Second graders have been working on learning how to read a musical score. They have been practicing tracking the music and following the musical "road map." To help us with these skills, we have been working on a unit of "Musical Terms." They learned many Italian musical words and symbols that they may come across in their score-reading. Our focus words were: piano, forte, repeat sign, fermata, coda, crescendo, decrescendo, legato, and staccato. With all of these new terms, we needed a way to practice! I used a template that I found online and created a Musical Terms Fortune Teller. Remember those? I used to make these all the time in elementary school. :) I was excited to find out that some of the students knew how to make them as well! Each flap of the fortune teller has a musical symbol on it and underneath the flap is the definition. The students had so much fun playing the review game with their partners! Here's a great video tutorial if you'd like to try one yourself!
You’ve taught them the new song for the month…. now you need to REPEAT aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand REPEAT it!!! Children (and adults) learn best with repetition so we thought we’d compile a list of ways to repeat a song without the children hearing, “One more time” and “Play it again” or “From the top”. The best kind of Singing Time when repeating and reviewing a new Primary Song is the one where the kids don’t realize they’re singing the same song over and over again! This is also great for them the repeat the words again and again, learn and melody, and feel/understand the message of the song. So you wanna know the ways to do this for your Primary? We came come up with this list as a resource for you to draw from!!! Alright, here is the list, “from the top” : 1-Play Hot Potato. Pass an object around the Primary room as they sing the song to review. The child that ends up with the object gets to say something they love about Primary. Hot Potato Option 2 – Have the Piano play and children sing and pass the “hot potato”. Arrange for the pianist to stop suddenly during the song at different times. The child who has the potato when the music stops says the next word or line to the song (they can get help from the Primary, if needed). 2-Voice Changer. Let the children pick a different voice to sing the song. For example, have them change their voice to sound like: -Computer Robot (staccato) -Baby Voice (sweet and lispy) -Underwater (plug nose, or move pointer finger up and down in lips) -Grandma Voice (pinch a small piece of your neck and move away and then back toward your neck really fast) -Opera (self-explanatory - use hand actions too!) -Feather Voice (whisper) -Bee Voice (Hum) -Chipmunk Voice (sing high, tighten neck and show teeth) -Ninja Movie Voice (move mouth in between words and pauses) -Giant Voice (sing deep and low) -Cowboy Voice (like a country singer) These voices can be chosen from paper strips on the chalkboard, punch out board, rolling a dice (each number represents a way to sing), spinner wheel, or any of our holiday/seasonal pick-and-choose activity. For our Ultimate list of Different Ways to Sing (over 50 ideas) CLICK HERE. 3-Singing Meters. Most kids love a challenge. They like to see how well they’re doing, so Singing Meters are perfect for that. Singing Meters can control their speed, volume, and overall how well they all are singing. A helium balloon as a meter or Eddie Spaghetti, Billy Bubblegum are great for this. Also our Racecar Singing Meter. 4-Stop/Go, ooooo ahhh, boys sing/girls sing Signs. Hold up a sign that tells the children who or how to sing. Switch them during the song so they have to pay attention. 5-Different Lead Sticks. Bring a variety of leading wands/sticks and display them on the table. Choose a child to pick one and lead the song. Tell the children you will be watching to see who is singing their best, and you will pick another child to pick a wand and lead. 6-Hot N Cold. Choose 2 children. One is the hider and the other is the seeker. Have the seeker go into the hall. Have the seeker hide a small object in the Primary room. Call the seeker back into the room and have the children start singing the song. The closer the seeker is to the object the LOUDER the children should sing. The farther away from the object, the QUIETER. If they find the object before the song is over, KEEP SINGING! My Primary children never get sick of this activity! 7-Silent Singer. One child goes out in the hall. Another child is chosen to be the “Silent Singer” meaning that child “lip sings” the song. Have the child in the hall come back in and all children sing – except for the silent singer who is lip singing. See if the child that was in the hall can guess who the “Silent Singer” is. Finish singing the song even if they guess before it’s over! 8-Rubberband Primary Band. Have some recycled instruments displayed on the table. Pick a child for each instrument. Sing that song as those children with their instrument keep the beat. At the end of the song, have them pass their instrument onto another child. Sing the song until each child has had a turn. Some examples of instruments are, oatmeal tube as a drum, egg carton and stick as a Guiro, 2 paper plates as cymbals, comb (scratch fingers across), spoons back to back (hit knee and hand), tap 2 wood spoon together on the stick part, large and wide rubber band around an open box or Tupperware bowl, etc. You could also use bells, shakers, etc. and to finish the song, have a special helper be the finishing cymbal and clap two chalkboard erasers together!!! 