has a grand total of six verses! I've recorded three of them for you here. :) 2. If I Could be a DinosaurThis is short song about what it would be like to be a dinosaur. It's in a minor key which is great for adding some variety to your child's musical diet. It's short and simple, making it easy for kids to pick up on quickly."If I could be a dinosaur, I wouldn't talk - I'd only roar" 3. Romp Stomp ChompI wrote this short chant for some of my younger students. We used it to create some sound effects to the words in the poem. Each word, "Romp", "Stomp", and "Chomp" got its own sound. We tried jumping, clapping, snapping, patting on each word until we found a pattern we liked. Elementary students can do this activity; younger children can use the chant as a steady beat reinforcement. "T-Rex gives a great big ROAR" It's going to be an exciting summer around here.Let's make some music! - Victoria

Tchaikovsky was a Russian composer born in 1840. When Tchaikovsky was alive, composers loved to take old songs from their countries and turn them into big orchestral pieces. The song we'll listen to this morning is one of those pieces. The song is called The Crane and it's a very old Russian folk song. Tchaikovsky took this simple melody and turned it into a HUGE piece that is: Wildly energeticGrandPlayfulDramaticDynamicStep One: Singing the SongLet's learn the original folk song Tchaikovsky used first. Here is the audio and the sheet music.Sing along! Step Two: Let's ListenListen to the finale of Little Russian Symphony by Tchaikovsky. Can you find the melody to The Crane hidden in all the instruments?Let's Listen!

Today we're learning all about half notes. We started our learning by listening to Aase's Death by the composer, Edvard Grieg.Get ready to create some awesome music as we:SingComposeDanceKeep TimeDiscover a new rhythm The Song: Here Comes a BluebirdListen to this recording while you tap a steady beat on your lap: Here comes a bluebird in through my windowHey, diddle dum-a day day day. Pick a little partner, hop in the gardenHey, diddle dum-a day day day. Let's SingWhen you're ready, sing the first line and have your child sing the "hey diddle dum-a day day day" part. Sing together a few times as a call and response song, still tapping the steady beat. Let's CreateWhy stop at singing the original words? Use this time to create some songs as a family about your day. Choose one family member to make up the new words and everyone else will respond "Hey diddle dum-a day day day"For Example: Your child might sing something like, Child: "Feeding the dog so she won't be hungry"Family: "Hey diddle dum-a day day day"Child: "Pet her on the back, rub her on her tummy"Family: "Hey diddle dum-a day day day"Enjoy this time to create and make music together! The Game: Once you've learned the song, you're ready to play the game! This game takes a group of four or more.(Tip: Grandparents and neighborhood kids both make excellent participants. Enlist some help if you need more people.)How to Play: Pick one person to be the bluebird. Everyone else stands in a circle, holding each other's hands up above the heads to create "windows". As you sing, the bluebird will weave in and out the windows.At the words, "pick a little partner, hop in the garden" the bluebird will take the hands of whoever he or she is closest to. The bluebird and partner will stand in the middle of the circle and hop together. This partner now becomes the new bluebird. The old bluebird will take his or her place in the circle and the song starts again. The Rhythm By now you've sung, created, and danced to Here Comes a Bluebird. The whole family should know the song pretty well!Allow your child to discover the new rhythm on her own by asking if she can find the word in the song that lasts the longest. Sing together while you tap the steady beat and listen very carefully.The "hey" from "hey diddle dum-a day day day" is the longest note. Sing again while tapping the steady beat and notice that it covers two whole beats. Our beat is steady. Our ears are tuned to discover new notes. We're ready to read.Next week we'll name this note and learn how to read it. Maybe we'll even use it to create some family music of our own.

Hello, Music Makers! If you've been keeping up, you know that our last post talked about sol and mi. The interval of sol and mi is the first that a child learns to sing tunefully. And where sol and mi are, our new note la is not far behind. Remember our playground example of "na-na na-na boo-boo, you ca- an't catch me"? Children sing some variation of this chant all the time. The second na-na as well as the second part of the word "caant" uses our new note la.So, on to singing to new heights with our new note la. Here are some ideas for how to sing it, how to introduce it to your students, and ideas to practice using it in your classroom. Let's Sing La:Play this recording, and then sing the song to your class. The sheet music is available in the folk song index. The Game:This is a children's song from the West Indies. In the original game, children walk around in the circle singing the song. Once child is in the center and at the part that says "down, Miss Mary" he or she taps another child on the shoulder who crouches down, still walking. The song continues until every player is crouching.Finding old Friends: Sol and MiWhen students are comfortable with the song, suggest that you hum it instead of singing it. Can they find a part of the song that uses "sol sol mi" just like he found in the song seesaw?I like to use hand signs with this to help. Put hands on your head for sol, and hands on shoulders for mi. Using the hand sings, students will naturally find that there is a new high note at the beginning we haven't learned yet. Here Comes LaLet students know that the new note's name is La. La is higher than sol and mi. Sing the song using solfege names and hand signs on the "Sol Sol La, Sol Sol Mi" patterns. As we continue to learn new notes in our solfege scale students are developing skills like singing, listening critically, and analyzing. Today's musical moment involves combining a rich song with these important skills. Enjoy your musical day!

