The 6th graders have just finished up a unit project on Musical Styles. The goal of this project was to get the students to explore music outside of the country/pop/rock bubble that we tend to be in in our small town. I also wanted them to listen to music more closely to analyze things like the meaning of the lyrics, why & how music is used in different situations, and where they hear music. I gave the students 4 projects to choose from. The project was to be done mostly at home, but after starting the project, I realized that I could do the project in school next year using the classroom tablets each student has a putting music into a Dropbox (something new I'm just learning how to use). After starting the project, I realized there were a lot of things I wanted to change for next year or just make more specific. I have listed those things in red. Overall, I really enjoyed the project and for my first year trying it, I think it went pretty well. The projects options were: Soundtrack of My Life (lesson from TeachersPayTeachers-my document is a slightly modified version of the download): Students created a soundtrack of songs that had lyrics that related to their lives. They had to explore the meaning behind the lyrics and label what style of music each song was. After doing this project, I realized that it didn't really expose students to any new styles of music, so it didn't really fit the theme of my project. However, it was still fun to see their answers! Musical Interests Survey Students created a 10 question survey about musical styles and had to survey 10 people from at least 3 different age groups. When they were finished, they graphed their findings. Most students created very simple graphs on notebook paper (I realized we needed to have a discussion about using a ruler!) and had questions that were open ended so they were hard to graph. Next year, I'll tell them to make their questions multiple choice or keep their answers to one word so they are easier to graph. One of the most creative graphs I received! Music Journal For one week, students kept a journal of all of the music they heard each day. They were supposed to record music in stores, businesses, on commercials, or in classrooms. I encouraged them to record at least 3 per day (the problem with saying that was every single student turned in ONLY 3 examples for each day). At the end of the week, they had to write a one-page reflection on what they noticed. Some students were very observant, and noticed that the dynamics of the music being played differed by the size of the store. They also noticed that the style of music was generally selected to fit the overall likes of their desired customers (ex: a punk clothing store in the mall played loud, punk music. Not country or jazz!) Although a few good recordings were made, several of the students just recorded the music they heard on Pandora or the radio, not music they heard by chance. Something to make more specific next time! Explore 3 New Styles This was probably the best project for accomplishing my main goal: exposing students to new music. Each student had to pick 3 styles of music they don't normally listen to and then find 3 songs from those styles that they liked. They then researched the song and presented it to the class. This is where I used the Dropbox and had several different examples of music on there for them to listen to if they couldn't find new music on their own. The songs presented were very original and it was fun to hear what they had picked. The only change I would make to this project is teaching the kids how to better articulate "why" they liked a piece of music. Most of them could only come up with answers like, "it had a good beat" or "I liked the way he sang it". I realized I haven't really taught them the vocabulary words to explain what they wanted to say. As I said, overall I felt it was a fun project, it just needs a bit of tweaking before next year. I tried to create a rubric that met all 4 projects. Here is the one I used and I just made some modifications as I was grading. I will post a copy of the rubric so you get a general idea, but just know that it is not a perfect rubric and definitely needs some changes.
Five fun and action-filled circle games to practice rhythm, pitch, and more with your elementary music students.
Easy and Fun Jazz Lessons for Upper Elementary Music Class. Perfect for Black History month, jazz month, or any time of year!
Coming up with engaging games for a middle school classroom can be daunting. They are at an age where they want to be independent, yet need some hand holding. They start the “I’m too cool for school” attitude and it can be intimidating at times when you introduce a new game or project - immediately the eye rolling takes over and you are stuck with questioning yourself. I’m here to tell you, I’VE BEEN THERE! MAKE SURE TO CHECK OUT MY AWESOME MUSIC GAMES THAT REQUIRE NO MATERIALS AND THE KIDS LOVE
Looking for engaging, musical games to play with your students? Here are a few of my favorite games and activities for elementary music classes, children's choirs, and elementary group classes.