9-Hat Review. Display different hats on the table. Sing the song and whichever class sung the best gets to pick a hat from the table and have their teacher wear it! You could also have different categories such as: The class who is sitting up the straightest and folding arms. The class that is smiling the most. The class that is the loudest. The class that is singing the most enthusiastically. Which class know the song the best without the visual? The class that is overall the best in all categories. 10-Missing Mystery. Send a child in the hall. Pick another child to be the “missing mystery” – meaning they hide behind the chalkboard (or piano) for the song. Call the child back out from the hall and have the children start sing the song. See if the child from the hall can guess who’s missing before the song’s end. If they guess who it is, too soon, keep singing until the end of the song! 11-Headbands. Choose some words that are sung in the song and write them on an index card size paper. Call up a child who is up for a challenge. Put a headband (like a basketball sweatband) around their forehead. Clip the index card with the written word to the band. The child should not be able to see the word. Have the Primary children start singing the song. When the word on the card is to be sung, have them skip over it (don’t sing that word). Have the child with the headband try to guess what word is on their forehead. If they don’t guess it the first time, sing the song again and this time have the children sing that word LOUD and obvious, make sure they sing all the way to the end of the song. 12-Musical Measles. All you need for this one is some small round dot stickers. Be careful the measles are contagious! Original post HERE. 13-Guess the Leader. Have one of the members of the Primary Presidency go out in the hall with a child (or by themselves, depending on the child). Choose another child from the Primary to be the “leader”. The “leader’s” job is the have the other Primary children follow their actions during the song. Have the child in the hall come back in and all start singing. The leader starts doing different actions such as clapping, rolling arms, pat head – all the children follow. Have the child who was in the hall try to guess who the “leader” is before the end of the song. 14-Class action. Each class is assigned a secret word (such as the, am, I, etc.) from the song. As a class, they decide on an action to do or sound to make when this secret word is sung in the song. Examples of actions are, jump up off their chair, clap, dab, meow like a cat, etc. Sing the song until all secret words are figured out for each class. Option 2 – Pick some different words that get repeated a few times in the song such as “I or to”. Tell the children NOT to sing that word but to replace it with an action or sound (examples are above). You can replace a different word every time, or have them build on each other each time to make it a fun challenge! 15-Mindful Singing. First, start by having the kids rub their temples on the head to get their “minds ready.” Next, have the children sing the song - to refresh their minds. Then, have the pianist play the song and tell the children to sing the song in their head (mind). Have the pianist stop suddenly and see if the children can say what the next word or line of the song. Have them raise their hand if they think they know it. Sing the song out loud again all together, then play mindful singing. Make sure to give your pianist a heads up on this singing activity before it starts! 16- Heads or Thumbs. Before you sing the song to review, have the children stand up and either put their hands on their head or give a thumbs up – whichever one they want to choose. Sing the song, after the song is sung, flip a coin. If the coin lands on heads, those with their thumbs up, sit down. If the coin lands on Tails, those touching their head, sit down. Start over with those still standing. ALL children sing. Flip the coin at the end of the song. Repeat and sing until there is one child standing! 17-Switching Seats. Have one child go out in the hall. Have another 2 children from the Primary switch seats. Have the child in the hall come back, primary start singing the song, and before the songs end, see if the child that was in the hall can guess who switched seats! Well, now there you go!!!! You have 17 ways to REPEAT a song in a fun way! We hope this helps you feel empowered to help the Primary children review any song. Keep in mind that not every one of these work for every song. Some songs are longer than others and may not work, or some songs are to be sung more reverent than others. Thanks for visiting our site and be sure to check out our other pick and choose review ideas and following our Instagram, Pinterest and Facebook pages!!! -iheartprimarymusic
Use our free printable music activity as a boredom buster with kids stuck at home or as a fun part of music education in a classroom.
