It happens at every level, at every school I’ve ever taught in. A student asks, “can we play freeze dance today?” I’m always torn. I want my students to have fun and …

Subscribe to the Sing Play Create Free Resource Library. Music activities, worksheets, songs and games for PreK-6th grades.

Versions of this post have been published in Creative Musicking and has been accepted for publication the forthcoming book, Technology for Unleashing Creativity (OUP). The Introduction I really enj…

DIY Song Cubes to help children learn music "old favorites" and practice finding and keeping the beat; for preschool, pre-k, and kindergarten.

Although "practice makes perfect," it doesn't have to be boring. Find 6 ways to make lessons more engaging with movement in the classroom.

Elementary music teachers and movement teachers can use scarves for many activities. In this blog post you'll find 12 ways to use scarves in music class.

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! […]

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 love movement props for my preschool and kindergarten music groups. One of my favorite movement props? Hands down, the Stretchy Band . The stretchy band is exactly that, a big band that is flexible, stretchy and made with elastic and a soft, colorful fabric. The Stretchy Band is machine was

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! […]

Learn how to incorporate awesome and easy creative movement activities into your music class. Read this post for tips and ideas!

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! […]

Desert Habitat Educational Song “It’s Hot in the Desert” makes it fun to learn about the Sonoran desert. It’s perfect for preschool, elementary, homeschooling earth habitat science lessons and music activities. DESERT HABITAT EDUCATIONAL SONG “IT’S HOT IN THE DESERT” Sing this desert song “It’s Hot in the Desert” with your students to learn about […]

15 movement songs for your preschool, pre-k, and kindergarten kids. Action songs for gross motor practice in the classroom!

Movement in the classroom is beneficial for many reasons. First and foremost, getting up to move in the classroom might help anxious students relieve stress.

Let's take off to outer space! Space Scarf activities will engage your Elementary music and P.E. students as well as Preschool and Home school Students with fun movements in a space theme. These activities are "out of this world"! Not only great for movement but also help your students build GROSS MOTOR skills, and reinforce directional movement while having fun. Add in your own music or use them with students own compositions reflecting a space theme. A Great addition to your music classroom, Brain Break Activities or P.E. curriculum.

Why you should do music and movement activities with your 3-5 year old. Easy activities for families to do at home or in preschools.

Hey-O friends! How do you manage changing classes (my class doesn’t but I’m curious), or even moving from subject to subject within your own classroom? I teach in a self-contained classroom and it’s easy to shift subjects down the schedule a little when things don’t go as planned. #WhoopsWritingWasSupposedToStart20MinutesAgo? ahahahaha #NoShame When it’s time to check morning work, I play a song When it’s time to come to the carpet for a lesson I play a song. Subject change & it’s time to get out a different interactive notebook and folder— YES, I have a song for that! I keep a slew of songs on my iTunes and iPhone/iPad and I just click depending on what I need! It’s easy to say that it’s time to start something new and kids take that task as, “Okay I can chat with my friend now for 1049813582305 minutes”. If they’re singing—they’re on task and still able to talk–but they’re singing to a tune. When the music stops they must be ready! Beginning of the year I introduce a song for a new subject/idea slowly. I want the kids to get used to it and understand the rules that follow when the song […]

Free printable indoor movement activity cards. Fun images direct kids to act like animals, plants, vehicles, and more to burn energy and move

Movement lessons your fourth and fifth grade music students will want to do. These are simple & easy lessons for elementary music class.

Try these fun music and movement songs and activities for preschoolers at home or in the classroom. Fall, Spring and other activities themed to the season

Keep your students engaged and get them up and moving with these 5 fantastic movement ideas you can use right away and over and over again!

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:

I’m sharing 8 scarf and ribbon activities you can use in the elementary music classroom today to teach music concepts.

Connect learning using Ocean themed literacy and scarf movement. This post shares scarf and freeze dance activities for young children.

Check out this post for creative and exciting ways to add scarves into your music activities. Also, find some specific scarf music examples.

15 Stretchy Band Music and Movement Favorites from Bear Paw Creek Customers Back in December I had fun in our Bear Paw Creek Facebook Group showing

Try these fun music and movement songs and activities for preschoolers at home or in the classroom. Fall, Spring and other activities themed to the season

12 Free scarf movement activities for elementary music teachers, P.E. teachers and any teach who wants to use scarf activities.

Singing games are a great way to teach musical concepts, incorporate movement, and give children an opportunity to sing alone and with others. They're perfect as gathering activities, ice-breakers, or a quick change-of-pace in the middle of rehearsal. A few months ago, I shared seven fun

Why you should do music and movement activities with your 3-5 year old. Easy activities for families to do at home or in preschools.

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. […]

Kids love balls and I use them to teach concepts, in team building, during rehearsals and more! Here's my ten ways to use balls in the music class room.

Hi! I’m Miss Carole of Macaroni Soup, Active Music for Active Learners in cold and snowy Chicago! Let’s get the action g...

Here are 10 super fun movement songs for kids to get them up and moving! These are great brain breaks as well.

Teach routines and expectations for your music room with the ease of a single powerpoint! This resource includes pre-formatted slides, as well as blank ones for you to tailor to your classroom's needs. Routines included are as follows: entering/exiting the classroom, asking to use the restroom, needing to take a break, forgetting where assigned seat is, assemblies, instrument norms, switching instruments, not getting the instrument they wanted, carpet expectations, movement, partner/group work, Orff instruments, working in centers, reading a book, quiet signals, attention grabbers, lining up, scarves, fire/intruder/tornado drills, forming a circle, tissue/hand sanitizer, passing out materials, asking a question, classroom visitors, technology, watching a video, and classroom jobs. Routines for COVID-19 and distance learning include: Google Classroom, Zoom class meetings, video conferencing, and COVID-19 safety. You might also be interested in these other resources: Music Genre Posters Keys to Success Bulletin Board Curwen Hand Signs (Boomwhacker Colors) Don't forget to follow me and leave feedback on your purchase to earn FREE TPT credit toward your next purchase! Hearing your feedback not only helps me to improve current and future products, but it also makes me smile! :)