We all know how critical it is to care for our students' social emotional well-being right now. The question, of course, is how! In my last post I shared some overall strategies that I have found successful for fostering social-emotional wellbeing, and today I'm sharing some specific lesson plans, that can be used in person or online, that more overtly focus on social emotional learning (SEL) for different age groups. 1. Allie All Along I absolutely love this lesson for Kindergarten, and I think would work well with Preschool up through 1st grade students. The book gives some great strategies for managing emotions in a way that is so relatable for young children, and it is a perfect segue into a very basic introduction to the idea of communicating emotions through music! This lesson can easily be adapted to any teaching situation, but if you're posting an asynchronous lesson online and don't have time to make your own video reading the book, I recommend this read-aloud done by the author herself. Click below for the full lesson plan I use with this story: 2. Niko Draws a Feeling This lesson works best with 1st grade through 3rd grade- the book introduces the idea of abstract drawing, which I have found very helpful for getting students away from visualizing concrete things as a response to music and focusing on abstract ideas like colors, emotions, and patterns. Again, if you need a read-aloud video, I recommend this one, and you can click below for the full lesson plan: 3. Soundscapes This is a great one for older students: assign individuals or small groups the task of creating their own music to convey a specific emotion, then have them share it with the class and see if others can identify the intended emotion. This is a great conversation starter for older students to talk about emotions because sometimes people have different conceptions of what an emotion might "sound like"! Click below for more details on how I use soundscapes and how I guide students in coming up with a soundscape based on a feeling- the ideas for using classroom instruments can be adapted by using only vocal or found sounds, and/or with online software like Song Maker or Mario Paint Composer: 4. Movie or Video Game Music Creation For middle and high school students, exploring the role of music in film and video games in conveying emotion is a great way to get students talking about emotions and connecting it to music! I have used these projects with my 5th-8th graders but others have used them successfully with older students as well. Click below to see an explanation of how I teach these units and the resources I use: I hope these ideas are helpful! I'd love to hear about your favorite lesson ideas that focus on SEL in the comments below. And if you're looking for more ideas to help you through pandemic teaching, be sure to check out this page where I am collecting all of my related posts:
Do you have a favorite rhythm game or activity to use in your music lessons? Rhythm is something that always needs review, so you can never have too many
In this post, you'll learn about simple but engaging centers for your lower elementary students, plus tips and printables for you to implement them in your room when you’re ready. Read all the way through so you don't miss these resources!
Teaching elementary music with no touch singing games? That is a tall order, but here are 6 fun suggestions for general music classes!
Trying to understand how to teach solfege? Solfege is an essential strategy for teaching pitch but can be confusing for non-specialists. These solfege lesson plans will make it easy.
Check out this post for creative and exciting ways to add scarves into your music activities. Also, find some specific scarf music examples.
Music teacher freebies? Got ‘em! This list features free resources that you can download now and use tomorrow in your classroom. Music history, composers, rhythm, melody, instruments and more downloads await! Most of the resources are geared towards elementary classes, but several would work well in middle school and high school general music classes.
The Yellow Brick Road Blog is a website dedicated to providing music teachers with fun education resources for serious music literacy.
My teaching career started way back in 2001. At first, I was a substitute (casual) teacher, and I remember, on very first day, being thrown in the deep end and having to teach a lower ability Grade 7 Music class, without any resources being left to use! I floundered, it was horrible. I had to […]
Irish Music in Elementary Music Class. Organized Chaos. Lesson plans for a world music unit focus on music from Ireland.
Using the free web tool, Incredibox, in the classroom for technology projects. Great way to incorporate music into your curriculum! Will work on Chromebooks, laptops and computers. There is also an iPad app available for $3.99
Reading music is like reading a book in another language. It has its own characters and sounds. The following collection of music lesson plans for the elementary music classroom will help music tea…
How to teach melody in elementary music class for first year elementary music teachers-- from high and low to solfege to notes on the staff.
My 15-Minute Music Lesson Freebies are some of the most popular here at Music in Our Homeschool. See links to all of them here.
Needing a music activity for kids? I've got you covered in this blog post, so, get ready! We are going to cover some music composing activities, music activity worksheets, and music composition website selections used in the music classroom. Make sure to check out the free materials throughout the blog post and let me know how it turns out in your music classroom! MUSIC LISTENING AND RESPONDING ACTIVITYOne of my favorite things I love to do with my students at the beginning of the year is to get
Find a listing of music unit studies, lapbooks, and notebooking pages for study in your homeschool or class setting - Ultimate Guide to Music in Homeschool.
Best Strategies for Teaching Tempo. Organized Chaos. Elementary general music lesson ideas and tips for teaching tempo, speed, fast and slow effectively.
I teach Middle School General Music and have created a bundle of different music based projects that I have used in my classroom. I have also included a few worksheets and activities that I use as well. Types of Projects: Breathing, Music Artists, Theme Song, Anthems, Posture, Rhythm, Parody Projects, etc. A lot of ideas that you can take and utilize, adapt, or use to create your own thing!