Kindergarten music centers can be daunting to try! These centers with a huge success with my students! See how I did it!
Finally! The Taxonomy of my Music is complete! While I’m working on my Digital Art assignments I enjoy watching my favorite TV shows. I bring this up to help you get a sense for how long it t…
Music sheets are perfect to use on so many scrapbooking projects! You can download this one from Scribd. Music sheets are a great design for scrapbooking and crafting backgrounds, images can be lay…
Sweet Sounds - Quality Kodaly Resources for Elementary Music Educators
Top 3 Units for Middle School General Music. Organized Chaos. Ideas and resources for project based learning with middle school general music students. World music, composition, and careers in music.
So we’ve decided what we want to teach . We’ve chosen our musical materials . Now it’s time to plug it all in. Today I’m sharing how I’ve planned the first month of Kindergarten.
Gah! I got the musical MEASLES!!!!!! This one is SOOOO fun, keeps the kids’ attention and keeps them singing well! Win, win, win. Tell the kids that singing can be contagious (songs can spread joy, peace, and feel the Spirit) just like the Measles!!!! Pass out red stickers to all teachers. Pick a song to sing. After the song, each teacher pick 2 kids from their class to get a stickers. Aaand the stickers get stuck on YOU (or the Pianist!) It’s so fun to see how many stickers “measles” you end up with at the end! Have fun with this one, but make sure to tell them, they only get a sticker if they’re singing their best!
The letters M-U-S-I-C spelled out with music note typography. A unique design for your music space!Cream with black textured lettering.
Want to save some time during that first week of school? Check out these 5 back to school songs that your elementary music classes will love!
Every month, there are 3 suggested songs to teach the Primary children. Discuss with your Primary President, and other chorister(s), which songs you’d like to focus on for each month. I try to pick one that THEY KNOW pretty well and one that they DON’T KNOW from the suggested songs. Teaching 3 new songs from scratch a month would be a lot for them to learn! So for the 3rd song, I will either sing it during a pick-and-choose Sunday, or as one of the opening songs that month. On the first Sunday of the month, I introduce the NEW SONG (the suggested song that they are unfamiliar with). To make Primary Singing Time interesting and fun and also bring the Spirit, I like to introduce the songs in different ways. I think introducing a song can be the most daunting of Sunday’s! I LOVE repeating songs, doing pick-and-choose activities, and incorporating holiday’s (if you follow our Instagram, it’s packed with those ideas!) But introducing a NEW song seems… I don’t know… boring? I don’t want to lose focus with their short attention spans by just telling them the words and then singing it over and over. So we’ve compiled some ideas as a resource on how to first introduce and help the children learn a BRAND NEW song. One they’ve NEVER heard before. ***With any and every new song, make sure you have the right attitude and prayer in your heart about the message the song will bring. Be enthusiastic, saying something like, “Today we are going to be learning a wonderful song”. You can also explain the words, message and story it conveys. Alright, you’ve waited long enough! Here are the ideas!!!!!! 1-Flipchart or Posters. I pretty much ALWAYS use a poster or flipchart for every song. I feel most children are visual learners and this helps Junior and Senior learn the words through pictures and words. Poster (my preference) Flipchart: (this flipchart is from Finch Family games found HERE) 2-Compound Learning. First, have them LISTEN to the song. This can be played on the piano, your phone through the Sacred Music app, CD, cassette, or Youtube video, etc. Second, let them HUM along to the melody. Third, have them SWAY their bodies (or sway scarves/wands) and hum to the music. Fourth, after showing and explaining the poster board/flipchart, SING the words to them (holding up the Poster or Flipchart). Fifth, have THEM SING along. Sixth, have them use shakers, paper plate drum, or clap/snap the rhythm as they sing along. 3-I sing, You Sing. After explaining the meaning of the song and showing the visual, play the music to the song all the way through. Sing the first line of the song with the piano, have the children repeat. Sing the second line of the song, have them repeat. Put the first and second line together and sing together. Continue on for the whole song. Make sure that before Primary you let your pianist know what you’re planning to do. You could also start with learning the chorus of the song. 4-Guess the Visual. Have the flipchart papers up on the board – all scrambled up and out of their correct order. Sing the first line of the song and have them guess which flipchart paper matches the first line. Continue this for each line of the song and put the flipchart in order. For Senior Primary, you could have word strips of each line of the song (out of order). Sing the first line and have them pick our which word strip is the correct one and have the children put the strips in order as you continue singing the rest of the song. For Senior Primary, you could have word strips of each line of the song (out of order). Sing