Click below to download the Early Primer Halloween Music Pack (coordinates with Primer Book 1+)
Free sheet music of traditional nursery rhymes and children's songs and free fun and easy music theory printable worksheets for kids.
Here’s 10 ways to use a parachute in the music classroom. Activities will help students learn and practice music concepts. Parachutes can be used for so many fun activities in the music room. I’ve discovered that they are especially helpful during the latter part of the school year when students are more “squiggly” than ever! […]
Music class is an active, engaging, and joyful experience! This is especially true when our musical activities are grounded in creative and intentional teaching strategies. One of the most important teaching strategies has to do with teaching the difference between steady beat and the rhythm of
Explore music and instruments with these books about music for kids. You will find 15 great books about music for kids that they will thoroughly enjoy.
Best Books For Musical Learning to help kids to develop rhythm and listening skills with improvisation and imagination with lots of fun too.
Grades PreK-5 • Fill your music classroom with books, learning, and lots of musical skill! This fun and innovative collection of lesson ideas will breathe new life into areas of the music curriculum that require lots of practice. How? By using picture books! Whether you’re teaching fifth-graders to play an Orff bordun or helping preschoolers to learn the difference between short and long sounds, you’ll find something to help you in this great resource.
Here are my favorite five piano pedagogy books to help you keep your piano studio professional and to keep your students engaged.
Try this fun We'll Bring the World His Truth cup stacking singing time idea to give a meaningful representation of the song lyrics for LDS Primary music leaders
Here are some examples of body percussion and why it's important to teach this skill, along with 7 simple activity ideas.
Start learning how to read music for beginners today! Teach your kids how to read music notes with fun printable activity ideas.
Free Music Substitute Lesson Plan (for a non-music sub). Teach meter with short, fun video clips, "script" for the teacher and movement activities for kids.
Check out these 8 piano lesson must have items and Montessori game ideas for each teaching tool to make piano lessons more fun!!!
A fun and simple musical theory and rhythm game to teach the difference between finding the beat and the rhythm of a song to kids.
I had done a few different centers in the past, mostly with my upper grades, and not very well thought out. This year though, one of my personal goals was to incorporate centers in a way that was well-planned, gave students lots of ways to practice a concept, and gave me more than one way to assess students. I'll have another blog post coming soon about the centers I did, or you can see a video of them on my Facebook page. Today though I want to talk about how to prepare your students for centers in the music room. Before really diving in to centers this year, I talked to some classroom teachers to learn more about how centers worked in their rooms. Each person I talked to said, take the time to go over each center with the whole group before ever dividing the class for centers. Since I don't have as much time as a classroom teacher (my classes are 30 minutes and are back to back), I decided that instead of trying to cram it into the beginning of a class period and then starting centers that day, I would take a class period to discuss all my centers. So I'm going to share with you how that day went. Since this was my first time doing centers at my new school with these students, I had no idea how long it would take to explain all of the centers and how everything would work. I figured if I have lots of extra time, we will play some singing games that I pulled patterns from for these centers, but this actually took about 25 minutes with both of my classes. I brought my classes in and had them go to their assigned seats in front of the board. I said that we would be doing something kind of new in music the next few times we have class so I wanted to share with them about it today so that we could spend all of our time in centers the next two times. Instead of having all of the centers spread out around the perimeter of the room, which is where I put them when we were actually doing centers, I lined up all my centers at the front of the room under the board. On my computer, I had the zip file that contained all of the PDFs for each file pulled up so that as I was going through them with the whole group, if I wanted them to be able to see something better, I could show them the PDF version instead of the tiny cards I was holding for some of the centers. We walked through all of the centers in order. I read through the directions and we "played" each center one or two turns. For some centers I would have a small group of students come up and be the demonstration group as the class watched. I asked if there were any questions about each center before moving on to the next one. My students knew that they needed to ask any questions they had on this day so that they wouldn't come up asking me questions on the actual center days. The students were really interested and engaged the whole time. I think there was a little bit of mystery to it, like "OOO, I wonder what is going to be at the next center" or "I wonder what those manipulatives are going to be for" and that kept them really focused on what we were doing. Students asked good clarifying questions about the individual centers. They also asked about their groups. I have about 28 kids in each class and set up 8 centers. Most of my groups had 4 students in a group, some had 3. I assigned all groups by typing up a list. I emailed the list to their teacher and asked their teacher to line them up in that order (so the four students in group 1 are first, followed by group 2 and so on....) the next time they came to music. I also had her double check my groups to see if there would be any issues that I maybe hadn't foreseen. This was a really good idea because the next time they came to music, I met them in the hallway and they were all in the right order. I had the centers so that center 1 was closest to the door and then they went in a circle around the perimeter of the music room, so as the students followed me in, I basically dropped off four at a time in the order they were in at each center as we went around the room and I was with the last 3 or 4 students at the "teacher center", center 8. I didn't have to waist any time putting kids in order or reviewing directions for any of the centers. I had directions for each center posted at each center in case they forgot or were absent when we went over the centers, but there seemed to be no issues with students knowing what to do at each center. I only had one student come up to me the entire two days of doing centers and it was because of an issue with a group member, so I think that is pretty darn good for our first time! I hope this gives you maybe a new idea about how to prepare your students for centers so that they feel set up to succeed at each one without needing to ask questions during centers. I feel like taking that day to go over them at a relaxed pace, sending the centers groups to the teacher, and having students come to music on centers day already in order really helped everything to go smoothly. Do you have other ideas that I haven't thought of? Share below! Wanting to take the guesswork out of creating centers? Here are centers sets I've created and used with my classes:
Here is a collection of the absolute best rhyming songs for kids! They're perfect songs to teach rhyming in home or in the classroom.