Children as early as ages 6 or 7 can have an exciting musical experience using sol and mi to sing, play, read, write, and compose.We start young singers with this interval because this is the easiest interval for them to recognize and sing tunefully. Walk by any playground with young children and you’ll hear a chant – like song such as “na, nana boo-boo. You ca-n’t catch me!”. This chant like interval between the words “boo – boo” and “catch me” are sol and mi. Children sing this pattern naturally so it makes sense to start out our education process there.Even if you consider yourself to have no experience teaching your children music, you’ll soon find that children already are capable of hearing these tonal patterns and engraining them on their own. All you have to do is make them aware of the patterns and give them ways to use them.We do this by following a very simple process: Prepare, Present, Practice Preparing Sol and MiTo begin, sing this very simple song for your child or play the recording here. Sing while moving your body up and down, following the direction of the pitches.Students should primarily listen the first time or two, but they will naturally sing when they’re ready. After students are comfortable singing, ask them how many sounds they hear in the word, seesaw (2). Next, ask them if both sounds are the same or if they are different (different). Then ask how they are different (one is high, one is low).Present:Let students know that there are two notes to this song: sol and mi.Sing again. This time put your hands on your head for sol and hands on your shoulders for mi.Practice:This is where it gets fun.There are lots of ways to practice sol and mi. During the practice stage, students are free to make up their own songs using sol and mi (improvise), move shapes to follow the pitch direction of the song (write), sing the contour of shapes you place to learn a new song (read), and lots more.For our purposes today, we’ll practice sol and mi through writing.1. Print out these worksheets and cut out the seesaws. 2. Place the seesaw pictures above the words. Make sure that the words that use sol are higher than the words that use mi. Download There it is!When you try this activity, you’ll find that students pick up the interval between sol and mi very easily. Take your time with this activity, even though it’s simple. The prepare stage can last several days before you ever introduce the names sol and mi or show how to practice them.Enjoy!

Let’s continue our month of rhythm and beat. Last week we spent our time playing and singing our way through rhythm vs beat (read about it here, here, and here!).This week we’ll move on to quarter and eighth notes. Children traditionally learn about quarter and eighth notes in first grade so this week's activities are geared toward children around 6 years old.Ready to see what we're doing this week with quarter notes and eighth notes?We will:play themsing themlisten to themread themwrite them Sound Before SightBefore we show the notation for quarter and eighth notes, we want to make sure your child can identify the difference between the two sounds. We do this by listening for how many sounds we hear on the steady beat.This “sound before sight” approach does a few things that will help your child immensely in the long run:It helps develop listening skillsChildren are fantastic listeners. They can differentiate minute changes in sounds if we give them a chance. When we introduce what a quarter note and eighth note look like before we let the child experience what they sound like and feel like, we’ve taken away the chance to let the child listen.It helps with sight-reading laterWhen your child has internalized the sound and feel of quarter and eighth notes, he will be able to read and play, or read and sing them effortlessly.Here is everything you need to know about how to teach your child quarter notes and eighth notes:Day one: Listen for one or two sounds on a heartbeat “Key Concept: My body has a steady beat just like the song does” Listen to Snail, Snail and keep a steady beat. Tell your child that this steady beat in the song is just like our heartbeat in our bodies. One Sound on a beat:Invite your child to keep a steady beat as you sing together. Invite your child to notice that the first word “snail” has only one sound on a beat. Notice the same thing for the other “snail”s in the song.Two sounds on a beat:Next, sing the second phrase by itself:"Turn around and round and round" “Key Concept: Sometimes one sound lives on a heartbeat. Sometimes two sounds live on a heartbeat.” How many sounds do you hear on a heartbeat when the song says "turn a", "round and", and, "round and"?You can magnify the difference between one and two sounds by clapping to "catch the words" just like we did last week here.And there you have it!A simple way to prepare your child for quarter notes and eighth notes. This is all you need to do the first day. Easy peasy!!Enjoy your beats today,- Victoria