the first line and have them pick our which word strip is the correct one and have the children put the strips in order as you continue singing the rest of the song. 5-Vanishing Flipchart Papers. For this one, call up as many children as papers you have in the flipchart. Each child holding one paper. Sing the song with children, one flipchart paper at a time. After the whole song has been sung, take away 1 paper and have that child stay standing. Sing the song and point to child as they sing that missing flipchart paper. Continue taking away papers and having them sing the song again until they’re all gone! Keep them up to the challenge using reverse psychology saying things like “Oh no! Can we do it now? (Yes!) Ok, here we go!” or “I don’t know, do you think you can remember this one????” 6-Bubblegum Blobs. For this idea, you’ll need a flipchart or poster hung up on the chalkboard. Sing the song with children (with idea number 2 or 3 on our list above). Tell the children you stepped on some sticky bubble gum on your way to church and thought the gum could help with singing time. Use one pink “gum blob” (pink paper or poster board cut into blob shape) to cover up a part of the song at a time. Sing after each blob is added. 7-Fill in the Blank. Write the words to the song on the chalkboard leaving out a word on each line. So intentionally NOT write some of the words to the song but draw a blank _______ so it can be added in. Sing the first line of the song. Have the children listen and see what the blank word is and fill it in. Continue on for each line of the song. This is a great one to get the children really listening! 8-Disappearing Words (eraser pass). Write the words to the song on the chalkboard. Have the children listen to the song as you point to the words. Next, sing the song with the piano. After, have the Primary sing along. Sing it one more time all together and tell the children to try to remember the words because they are going to start to disappear! As they sing the song, have them pass around the eraser. Whoever ends up with it at the end of the song, gets to erase 2-3 words!!! Sing again and pass the eraser! 9-Use Hand-Actions (or sign language). Sing the first line of the song. Ask the children to think of a hand action to be used for the meaning of the words. Sing the second line and again, ask them to think of a hand-action that would represent the words. Continue on for the whole song and combine all the hand-actions. This is another great idea for getting them to really listen to the words! (You could also sing the whole song together and only do sign language for KEY words). 10- Find It’s Home. Have the words to the song on the board - cut into separate word-strips and in the correct song order. Call up a child and give them a picture that matches up to one of the wordstrips. Have them match that picture to the word strip as you sing each line of the song. Have children sing along as they learn. 11-Picture to Lyric Match. (This one is the harder version of #10 "Find It's Home") Have pictures and song lyrics for each line of the song on the board (like a flipchart, but cut the words out separate from the picture so they’re not together). Sing the first line of the song and have the children try to match the picture to the words. Sing the song over and over until they’re all put in the correct place! 12-Listening Detective. Start by explaining we have a new song case. Listen up detectives!!! We need to find out: Who is it about? What do we learn? How many times does it read “He” or “Love”, etc.? You may want to read the scripture reference at the bottom of the song in the Songbook. 13-Visual Object Lesson. Show a quick visual lesson on what the song is about. Just a quick object lesson before you have them listen to the melody. In the Primary Music Instructions it say’s: For example, the song “Faith” (Children’s Songbook, 96–97) mentions a little seed. You could show the children a seed and talk about how we show faith when we plant a seed; this could lead to a discussion about ways we show faith in Jesus Christ, as described in the song. I also did this for “How Firm a Foundation” years ago. This helps them understand the meaning behind the song. Remember, it’s not just about learning the song and words, but learning and feeling the Spirit. AND now 2 last small tips: 14- Have the Pianist play the song as the interlude so that the children can hear the melody and be familiar with the tune. 15- Find the song in A Children’s Songbook Companion and read what’s suggested! This is a great resource for teaching the songs in the Primary Children’s Songbook. I refer to this book often. Find one HERE. It's seriously been a lifesaver on some Sunday's when I need an idea on how to introduce a specific song! and it also includes visuals on some songs! **Remember! This is the children's FIRST time hearing and learning this song! So don’t feel like a failure if they don’t pick it up right away! As you repeat and repeat this song, they will catch on! Also, remember the purpose is to help draw in the Spirit and let them feel the words and the meaning of the song. Good luck with your introducing your new song! Pray and listen the Spirit as you prepare! You can do this! -iheartprimarymusic
Check out this post for creative and exciting ways to add scarves into your music activities. Also, find some specific scarf music examples.