A collection of children's stories with links to their perfect Classical Music pairings, great for inspiring imaginative movement.
5 easy first piano lessons that you can do at home with your child, to introduce them to the piano, and build a strong foundation to learn the instrument.
I can't think of a better way to teach The Still Small Voice (archives) than talking about how the Holy Ghost can help to protect us spiritually from the
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Try these middle school drama lessons and ideas.
Books for elementary music? You can teach musical concepts in elementary music with books! In this post we have 9 book based lessons for elementary music!
Free printable Bible lesson for kids on the book of Psalms. Ideal for home or church use. Coloring pages, worksheets, Bible crafts, games, study guide and much more.
5 easy first piano lessons that you can do at home with your child, to introduce them to the piano, and build a strong foundation to learn the instrument.
DIY Song Cubes to help children learn music "old favorites" and practice finding and keeping the beat; for preschool, pre-k, and kindergarten.
How to read music made easy : an introduction and guide to reading music for beginners - perfect for kids but ideal for adult beginners too!
What you put on your classroom walls should reflect what you teach. Read this article to get suggestions about what to post, how, and why!
Using literature is an effective way to teach empathy, kindness and other social skills in the primary classroom.
Try out these super fun We’ll Bring the World His Truth Singing Time Ideas. I love this song, it reminds me of my days in Primary! Here you'll find the ideas and activities I have planned and used for teaching this song in my Primary for the Book of Mormon Come Follow Me year to help you in planning your own singing time lessons! Browse all of our We'll Bring the World His Truth Singing Time Ideas from our archives below:
Clever ideas for storing Boomwhackers in your music classroom are highlighted. Boomwhacker storage can be inexpensive and beautiful with these ideas.
Learn how to practice rhythms with this budget-friendly and fun rhythm game in your elementary music classroom.
First piano lessons- easiest way to learn the notes is a fun animal memory game that teaches the names and positions of notes that Kids love!
I started back to school this past week with my kids on Tuesday. I had such a great first week and I am so excited to be back making music with them. We spent our first few days going over music room rules and procedures (click here to see rules post), emergency drills, and jumped right into making music. Can I just say that I LOVE pinterest! I found so many great ideas for back to school games through Pinterest as well as from Susan during Level 3. I thought I would share some of the really fun ones that the students enjoyed our first few days back: "Up The Ladder" is a great game for learning the names of your new students. "Down, Down Baby" is from the Amidons. SO FUN! Apparently this is a favorite, because it's being sung on the bus! Hickety Pickety Bumblebee is a fun one to use with K/1. In first grade you could review four voices with "can you sing (whisper, call, speak) your name to me". With kindergarten, it might be a bit intimidating to ask them to sing their name to you on day 1 of music, but let's be honest we are still learning all their names several weeks into the school year. Pull this out with them a little bit later (maybe after you have presented the four voices) and do this then. Mamalama: I learned this in Level 3, and we take it a bit faster than in this video, but it is SO FUN! I even had a student get the last part after just a few listenings. CRAZY! What are some of your favorite first day songs and activities? Still looking for ways to set up and decorate your room? This music room decor catalog will give you lots of idea, plus a back to school tip on each page!
This composer study resource list includes websites, living literature, audio books and more that Cindy West has used in her homeschool music studies.
A fun singing time activity for your primary! This LARGE Mr Potato Head will grab your primary’s full attention.
10+ music and movement activities for toddlers and preschoolers that get them up and moving their bodies, strengthening their fine and large motor muscles.
Abstract Music Listening Lesson for Young Students: Niko Draws a Feeling. Organized Chaos. Full lesson plan using the book to help elementary music students represent abstract concepts, moods, and feelings in their art in response to music.
Welcome back teachers! It's that time of year when we all start thinking about our list of things to do for the beginning of the school year. I thought it would be nice to share a few ideas to help out with your back to school challenges. Here are 3 essential back to school items for your classroom that I'd like to share. Bulletin Boards: here is a super easy Cake Themed Bulletin Board that can be put together very quickly. This eye-catching bulletin board reinforces rhythm reading with your class. If you want to use this bulletin board kit in your classroom you can find it at my Tpt Store by clicking here. Scarves: there are so many fun things you can do with colorful scarves but they are quite costly. Here is how I got 26 extra-large scarves for less than $20 dollars. I bought 13 yards of cloth (called tulle/ material to make ballerina tutus) at JoAnne Fabrics. I had the store cut the fabric into 1 yard sections which saved me so much time. The cloth is extra wide, so after I got home, I cut the fabrics in half(width). I ended up with 26 scarves. Not bad for spending less than $20 dollars. Music Games: as a teacher, I'm all about making learning fun for my students. My student's favorite ways to learn music is by playing music games, singing games or learning through movement activities. If you want to supercharge your class while teaching musical concepts, you can check out these super fun games for your class at my TpT store by clicking on these games: Crazy Ball Swatt Game Wipe Out. I'd love to hear from you, so please take just a moment to leave a friendly comment below. Thank You! Sherry Stucki Want more fun activities and ideas for your music class? be sure to Sign-up by email on my side bar to claim a monthly freebie, teacher tips & tricks. I would love to hear thoughts you might have in the comments below. Sherry :) Check out some of my favorite games and activities! You can contact me via email: [email protected]