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!
If your third or fourth grader is starting to think about taking up a musical instrument, help him get the basics of reading notes with this handy sheet!
Do you teach elementary music to fifth graders? Are you struggling to teach fifth graders? Here are some tips and tricks to help you out!
I have a delightfully easy chant that teaches simple musical concepts to young children. It can be found in my Fast and Slow Music Lesson Plan but can be used in any context and repeated throughout the year. This is a great song to greet your class or say goodbye. You can clap and ... Read More about Easy Chant For Teaching Musical Concepts: Bread and Butter
line up of all my character designs for EPIC bc I had some free time Polyphemus and Scylla aren't here for the same reason as Zeus, they're too big to fit in nicely.
Welcome to Singing Time!!!! Our Primary songs to sing are on the board! What? ... You can't see them??? In Thessalonians chapters 1,4 and 5 it talks about "If I am faithful and WATCHFUL, I will be prepared or the Savior's Second Coming". Ask/tell the children what it means to be WATCHFUL for Jesus's Second Coming. Simply discuss what we should do to be prepared to meet Jesus again. Now, if you're WATCHFUL, you will be able to see the Primary Songs: Before Primary, write the names of the songs you'd like to sing on white pieces of paper - with a special pen of course! I bought mine HERE from Amazon. Call up a child to pick a paper and use the SPECIAL LIGHT to reveal the song title. Sing that song. (This may help to have the lights off, but it works just fine with them on) and (sorry, it's really hard to get a good picture of this, I tried my best, I promise!) At the end, remind the children to be WATCHFUL and prepared for the Lord's Second Coming. -iheartprimarymusic
This post may contain affiliate links. You pay the same and I get a small commission. Yay! (Please see my/our full disclosure for further information.) Looking for simple and fun music lessons? These movement activities for 2-3 grade elementary music class are just the ticket! These lessons are for second and third grade. They will… Continue reading The Best Movement Activities for 2-3 Grade Elementary Music Class
I only recently learned about all of the wonderful children’s music by Hap Palmer. Hap Palmer and his huge collection of music is truly a gift to music educators! There are so many great songs of his I could share with you, but the one I wanted to make sure you know about is Scamper. ... Read More about Scamper by Hap Palmer
You can’t have a preschool classroom without music! But if you’re a tone deaf preschool teacher like I am, putting together a music curriculum can be a daunting task. These are some of my go-to resources for music in my classroom. Free Music Nancy Stewart has a hundreds of free songs available to download on her website. […]
Learn four methods to find the key of a song using handy charts and resources. Find out how the notes and chords in a song tell you the key.
It's a rainy evening and the 1st graders in your children's choir are extra wiggly. You need a quick change-of-pace to keep their attention and get through rehearsal. Been there? I think we all have. There are lots of games you could play, but I like choosing games and activi
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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:
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
Learn to play the drum beat from the song "Dancing Queen" by ABBA - Free Video Drum Lesson from www.DrumsTheWord.com
If you have a little girl (or have been around any of them lately), then you’ve probably seen or at least heard of Moana. The 2016 Disney musical adventure certainly made a huge splash in the…
